A friend of mine recently asked me this question and I had to admit I kind of low key hate the question. It's not their fault. It's a great question, I just don't think I have a very good answer.
My reply is usually a long convoluted diatribe that starts with, "It depends," and ends with, "So yeah..."
Ask me on any given day I'm likely to give you one answer. Ask me again next week and you might get a totally different answer. A lot of times, what's on my playlist isn't even in English.
Honestly, I just like music. (With the exception of country music. All that twang will just never be my jam. That said, there are still some individual country songs that I'll groove to.)
One thing most people note about the music I follow... it's overwhelmingly Canadian. Not everything I listen to is from north of the border, but a lot of it is. I'll probably do a separate post about some of the Canadian music I adore.
For now here are my favourite genres, in no particular order, on a Tuesday afternoon:
Electronic/Dance/House music: It's not everyone's favourite genre, for sure. And a lot of what I like in here could be tossed into the pop mega-category, but I'm not going to lie, there are sometimes when a deep house music cut or even a track of trance music is all I need. Favourite examples: Avicii's "Levels", Dabin's "Alive" or Gryffin's "After You", David Getta & Bebe Rexha's "I'm good", Loud Luxury's "Nights Like This"
Pop, with a little rock thrown in for good measure: Pop music in general has been greatly influence by the above categories, so most of the pop I listen to is probably closer to dance music than anything else. But when I stray from the dance tunes, it's often got a bit of rock kick to it. Examples: X Ambassadors' "Half-Life" or "Unsteady" or "Renegades", The Strumbellas' "Salvation", Mother Mother's "Life" or "It's alright"
Indie singer-songwriter: I could probably write a whole post about how much I love singer-songwriters. Tell me the story behind a song and I can't resist it. And, despite my devotion to slick production values, sometimes the simpler the set up the more I love it. Examples: (Indie folk band) Lumineer's "Brightside", (Montreal singer-songwriter) Soran's "Magic", (Canada's) Alicia Moffett's "Lullaby", or (Oji-Cree singer-songwriter) Aysanabee's "We Were Here".
And... drumroll please... favourite kind of music will always be... LIVE. There is something about live music that just hits on a different level. It can be a loud concert venue with the bass thumping right through the soles of my shoes. That'll get me going. Or it can be a quiet set up in a coffee shop with an artist I have never heard of. The absolute best music is a live performance. Hearing the slight crack in a vocal, or the squeak of a guitar or even a slight feedback on an amp, I love it all. It makes it seem so raw, so real, so powerful.
Music, especially live music, feels like the closest human beings get to experiencing actual magic. In fact, the characters from the band I wrote about in my first novel (coming later this year) talk about this very idea.
(To answer this question I tend to ignore the albums and albums of K-pop on my phone. Forgive me. I'll have to devote a separate post to the Korean musical force.)
Let me know below, what's your favourite genre? Or what gets you on your feet and dancing?
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