White Lion "Wait"

You have a really broad taste in music, don't you?

How do I know this?

Call it 30 years of market research.

I know you think you have a really broad taste in music, because everybody thinks they have a really broad taste in music.

It's a pretty straightforward question, "What kind of music do you like?"

And it's a question I ask pretty regularly to folks, and have for many years.

It's good small talk. And the subject matter is in my wheelhouse.

But I always laugh at the answer to the question, because the response is always essentially the same. The person believes they have eclectic tastes.

Sometimes they do. Often they don't.

How broad your taste is, is a matter of degrees and perspective, isn't it?

Whenever I ask the question "What kind of music do you like?" I always think of this one particular guy.

He was one of the dudes who worked in the circuit board factory that I wrote about on Monday. I little overweight. Mullet. Mustache that was not very full. Always wearing a heavy metal 3/4 black-sleeve t-shirt with a metal band name on the white front.

I was trying to find common ground during a coffee break.

"What kind of music do you like?" I asked.

"Oh, I like all kinds of stuff. I mean, I listen to everything from Van Halen to White Lion."

My face briefly flashed a "are you screwing with me" look, but I realized immediately, that he was sincere.

To him, Van Halen was on the spectrum at a point quite distant from White Lion.

Kind of like Fresno is quite distant from Martha's Vineyard. The two are very far away from each other.

Unless you think about the distance from Martha's Vineyard to The Crab Nebula. Then Fresno is actually pretty close.

But when you are in your own musical world, you're not thinking about The Crab Nebula out there in space. Your vision of your record collection puts the two artists farthest apart on the spectrum, and puts them each on a coast. And you think of yourself as broad.

Try it. Next time you are making small talk with strangers, ask them "What kind of music do you like?" Know doubt, each person will tell you they like all kinds of things.


See the video on Youtube.