I seem to meet a lot of people these days who seem to have a right thing against Paul McCartney: nothing specific, just that he's a rich idiot who makes mistakes with younger women. I think this is the impression a lot of younger people have of him, and that's overshadowing his immense legacy.

So that's a good filter to use to determine whether it is worth talking to someone about music. A music lover probably wouldn't dwell on Paul McCartney's current social standing.

Although I do feel a bit opinionated and aloof when I think this way...

... to get really annoyed on this blog when people would list their 10 favourite albums and there would be no black artists. It doesn't bother me so much now because I've realised that, on any given day, I could easily compile an all-white list of favourite records and, I guess, people are just being honest. That said, I would be very suspicious of someone who prefer's Phil Collins' Motown Covers to the originals.

"Do not trust people who call themselves musicians or record collectors who say that they don't like Bob Dylan or The Beatles. They do not love music if those words come out of their mouths."
-Jack White

I don't hate him but I wouldn't care if I didn't hear another note of his music for the rest of my life. I do like most of the music that influenced him and I like what he was doing until he met with Chas Chandler. But very very little thereafter. It was far too white for my tastes.

So your a racist now then Father Ted?

"I've lost interest in women once I've seen what they listen to (Wet Wet Wet...), and have a good handle on blokes who have every Metallica or, indeed, Yes album."

What a curious way of judging people... Do you make the same judgements based on, say, their book collection or the contents of their spice rack?

... people whose musical tastes are too similar would find it hard to be friends - they'd end up falling out over whether "The White Album" would be better as a single album or not.

My best mate isn't into music like me. He got in the car recently and I had "Tago Mago" playing - he was crying with laughter (for about 10 minutes) and said "what the fuck is this shit?"

How odd. Well you've never met me. I hate Jimi Hendrix records. Just awful. I would put them in the same bin as Radiohead. Except I couldn't bring myself to put any records in the bin, however bad they are. It's hard/impossible to contemplate what the the popular music landscape must look like to a racsist.

Seems to be a straggling contender for Pseud's corner.

I posted in the Swearing thread about how much I dislike statements that are sweeping and reductive in nature.

"I've never met someone who hated Jimi Hendrix who didn't also harbour racist tendencies" tends to say more about the people that OP mingles with than people who dislike Jimi Hendrix music. I quite like it myself, but can understand why it isn't to everyone's taste.

Am I allowed to ask my African American friends if the reason they dislike, say, John Martyn or Nick drake is racist as well? I wouldn't waste my time - it's an offensive and stupid question to ask.

*dismounts soapbox*

about music but to form friendships based on my opinion of music and my level of emotional investment in it seems very self-limiting. I have a good friend who loves Wet Wet Wet and talks about his enjoyment of their music in no less eloquent terms than people I know who love the Beatles or prog rock or The Aphex Twin.

That said I used to be a right old snob about music and then I realised I was being a bit of a dick, winning meaningless battles but losing the war by the end of the night. I'm still opinionated but not to the extent that I think less of someone else because their opinion is different or less knowledgeable. Besides there is nothing more exciting than giving music to people and seeing some track or artist amaze them which they would otherwise have never discovered. I can't really gain that kind of pleasure if I spend my life acting aloof and assuming myself to be the smartest music buff in the room. Besides that's Beany or Dr. Volume.

On some level I can see that listening to Tago Mago, The White Album or Electric Ladyland would be funny to an unfamiliar or inexperienced ear. And it's good to have my opinions challenged otherwise they just become dogma in reverence to some authority, a stance that manifestly goes against the grain of the purpose of music.

But I quite like Jimi Hendrix.

*I am not a racist. Just trying to ridicule the OPs rather offensive post by turning it on its head.

... unless (from many previous posts and comments) it's Jeremy Clarkson. Or any politician. Or a banker.

that I would never date a girl who couldn't name all four of the Beatles and at least five of the Rolling Stones.

Turns out I was immature and wrong.

by a work colleague in his 20s who was the biggest Robbie Williams fan I've ever met. I was actually quite angry that he was deriving pleasure from music that was so ubiquitous and unchallenging; this was pretty much my default position at the time and it was many moons before I realised that this was a ridiculous viewpoint.

He was a great bloke, by the way, and we got on fine. Think he's a copper now.

I would suspect that most people here would have read this Nick Hornby book. The main point of the book is that in the end the protagonist realizes that "good/superior taste" is not the same as being a good/superior person.

