I genuinely like the idea that someone could walk into my house, study my music collection and ascertain something about me without uttering a word.

However, I start to become uneasy whenever the concept of taste is brought up. Good taste does not exist. How can it?

I remember going round to a friend's house in the early 80s and listen to him tell me how great Adam and the Ants were. For the whole day. He recorded the Prince Charming album for me and assured me that I would come to feel the same. The conclusion that I reached was that I simply didn't have the energy to pretend to like this stuff just because everyone else did. So much music for me is about feeling at odds with the world and within it. I'm not sure if that's healthy, but I'm pretty sure that it's neither right nor wrong.

I think throughout my adolescence, half of my interest in music was competitive in nature, trying to 'out-prog' my mates with the deliberate obscurity of my taste and looking down my nose at 'teenyboppers'. This was only exacerbated during the punk wars which were as tribal as it was possible to get.

Throughout the 60's and most of the 70's music had to be white, long haired and played on guitars.

I did however learn, very early on, that looking down on a young lady's musical tastes with a degree of snobbery was not likely to get my hand inside her jumper. So a degree of compromise was called for.

And eventually I realised that quite a lot of this teenybopper rubbish was pretty good. And admitting it wasn't that difficult either (although to be honest it probably manifested itself as just another form of one-upmanship....'look at how broad my musical tastes are conpared to yours')

The moment of revelation? Thinking about it, Danny Baker is probably to blame - his articles in the NME about Chic and Earth, Wind and Fire at the height of punk would have had a lot to do with it.

But to address one of your other points - has any male over the age of 14 ever, seriously, thought a member of the opposite sex would be impressed by the size of his record collection?

But just in case ladies...45,085 tracks on iTunes....how about that then, eh? eh? Fancy a coffee while I put on some Greenslade? No? Ah well.

I had to endure some sneering and snobbery from certain 'indie rock' loving peers because I didn't like that or, indeed, rap music of any stripe (which I have to confess I'll never, ever get and never have done). I genuinely made an effort to get into the likes of The Strokes and The Libertines but I find them so drab compared to the prog/heavy rock/singer-songwriter/folk rock/psych I tended to listen to and still do, so they just sat on my shelves just for the purpose of having them until enough was enough and I decided to sell up (did the same with various punk albums which I didn't like, too). After enduring instances where I was sat down and having someone write down my favourite bands and deliberately taking the time out to point out how 'uncool' they were compared to stuff like The Hives and The Strokes, I started sneering back after a while.

Have to sadly admit, much to my chagrin, my musical tastes have never impressed any member of the opposite sex...

I totally agree with that writer's assertion on 'indie rock', though; in my experience, some of its fans use it as a badge of their credibility to sneer at other people's musical tastes. NME is a living representation of that, with all that sneering at the likes of James Blunt, The Hoosiers, The Feeling et al. I don't personally own any of their records and don't plan to, but I fail to see how their music is worse than the likes of The View, The Twang or The Pigeon Detectives! What's more, the NME awards this year was genuinely even more painful and even less diverse than the year's Brit Awards was. I'm probably far more likely to make derisory comments towards those 'indie' bands than those you'd call MOR...though I draw the line at Michael Bolton and Barry Manilow!

Troutmaskreplica is unlistenable rubbish that people only pretend to like. I went as far as to buy the thing and gave it several tries but it's terrible and you all know it.

I was in the pub the other night with a mate and his new girlfriend and she informed me how much she loves the first Velvet Underground record, she wasn't impressed when I suggested it sounded like it was recorded in a phone box, had a few good tunes but was really just music for people who still were under the impression they were different from everyone else, more sensitive perhaps.

It's my experience, for the most part, that the ladies get the same glazed over look in their eyes when talk turns to music collections as I get when the subject of interior decorating arises. Perhaps only when I was in college and everyone was trying to be cooler than everyone else did I ever succeed in securing a few squares of sexual chocolate because of my obsession with music.

