MY FAVORITE MUSIC

On the way to see Rod Stewart, I was asked: “What’s your favorite kind of music.” That’s the sort of question I’m always over prepared to answer, yet never really expect. I spent the rest of the evening honing in on a super-answer, which is this:

Q: What’s your favorite kind of music?
A: The kind I’ve yet to hear.

Compared to all the music I’ve heard, the stuff I voluntarily come back to on a regular basis is a fragment of a fraction of a tiny minority of the whole. Seriously, comparing my repeat listens to my first time listens is like comparing a molecule to a planet. I prefer the mystery of the unheard; I’d rather meander in a foreign place so I can call it an exploration. I believe in curiosity more than certainty, and seek out the feeling of encouragement that comes with any song exceeding my expectations, which many songs do.

How one values time is relevant, too. I think time spent discovering newness is time well spent—regardless of the quality of the discovery. The person that asked me this question, a severely judgmental person, would disagree. For that person, time spent not listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd is not time well spent, regardless of what was being listened to instead (apparently). I’m ok with that, mostly because it helped me see that my favorite kind of music is, in fact, the inverse of music I’m mechanically familiar with.

There may be drawbacks. I don’t know any cover songs because I only loop songs over and over a couple times a year (or less). And I’m not prepared to play you what you want to hear, because I change all the playlists on my phone each month (or more). The stuff I do crave I don’t crave often. For example, I have a super-specific emotional relationship with Sparklehorse’s “It’s A Wonderful Life.” I will never not want to listen to it, but I also won’t keep it on my phone, since I know it’s there for me, just beyond 10,000 songs I’ve yet to hear.