I'm giving the OP the benefit of the doubt in that he knows that it's ridiculous to assess non-Jimi fans as racists (or as I much prefer to say, racialists).

To carry on with the biblical theme, Jesus on the cross shrugged (although he couldn't physically shrug) and said that everyone that disagreed with him was a thicko. That's what I think when, in response to saying that I like pop music and going to see bands, I get a long story about getting pissed at a corporate box at a Bon Jovi concert - as if that's exactly the kind of thing I mean.

They do not know how wide of the mark they are, so that does affect my judgment of them as people because they have claimed common ground when I'm still over here and he's still over there.

.....got a problem.

It's either lack of knowledge/ignorance.
Or jealously; not jealously of being a Beatle, per se, but jealousy of not living through the Beatles' era.

doesn't like the Dubliners is anti-Irish. End of.

I only do it on a purely superficial, jokey level (if you like The Levellers, you're a crusty with a dog on a string...etc)

But do I make serious judgements about someone's character or choose my friends based on their musical tastes? Nah. And if you do, you're a poltroon.

split up with a girl because she liked Queen and would put on the Greatest hits when it was time to "Get Busy".

(if you like The Levellers, you're a crusty with a dog on a string...etc) If you like the Levellers you are probably IN the Band and are a crusty with a dog on a string....though Jeremy always had a proper lead for his German Shephard when he was on Hove Lawns.

New Year's Eve 2000.

We discussed music. She was ten years younger than me. I chucked the idea of Teenage Fanclub at her. She said that Grand Prix was one of her favourite albums.

So I went out with her, married her and allowed her to bear my child.

A few years prior to that, I found the single of Where I Find My Heaven and Songs From Northern Britain in my mate Ian's CD rack. Turned out his missus liked them.

I'll say no more. Being that this is a public forum.

which is a bad thing, I don't do it any more.

I know lots of lovely people who either are only casually interested in music, not particularly bothered about it, or who have very different tastes to mine.

I've also met people who like a lot of the same music I like who are incredibly boring, annoyingly trainspotter-ish and some who are just downright unpleasant.

I've also made some great friends through a shared appreciation of certain bands, or certain types of music, and from this forum which I suppose hinges around being a big music head....I love having a conversation with anyone who loves their music regardless of whether they like they same stuff as me, there is always something we can bond over or something we can learn from each other (one of the reasons I'm addicted to this forum).

Actually I find that even if non-musically obsessed friends don't want to talk into the small hours about bands/chord changes they usually regard it as a benign eccentricity and sometimes surprise me by the music they have bought on my recommendation.

I still can't understand their general indifference though - I mean, how can it NOT take over your life? Oh well

1. One of them adores the Beatles
2. One of them adores Wagner

Can you guess which one I like and which one I put up with?

And as for judging people from their music, their films and their books, yes I'm afraid I do.

If there is nothing but pap, I know there is no point trying to go beyond platitudes in conversation, and if there is only terribly earnest literature and academia and 'serious' classical music, I know I'm in the presence of a complete nob-head.

A good mix of high-, low- and mid- brow (in films say, 'Pan's Labyrinth', 'National Lampoon's Animal house' and 'The Killing Fields') is usually the sign of a well-informed, well-balanced and
non-pretentious individual.

This is a bit odd. Just because someone has a certain musical taste, they must be good/bad/clever/stupid?

[John Le Mesurier voice] "Are you really sure that's wise, sir?"

FWIW, I love Hendrix, The Beatles, early Yes, and I hate Metallica. I have no strong opinions on Wet Wet Wet. Swift research reveals that I'm really an Irish bloke called Colin with a secret passion for the Mahvishnu Orchestra.

*VERY DEEP SIGH*

wouldn't listen to an album I recommended if I paid them, and the reverse is true. Which is as it should be. The end of year poll on the site I contribute to proves I have nothing much in common with the rest of them either. If I sifted by musical taste I'd never speak to anyone ever again.

which is racist/extreme nationalist/white supremacist, to the extent they disapprove of most rock as it's based on "black man's blues" (as they'd put it).

This always seemed strange to me, as if you're going to be nihilistically misanthropic then surely you don;t differentiate at all?

Years ago, in my long lost youth, I refused to make love to a beautiful woman because she insisted Simply Red's "Stars" album be the soundtrack to this endeavour.

Cue heated argument over choice of music and the end of any chance of an amorous end to the evening.