I don't really feel comfortable with people looking through my record collection, there is quite a bit of stuff in there that wouldn't be highly regarded as tasteful these days. I'll never throw it out though, it's all good nostalgia and holds lots of memories.There's some worthy material in there and I'm pround of the collection I now have; hard to believe it all started with just a few tapes in little leather tape box many years ago. Well about 1984.
A few years ago, I did "hide" a few items when a work colleague friend visited my house for the first time. These included Del Amitri, Crowded House and Marillion albums. My friend was a good sort, but one of these slightly narrow minded indie off the wall types who views anything successful or commercial as a no go area. I did however forget to hide a few Level 42 albums and he looked appalled when he found them. My credibility was never the same again with him. I'm off to see Mark Knophler in May, as a birthday present for my brother and this too has been the subject area of high amusement for my band mates who are hardcore Clash, The Fall, Iggy Pop Types.I like the latter too, but find myself having to justify "Knophler" on nights out etc

I think we may be getting into dodgy post-modern moral relevatism. Some music is better than other music, (there's an equation some where to proof it) taking sides is fun. However having friends list and carefuly deride you taste in music doesn't sound like friendship to me, the odd jibe at someones love of Vanilla Ice is one thing this just seems a little vindictive. As to indie being elitist I'm not sure what people mean by indie anymore I still take of it as meaning the shop assistants and Talulah Gosh where an air of aloofness was just a way of forming gangs for a tiny group of bands and fans. How keane, snow patrol etc can be used to judge the mainstream when they are mainstream escapes me.
I'm always surprised by the number of times here and elsewhere people talk about making a effort to get into a certain type of music or group, as if music was a moral duty like having an opinion on the EU, or getting enough bran in your diet. Sure be inquisitive but if you don't like something move on to something else.
This all hasn't stopped me wondering what people get out of westlife etc you see there now relatively old fans completely taken over by the music singing and screaming along at the most blank trite nonsense and yet the fan's emotions don't seem fake or ingeniune.

as I did about 20 years ago when I made a mix tape for a party of disco music interspersed with Frank Zappa guitar solos. The disco tunes went down a storm, whilst I nodded appreciatively to Frank's 'chops' upstairs on my own.

I tend to use my tastes in music to position myself against whatever I think people think of me. Usually that means denying my indie tastes and enhancing the mainstream parts of my listening habits.

For example, I was talking about music with a guy I used to work with. We talked a bit about various shoegaze acts from late eighties/early nineties and it was all well until he said something about me being "one of those who apprechiates good music". He then went on trash talking people who listens to more mainstream acts, rock, hip-hop etc etc.
My reaction was to start raving on and on about how much I like Marilyn Manson (trufax) and about how I prefer the mainstream to the indie (a bit of a lie).

I've never been much for lying about my tastes really, but instead, I have frequently lied about my knowledge of music in front of guys I've liked. I've been nodding my head in agreement with "bla bla bla like the insert-band-name-here did in the eighties when they worked with insert-producer-here on the obscure-vinyl-thing, y'know?" countless of times. I think that was an age thing though, as nowadays I'm more straight forward with showing my ignorance of whatever they're ranting about.

When you're at school, college or university it's important to be in an identifiable group. It's essential that everyone can be easily identified - friend or foe, threat or ally, cool (on your terms) or figure of fun. From the earliest days this is encouraged by school clubs, sports etc. Left to our own devices music plays the same part. This can simply be fitting in with the majority, or forming a separate tribe for the specific purpose of being different. We all either have the need to belong or the need to feel different (for which read 'superior').

In the summer of 1976 a local record shop - Smyths - now long since gone, acquired hundreds of LPs from some bankrupt wholesaler, to the extent that they had to open up a stock room at the back to double the size of the shop. I spent all summer buying up an impressive collection of Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Yes, Bowie, etc only to discover that by the time I was back in school everyone was wearing drainpipe jeans and listening to the Damned. My response - along with a couple of friends (I did have some friends!)- was to start listening to The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane and tie dying our flares. I poured scorn on the herd instinct that drew my classmates to punk as we had all had poured scorn on disco, and on one particular individual who had once spoken out loud of his regard for Abba.

By the time I was at University I had joined the crowd and was mainlining on The Smiths and laughing at the old hippies hanging round the student bar. I do not recall either Quicksilver Messenger Service or The Smiths being particularly helpful in luring anyone back to the student lair.

Once you're out of that environment and into the workplace and real life the importance of these things should recede. As Sean Hughes once said 'everyone grows out of their Morrissey phase, except Morrissey'. Yet I always think there is a residue of those teenage instincts and insecurities. You only have to read the blog entries on this site to see that some of us never quite grow up, or lose that need to feel smugly superior. (Thank you 'Word' for this outlet).

I still find myself taking against some band simply because of the apparently automatic praise heaped upon them - the White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys being two recent examples.

And always, but always I will judge you on your CD collection (although my concession to being a grown up is to not actually laugh and point).

And always, but always you will be found wanting if there is a Celine Dion CD in there, or Phil Collins (apart from the first one), or Westlife, or Steve Wright's 'Love Songs' even if they were bought by your wife, and she absolutely made you give your vinyl copy of 'Bathing At Baxters' to Oxfam.

