Broad question. How does taste in music affect your ability to have a relationship and/or be interested in someone?


Physical attraction is one thing. You can have the hots for someone without knowing a single thing about them. But to really be interested. Interested enough that you'd consider dating them or asking them out. Does taste in music play a large part?

Would you date someone with radically different taste? If they listened to radio music that you absolutely despised. Or if they were constantly hating on your bands.


All the girls I've dated have had pretty similar tastes. More often than not, they like some of the same bands as me but, by the time we break up, they've been introduced to a dozen or so more that they'd never heard of before but now like.


I raise this question because there's a girl I used to work with at an old job who now works at a new job five seconds away from my new job. So I see her on a regular basis and stop and chat. But today she informs me that she has no idea at all who the Strokes are. Never heard of them.

This has made me question everything. I didn't expect her to know or like bands like Belle And Sebastian or Guster, but the Strokes are pretty mainstream in terms of a lot of the bands I listen to.

i could, but only if she was open to learn.
or if she was the most amazing person ever and had her own cultural things that she was really passionate about.

if she wasn't passionate about anything, and that's why she doesn't care about music, then no . . . i couldnt' deal with that.


what the hell would we talk about?

i've always said i couldn't marry someone who didn't a) like the grateful dead OR b) appreciate my love for them.

but really what i mean is....
i wouldn't want to spend my life with someone who puts down any music i listen to. (or anything i'm interested in, for that matter.)

to me, being open-minded is KEY. with music and everything. i'm not judgemental. and i'd expect the person i choose to spend my time with in that capacity to be the same way.

what i really can't stand is ... when you ask someone what they listen to....and they say 'whatever' or 'i don't really have any favorites'.


wtf? how is that EVEN possible?

thats crazy talk...

youre not gonna share all the same interests...too not date someone based on difference in musical tastes is a little obscene.

But I barely have any friends to begin with. If we're going to be in a relationship, we'll probably be spending a lot of time together. If she doesn't want to or doesn't enjoy listening to the same music as me, then what?

We can't listen to music together. We can't go to concerts. We can't watch music dvd's. Eliminating all the things I do that involve music, I don't really have much of a life.

taste in music doesn't play a very large part in why i chose to marry my wife. my wife and i have similar tastes [british music, proper techno, drum and bass, soul], but definitely enjoy other sounds that the other just can't stand.

i like black metal. she hates it.

she likes laffy taffy. i hate it.

it would suck if we were into the same music all the time. we learn from eachother quite a bit. if we discover something new that we think the other would like, we turn eachother onto it.

Tough question, but yes, it does tend to influence the immediate "is there a chance?" factor. My fiance likes cool music, but completely different than my tastes. We gel on some middle ground, but the thing I loved about her is that she was immersed in a different genre(s) and could educate me on new bands accordingly. If she would've been into crappy bands I probably would've thought twice. Just my thang. The key though too is whether or not they are interested in learning because they want to know more music, or because they want to be like you and act interested, which can lead to definite troubles.

I doubt my fiance could pick out a strokes song btw.

dude, turn her onto some of the music you enjoy. she just might dig it.

start with the new Strokes.

Who cares? I thought everyone grew out of that by the time they reached their twenties

Nb - I am not twenty

apparently not. i'm 30.

But she's heard of them at least, I bet?

The other thing rattling me lately is that all the girls I work with can be divided into two camps. 1) Thrice/Alexisonfire/"punk" kids or 2)Black Eyed Peas/Kelly Clarkson/whatever's on the tv music people.


So I've really lost any potential interest in any of them even though they're all lovely people and very attractive. I just can't see myself ever being with a girl who passionately likes Thursday or 50 Cent.


Maybe that is being a bit extreme. But I'm not really desperate either. So I'm not really being radical by holding out and waiting for a cute twee girl, am I?

no, but I would be open to compromise as well.

wait, then he'll have no friends at all.

She did come in looking for the Arcade Fire cd for her boyrfriend before Christmas, mumbling about how she'd never heard of them and then saying that their cd looked gay. She then proceeded to ask me if we had the new Euromix cd.

I suppose I should've taken that as a sign.

My best female friend (not my gf, although they, uh, dislike each other) loves 50 cent, and i dont really care.

I used to be a bit of a prick when it comes to music which led to a huge fight between me and this girl, and her not talking to me for a month or so because she thought I was a snobbish cunt. I realised not everyone shares a passion for listening to music that I do, and its not worth friendships or relationships over something like that.

If they share a music interest then great, if they dont, then whatever. I have other friends to go to shows with (the Strokes/Kings of Leon etc Indie girl, the scummy vegan punks, the prog/kraut dude) + boards like this to talk about music.

I don't remember ever being completely turned off by someone's music taste- I would fall into the category of people that would try to get them to expand, give them stuff to listen to. But I will say that after meeting someone I may have a slight interest in, finding out they have good taste in music and/or like the same type of stuff I do seems to make them a little bit more attractive.

i could never date someone who wasn't a music geek. i need mixtapes and concerts, well thought out soundtracks for make-out sessions and late nights of listening to music in bed.

Yeah but its easier for girls, as more guys tend to be music geeks than girls

For what it's worth, my girlfriend and I are tops on eachother's Last.fm neighbors list. Runners up on the lists have significantly lower match value.

It's mostly due to her willingness to listen to what I push onto her, which I dig.

Find a woman who is intelligent and appreciates that which is GOOD, regardless of genre. That way, as a couple, both of you can open yourselves to all kinds of things you wouldn't normally have heard/ seen.

And if she still doesn't like the music you listen to, then maybe the problem isn't her.

shallow, even.

This is true. I'll be married 12 years in a couple of months. My wife doesn't get my enthusiasm for music. She has some interest, but it's mainly older 70s and 80s stuff. I play some current artists, some she likes, some she doesn't. She tends towards stuff that's short and to the point, stuff that's 3 minutes or less. Anything long and meandering, she hates. So if we're together I put on stuff we'll both enjoy. I couldn't possibly expect her to like everything I do when I don't have one single acquaintance who enjoys all the same artists that I do. That's a crazy expectation to have.

It helps. But it's rare. It has happened to me exactly once. And I let her slip away.

well call me shallow, but all my happiest relationships have been with girls who were really excited and open about music.

O.k., B, maybe...

but what if... just maybe...

the grateful dead suck, or whatever it is that you go ape for sucks, to that person.

That didn't sound good, what i mean is, people have different tastes, and yeah overlap is good, but how many "damn i love the grateful dead... yeah me too..." conversations can you have?

Taste is subjective and personal, but what makes your tastes more valid than your partners?

I would never stop a partner from listening to something I didn't like, but i wouldn't stick around to listen to it either if it's something I wasn't going to come around on, like The Grateful Dead, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones...

I can understand why other folks dig it, but I'd hope they respected my right to not like it.