After all, a Luke Bryan fan is probably going to enjoy his music no matter what genre label is slapped onto it.
And while the popularity of this music makes it difficult to turn on a radio and hear much of anything which, to my mind, is anything but pure crap irritates the hell out of me, there’s one thing that irritates me even more.
And that’s people with no taste in music.
I’m not talking about “bad” taste here: I’m talking literally no taste. You know the people I’m talking about. These are the people who are impossible to combat. They’re the people who turn on a radio and never ever flip the dial, because they “absolutely love” every song that plays. To these people, there’s never a bad song played, at least not on the mainstream. Every week, they’ll have a different favorite song. Put their iPod on shuffle and it will sound exactly like a Top 40 countdown, because their “taste” is whatever is the flavor of the moment, the current trend, the current “thing.”
These are also the people who would legitimately label “Make You Miss Me” the “best song ever.” Not just their favorite, but legitimately label it the “best.” Next week, they’d probably give a different song that label, but there’s simply no definition in their taste. It changes and fluctuates to conform with whatever is currently hot.
I can deal with a Luke Bryan fan or even *gasp* a Sam Hunt fan. At least if they can explain something about why they like the music. Or if they can give a reason why they connect with one artist more than another. I may find their reasons to be trite and contrived, but if they can at least come up with some songs or artists they don’t particularly care for, it shows that they have something in their mind differentiating (or at least making an attempt to) between sounds.
I have several artists who I’d list among my favorites, but there’s some who I’ve never been able to connect with or really enjoy. I’ve never been able to get into Whiskey Myers. And my previous experiences with Josh Abbott Band have prevented me from giving their most recent album fair shake. And I’ve never really delved deeper into Vince Gill than his greatest hits collection Souvenirs, even if I probably should.
Those are a few examples of the boundaries of my taste. It may not fall in line with other critics, but they are my tastes. And I’m open-minded enough to give something another listen after a period of time.
The problem with these individuals with no taste is that they will almost always be opposed to listen to anything outside of the easiest path of discovery. If it’s not played on the radio and not easily accessible to hear, they will have no interest in giving it even a first listen. And with the prevalence of Spotify and Pandora, one would think that the discovery of new music would become easier and more accessible, but there still seems to be an inability on the part of a large faction of listeners to give time to anything outside of artists in the Top 40.
Dealing with someone with different taste in music than us is one thing; dealing with someone with no taste is damn near impossible. I’ll take the former any day of the week.