But no-one gets to see my collection obviously - they might find that copy of 'Martika's Kitchen'!

we really shouldn't be defining ourselves in terms of what music we like, or dislike.

Something I wouldn't have done until, well this afternoon actually.

Also, are you the same Huw Williams with whom I taught at Hedingham?

Long gone are those halcyon days when my mating call was something by The Sisters of Mercy, reverberating from the wound-down driver's window of a silver Peugeot 205, parading at a funereal crawl along Southend seafront.

Not long after the record industry abandoned the cassette as a viable commercial format, I also abandoned mixtapes as shorthand for communicating my emotional state. In hindsight there was something absurd and self-defeating in giving someone I fancied a home-recorded cassette whose underlying message was: "You will never truly fathom the stygian depths of my tormented soul, but you can get a general idea by listening to Sistinas by Danzig, followed by Nik Kershaw's Dark Glasses.

Also mostly gone is that egoism, in which my taste in music is cited as evidence that I am a superior human being to a person who genuinely enjoys the work of Robbie Williams. It does still flare up from time to time; at least now it's accompanied by an awareness of my own blinkered stupidity.

My problem wasn't so much pretending to like artists that privately I despised. It was the other way around. I would actively express a fierce distaste for bands that I secretly liked because I didn't want to be associated with their image. I could never come out and admit to enjoying the music of Pearl Jam. They were the enemy! They were soulless corporate puppets, unlike Nirvana who had maintained their grassroots integrity by signing to the tiny, little heard of Geffen record label.

Now I am in my mid-thirties and have other things to worry about, besides the dreadful faux paux and consequential exclusion from polite society that might result from being caught stark-naked and air-guitaring to Heads and Hands by Shed 7.

Years of attrition has whittled down a largish pool of acquaintances to a handful of friends, who are well aware of my idiocy (as I am of theirs) and who don't care one way or another what I listen to.

When I relised a mixtape with a Boo Radleys album track was never going to find me a place in a Womans heart.

Also I've always thought that not being part of an identifiable musical group always limited my University experience slightly. Not being singularly an indie fan or a dance fan or an R'n' B fan meant I didn't really blend in with any of them. There wasn't really a group for those who loved Crowded House, Jay-Z, Pink Floyd and Elvis Costello. Then again I'm sure there were others who felt the same way.

I use Bassline to 'slag''(used as a verb) the ladies.

Interest me - I dont have to like what they like but i have generally found that someone with an interest in music or the arts in general is far more interesting than someone with no interest. By this I dont mean the mum who buys a cd every 6 weeks when shopping in Sainsbury's or the guy who loved Status Quo as a teenager and will go to their annual gig but doesnt deviate beyond that.
I remember taking a boat trip from Naples to Capri and engaging in a conversation with an American passenger - we got on to the subject of music and i found out he played trumpet in the Lionel Hampton band years previously. He spoke with great knowledge about many Jazz artists I had never heard of and still haven't - he also knew Jaco Pastorius personally before he died and shared interesting anecdotes about him. I like to think that others particularly the contributors to this site would be interested in my taste which i guess is why the randomiser thread is one of the most popular however i am never going to meet any of you so I guess it doesnt really matter.

How many People have i met recently who claim to Love Northern Soul and only have "The Best All-Nighter,ever!" but don't really listen to it ? Answer enough to make me want to P***.
And how many of us have been given Mixtapes by friends but have never listened to them because the Tracklisting includes the likes of Sting ? I'm First to put my hand up.
I remember getting stick at School(late 70's) because i went to Northern Soul Clubs,Liked Punk, Was seen buying an AC/DC album and at home was always playing my Mother's Patsy Cline Records. Now my taste is called Eclectic then i was told to Make my mind up.
And how many of us have danced to records we hate while trying to attract a partner ? Get behind me in the Queue.
Great Topic David

While 'courting' my wife, I made damn sure that my Gryphon and Gentle Giant records were well hidden. Not that I was ashamed of them honest

...a bloke at a football match with Genesis and The Clash embroidered on the back of his jacket. He obviously didn't get the memo.