I still feel I was right to object.

I worked (and occasionally socialised) with a bloke who, unusually for a man in his thirties, retained that teenage predilection for judging people by their taste in music. He would dismiss and /or ridicule colleagues who did not measure up to his 'indie taliban' ideals.

Given that we have recently had a significant thread on the subject of swearing, I am going to decline this opportunity to describe that rather sad individual with a four letter word beginning with 'c'.

I got romantic with a girl at the works Christmas Party. She was easy enough on the eye and pleasant. The MD's personal assistant no less.

Anyway, she invited me round to her flat over theChristmas period. The candles were lit and the ambience was set. She then put on a Celine Dion record....

I remember telling my friends wife the story and gave it as the reason that I did not pursue the relationship. She called me a "shallow b******".

I think she had a point.

What a beautiful refrain."

Could only be:

REM - New Test Leper (in their top 3 tunes)

Thanks for kb for posting this fabulous song. Just what i needed on this cloudy day. Made me remember how much I used to love this band. Had never seen the video; great to see these four men making music as beautiful as this.

I've certainly been through that stage of being sniffy about other people's taste in music (though I've never chosen friends on that basis), and I'm pretty much over it now. Having said that, if I met someone, say at a party, and music came up in conversation, and they said the only music they liked was Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Chris de Burgh, Westlife and Michael Bolton, I'd be lying if I told you that a part of me wouldn't be groaning internally and thinking "bloody hell!" The difference between me then and me now is I wouldn't shun them and decide they were inferior. I might try to move the conversation on, though...

Where I find myself far more judgmental is in the matter of gossip magazines, which as far as I'm concerned are one of the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse. If a friend of mine told me they subscribed to Love It! I am not sure I'd be capable of an entirely dispassionate or neutral response. I wouldn't "unfriend" them, but I would probably give them a load of sanctimonious grief about how vile I think these magazines are. Then they might "unfriend" me.

...It seems to me that, when you are young and haven't actually got much of a track record of any kind in life, defining yourself (and by extension, other people) by their interests/artistic tastes is somewhat inevitable. I certainly went through a righteous indignation phase in my teens and, what with being a Word-type, did little BUT judge people by their musical preferences - and it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.

After a while I had more of a track record myself, and began to realise that a shared love of any particular artist was no indicator of whether I'd like someone. It certainly made life more interesting to hang out with people who liked music I did, but what with music Being An Artform and that, there were (and are) continuous disagreements even with people with whom I share a huge amount of musical DNA.

BTW, the OP's accusation of racism in others based on their dislike of Jimi H needs some clarification - do you mean that they dislike him, or his music? And how specifically does this lead to accusation of racism?

But I'm starting to believe that you shouldn't love anyone who doesn't love Field of Dreams.

.....and I'd suggest that Jimi could be the only 'black' (was he black.....?) artist that some sub-cultures might express a preference for.

Dance Music fans might herald Jimi above, say, The Spencer Davis Group, in the list of 60s groups but, hey, Stevie Winwood is 'Dance Central' compared to the Experience!

Heavy Metal fans, as well.....I used to go to the Ruskin Arms (home-place of The Small Faces, but in later days a Heavy Metal haunt) and the only black guy the black t-shirted brigade seemed to dig was Jimi.

They weren't racist though......they were just born at the wrong time and like s****, though ever so slightly better than their peer's, music!

....and yet the above response is still confused.
But....no....if a person doesn't like Jimi, I don't think that person is necessarily racist.

Sad to say, but in 2011, I'd suggest that only 1 in 40 people would even have heard of the guy, so it's probably just academic anyway.

There, I said it. Nothing against him personally (I do like his sense of style) but I just tend to not like long meandering guitar solos. I don't much like Clapton either, or Cream, or Allman Brothers, or Jeff Beck, or Metallica or ... (there's actually a pretty long list).

I wouldn't dismiss someone if I don't share their musical tastes, but there's no doubt that if I find they DO share something musical that is personal to me - a track, an album, an artist - then respect brownie points have been scored.

It's when someone clearly doesn't have any interest in music at all that I switch off. That's like saying you've got no soul, or that you don't really like breathing. I can't comprehend it.

I once had a summer job and a guy I worked with was extremely racist but Hendrix to him was the be-all and end-all of music.

We had quite a few arguments about this. He saw Hendrix as an "honorary white man", although he would still make racist remarks about him.