Spinster

I was walking down the street today with a giant (cloth) bag of groceries, listening to my iPod and thinking about my favorite subject, me, when I was struck by the realization that the vast, vast majority of the music I listen to was recommended to me by other people. You know how there are some people who are always on top of new trends in some area of pop culture, whether it’s music or art or movies or fashion? Well, I am so not one of those people. I observe, sit back, watch others, and gather information that way. Hell if I’m going to sift through a dozen shitty CDs before hitting gold, and I’m certainly not going to see a single movie, indie or otherwise, before reading some reviews. I just don’t want to waste my time. (Oh. But. I guess I do sort of read a shitload of books, mostly without reading reviews or going on friends’ recommendations. Good thing books aren’t really that cool, or this would be me, once again, sitting in a glass house throwing stones.)

Anyway, I was listening to this one song and thinking about how much I like it and then realized that I’d never have even heard of it or the artist if someone hadn’t turned me onto it in the first place. I feel like my relationships — familial, platonic, and romantic — can be traced in my music collection. You can see my parents in the Beach Boys and the Beatles and Queen and Billy Joel (shut up) and the miniscule appreciation I have for classical music (sorry dad, opera didn’t make the cut). Eric gave me Rilo Kiley; Austin gave me Elliott Smith and Wilco (who’s now haunting me on my iPod so I’m not entirely sure how grateful I am for that gift); Domingo gave me the Postal Service and the Shins and Iron & Wine; Nalini gave me Cat Power. From my tenure at Books & Books I learned that I love Nick Drake and Bill Cruz and Eva Cassidy; I learned that I hate hate hate Nestor Torres and Buena Vista Social Club. Chris recommends so many bands that I can’t keep track of them all; the couple that I can remember are Rogue Wave (“Falcon Settles Me” is just so pretty) and Band of Horses. With Heather’s help I’m trying to shed my “musical misogyny” through Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse and a couple of golden oldies. In performing this little exercise, in trying to trace the origins of my current music collection, I’m left with very few bands or singer-songwriters I can claim as my own.

It’s funny that there’s this thing that’s so personal and so revealing — musical taste — and yet it’s formed by basically everyone else in my life but me. I wonder how common this experience is: are most of us a composition of other people’s tastes and influences?