The 10 LPs critics love but the public hate and 10 of the opposite. I am arrogant enough the feel gratified I had as many from each list, 5 of each. Not all, because that allows me an equilateral moral high ground to lambast the rest within each list.
I used to think I had better taste than most, and I am the man who can, he thinks, belittle the best on their collection content, as in if I like it, it's good, and if I don't, it's not. But now wise enough to know that tastes can change. Hence the sudden apearance of major wedges of tamla, stax and jazz on my speakers. but I still love the Doors and Fairport, who were amongst my first faves in 1970 odd. (My revisionist strand has quietly left ELP out of that sentence, as, tho' I will still defend Tarkus and Pictures, I am a little embarrassed by much of the rest of their content. Which is funny, as most would feel embarrassment at my defence of t'other 2!)
And thanks to Heppo for "making" me buy Orchestra Baobab this weekend, based on his early morning listening description. I commend all to go and buy it instantly.

...it was somewhere or other. Recommendation still stands.

In my humble opinion Pirates Choice is by far the best. Saw them at Warwick Arts Centre a couple of months ago and they are exceptional live.

A hero of mine Tom Russell is playing at Lichfield Arts centre in October. I am concerned that if I buy 2 tickets for my wife and I that we may be the only people there - dont know any other Tom Russell fans in UK let alone Lichfield so if you want to take your good lady out for a nice night Lichfield Art centre is the place to be.

I only discovered once we were properly together that my partner shared a lot of my love (note the avoidance of the word taste) for music.

It makes things a lot easier when we put stuff on it the house, admittedly, and my ex-wife's diabolical love of certain artists definitely had a 'wearing-down' effect on me.

However, I like the fact you can look at someone's music collection and divine a lot about them. It doesn't mean you should judge them simply on the basis of their love for Celine Dion, Nazareth or Tupac, but it goes a long way to establishing a common bond between people when you've first met.

As it happens, I've become good mates with someone I met via another (shame on me) social networking site, simply because we shared similar music tastes.

I remember being told by my contemporaries at school that I couldn't be a "real" New Order fan because I'd only got "Blue Monday" and that I wasn't a "real" fan of The Cure because the first things I heard by them were "The Walk" and "The Lovecats", and thinking "but they're good, I can still like them can't I ?".

Interestingly enough, it was the NME readers who did this, also pouring scorn on me for reading Smash Hits.

...heh heh. I have to say, I do have sympathy with the 'real fans' thing, up to a point. I frequent forums for some bands/artists and the official Genesis one is really bad for tribalism (I've long since left it!). I've often seen statements such as 'you can't be a real fan unless you like everything they've recorded' which in my eyes is less being a fan and more like blind worship. I consider myself to be a big fan of many people but even so, I don't know catalogue numbers or anything like that, or demand to hear obscure B-sides etc.

The issue of these concerts is different for me. It's not necessarily a celebrity issue; people like Brian May, Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney have expressed admiration for Led Zeppelin in interviews I've seen, and Brian May seems to go to most of the major rock shows anyway (he was definitely at Cream, Genesis and Journey gigs in recent times), but I've yet to see such sentiments from the likes of Naomi Campbell, Noel and Liam Gallagher or Kate Moss. They were there to be seen there, I felt.

I did hear, though, that Roger Daltrey (and the rest of The Who) gave up his ticket to charity in order to allow someone else a chance of seeing it, even though he said he would loved to have seen it. I already had a high opinion of Daltrey and it went up further after reading that.

At school you either belonged to a group that liked rock or soul. Which didn't mean you couldn't like things in the other genre, but there was mutual disdain for each other's music.
A couple of instances from more recent years spring to mind. My wife and I were invited round to dinner by a colleague of hers. We got there, and were making small talk when the husband gets up picks up the new Simply Red CD which they had bought that day, put it on the player and then he turns to me and says "Do you like music, Carl?". Where could I start? I looked across the room to a space in the bookcase with maybe a dozen CD's and considered whether it was worth trying to talk about Roy Harper, The Clash, Neil Young, Green On Red, Emmylou Harris or any other people I really liked. I just dismissed it with a "Yeah, I buy a few CD's". But then I was asked did I like Simply Red. Charles Dickens came to my rescue. Recalling O level English and Great Expectations I gave Pip's reply to Pumblechook's query about his stage performance. "Massive and concrete" I said. That pretty much killed the conversation.
Another time at work I was extolling the virtues of New Adventures in Hi Fi to my mate Jon. A guy from across the office pipes up "I haven't liked anything by R.E.M. since their early days". We looked at him incredulously. Jon asked if he was really really a fan of Murmur and Reckoning. He said "I don't know them. I'm talking about Out Of Time".
Both these guys are perfectly affable. I can talk about many things with them I'm sure. Just not music.
I long ago realised women were never going to be impressed with music after putting on Roy Harper's Valentine album for a new girlfriend and being ordered to take it off before the first track had finished. I accept that there are thing in my collection like Roy and Julian Cope that must never be played in Mrs P's presence. The quid pro quo is that she never plays The Eagles in mine

...I get the feeling I am a strange example of the female of the species!

I am happy to be judged by my CDs and love looking at other people's - same goes for bookshelves. There's something reassuring seing things you own on the shelves of someone you like or someone you'd like to know better, and it gives you a useful starting point at the very least.

And yes, I freely admit there have been times when I have used my music collection to get the attention of a young gentleman! Y'see it will work that way!

And yes, I did totally scrutinise my shelves before the first meeting with my now Mr! Into the charity shop box went some very offensive items, the source and origin of which are still a mystery to me.

Equally, a compilation tape will get my interest at the very least, and it was shared music amongst other things that gave me and the Mr our first big connection. I still play all the compo CDs he has made for me, they are just great...a few days after he had proposed to me I received one that opened with Bowie's Be My Wife. How could a girl not melt?

OTOH, he knows full well not to play the Manics within a mile radius of my hearing or to ever put on Too Rye Ay unless he wants me to go nuclear.

And in return I keep to myself: Floyd (yes, we are a household where it's the girl who likes them and the Mr who doesn't), Mylo, cheesy dance, Carpenters, Grandmaster Flash, NERD/Pharrell/Neptunes, 70s disco and the odd bit of overwrought love song.

.... my other half loves the fact I have a passion for music but it has been said in the past that there is something abnormal about a woman who puts on an Allman brothers album to lie in the bath & listen to.

I like anything from Dusty Sprinfield, Roy Orbison to post punk new wave & Led Zeppelin.I also used to like All About Eve & The Mission (cringe) but grew out of it. The new Unkle album is awesome.However, I have just purchased (er, gift actually but I hinted) the Duffy album.

Do I have eclectic taste or am I just weird?

Comments please!

Just bucking the 'norm' as perceived by prejudicial types, and thank God. I'm probably perceived as an atypical man because I'm bored shitless by football and Radiohead, but there you go. The last album I listened to in the bath was Shelby Lynne's Just A Little Lovin'. How much more blokey can you get, right?

I always leave Word on the coffee table and hide Nuts in the upstairs bathroom. Oddly, that's the one lady callers always choose to read.

...what with the Hotties and Heroes series, stick the TV guide in there too and Word is still in with a chance of making it upstairs. In my defence, I should say that there are also a series of The Guardian's Great Speeches of The Twentieth Century giveaways, a visitor's book, a The Onion anthology and a framed poster of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine.

The ulitmate accolade in "taste" or the Emporer's New Clothes?

As a student, I bought an album by a "trendy" band called The Telescopes on the recommendation of a couple of mates and, more importantly, the NME. Anyone remember them? Unlistenable dirge. Used as a frisbee in the style of Shaun of the Dead. I think they were taking the piss.

More recently - I bought the Lambchop album "Nixon", again on the recommendation of a friend to impress a media girly type I was "courting" at the time. Again - dirge, absolute tripe.

Nowadays, I just don't give a monkeys about taste or what others think. I've dug out my old Adam and the Ants vinyl, downloaded No Good Advice by Girls Aloud and enjoy a good old pop song as much as I still love the Smiths, the Manics and my other teenage angsty stuff.

At 15 the Burritos and Fairport (OK, it was 1972)were not all the rage down my school. Babe magnet or what?
Not.

How can I like Led Zep, Girls Aloud, Nick Drake, Nick Cave, Rory Gallagher, Sugababes, Madonna and any other amount of fluff, Jazz, Metal Prog, New Wave, Old Wave, New Wave of New Wave, Dylan, Morrisson,Rea, Janet Jackson, Steely Dan, Young, The Band and any amount of Dance, (Deep dad House) etc. (Oh go on, I'll buy the whole shop). I have often had to hide or deny purchases,(whispers "it's her's, no taste don't you know, but we keep our collections together).

Bought the Greatful Dead and just couldn't get them. And I barely listen to old Grunge anymore or any britpop etc. And boy do I have loads. I have never listened to Nirvana In Utero apart from the first time.

But taste to me will always be Rory.

hello, all,

i've read your comments, and they make up a fantastic commentary on taste... and i happen to be writing an article on the subject... how "who do you listen to" is the new, "what do you do," and the commoditization of music has created what is essentially no more than a modern caste system.

would any of you be opposed to being quoted in my piece? i'm a student journalist, and i'd love to contact you via email, etc., if you would rather i not cite anything i found here.

let me know if you're interested in further discussion. you can email me at jennifer.carden@gmail.com, or i'll just comment back here. thanks!