As the years have yeared, I've realised that I don't actually like music. Not in the sense that I can never enjoy music at all, just that I usually don't. And the time I spend voluntarily listening to music probably amounts to about 25 minutes per 3 years or so.

I *always* turn music off in games, before even hearing it. Cos why would I want music playing at me constantly? (And the fact that that's the norm is *bizarre* to me.)

Again, it's not that there's not music that I enjoy. It's just that I very seldom want to listen to it. And music is far more often irritating to me than enjoyable. So, on balance, Jon was right. The world would be better (for me) without music.

I agree about music in games. I used to be quite highbrow about listening to jazz. I still do, but have been backsliding into Stones, Doors, Pretenders yadda. It's sad!  :-&

hmmm, I don't remember @JonCooper saying he didn't like music. But here's my take on the topic: I really dislike music in games and always turn it off. Back when I was just a wee gamer, I played with no sound at all. Then when I got a playstation I realized if I couldn't hear the bullets i was going to die. That's a bit off topic I know, but it sorta leads to my next point - a lot of people can't stand silence so they play music (or radio or whatever). So those people think they like music but really dislike silence. I know people like this.

Me, I like music, but only when something in me responds to it. There is some music that moves me to tears, but not on every listen, only on some. Why is that?

OMG so rambley. 

Oooh, that's interesting. Disliking silence tricking them into thinking they like music.

I, most of the time, need something to distract my brain otherwise it'll spiral into panic. So I usually (almost always) have a podcast or a TV show or video on in the background. Music's no good for that purpose.

I do find most games just having music on *all the time* just odd. It's not (usually) like in movies where you can add music to heighten an emotional moment or whatever. It's just someone else's playlist, on repeat, all the time.

And, yup, every now and then I hear a song and think it's amazing and listen to it 15 times in a row. But that's rare. I don't dislike music as such, I just don't want it 99.99% of the time.

Not rambley at all. Full, in fact, of your usual wisdom and insight!

Also:

> I really dislike music in games and always turn it off

Genuinely thought I was the only one. People are usually kinda mildly shocked that I do that.

I like music. I listen to less than I used to, largely because I have the olds now and my life is very different to when I had the youngs. Once upon a time music accompanied me, gave me cues, woke me up, and importantly was something I shared with people, to understand them better and vice versa. It cemented relationships and helped to establish my place in the world. It has different roles for me now.

I like food and paintings, but I don't have to eat 24 hours a day and constantly stare at walls to know that. I went to a gallery at the weekend because a friend was exhibiting/selling some prints. I was there for about 3 hours but I don't suppose I actually spent more than 30 mins actually looking at artworks. 

Not liking music is games is totally understandable. You mentioned one incredibly good reason yourself: it's somebody else's playlist. Also, because of the way games work it's usually horribly repetitive. Why would I listen to U2 (sorry Truffy), probably in broken up bits repeated over and over, for instance? 

Some people like listening to music a lot, but liking music is all sorts of different things. I can be absolutely absorbed listening to a bit of viruoso blues picking form Leon Redbone, but I'll never understand or appreciate music in the way that my friend Martin Litton does, because he does it for a living.

Maybe you don't like music, but I'm not 100% clear what you feel liking it entails.

Oh gosh I like listening to music. I sort of like trying to learn how to make it as well but I'm really not very good at that and not really dedicated enough to succeed at getting much better, so only sort of. Still, I like the instruments and the software. I built myself a 3-string cigar box electric guitar last year, learning the woodwork and whatnot was really nice to do. Gonna build a 6-string one next, the ambition being I guess to look like I live in a swamp and drink home-brewed liquor while making a racket.

I do tend to want to actually focus on it when I'm listening though, I don't put it on in the background very often. Quite happy to work in silence, sometimes with some vaguely-interesting sport on a screen perhaps, which is half professional interest half actual interest.

My son is ten now (ffs) and is at the age where he's playing me tunes he likes. They are inevitably discovered from the lobby music selection in Fortnite and Rocket League... it ain't like the old days with chart radio and top of the pops. He also likes a surprising amound of classic rock like AC/DC, Black Sabbath and the like, possibly partly because we dug out some old Guitar Hero and Rock Band games in recent years.

I don't really play games much so I don't even know how I feel about soundtracks. It's just menu music before I get to the engine noises on ACC for like 99% of my gaming time. I played a bit of that there Cyberpunk but I can't really visualise (audiolise?) the music it played in-game either. Hm. It had Run The Jewels though, cool, I saw them live once before they'd even got their name. Manor Lords is the other not-ACC game I tried lately. Don't remember the music at all! I guess it had some?

In conclusion, I rambled about stuff and don't have any conclusions.




 

There's music that I like. I know what genres and artists I enjoy and all that.

But I'm not *interested* in it, beyond being immediately engaged with it in a moment. There doesn't seem to be anything to talk about with music, as there is with visual art or tv shows or games or whatever. I can be sitting there and, like, I dunno, Minnie Ripperton's Les Fleurs comes into my head. And I'll go oh I love that song and go and listen to it and love it. But then I'm done. Any more music after that rapidly becomes aggravating.

And that's a song I love. Most music I hear is not songs I love and a lot is songs I don't like at all.

And music is fucking *evvverrrrwhere*. More so out in the real world of course. But even in my indoor-life, every game, tv show, movie, podcast. Pretty much any time-based media will have music in it, and 99% of the time I wish it weren't there, it's incongruous and unpleasant.

So what I mean when I say I don't like music is that for the most part, for me, it's detrimental to my experience rather than... posimentral ( :-Y ). 

So, on balance, if I were being selfish, I'd prefer a world where music didn't exist.

(@Milko, I like Run the Jewels!)
 

God stole my reply and cast it into the pit. Unless it emerges in another universe. Or possibly I hit a combination of keys which the demon Gates does not allow.

I think music exists as a thing that we either love or hate at a given point in our lives. I think it is a part of how we stand in relation to the expression of musicians. Some of it is pitiful and some of it is transcendent. Being a musician is just another special case of attempting to stand in relation to our fellow humans, like writing, painting, sculpting, whatever. 

Yeah, maybe you don't like music.

I agree that it is all that. But it rarely feels any of that for me.

I think that's okay though. Some people don't like ballet and that's fine. It's the everywherness of music which makes me feel like I *should* like it more, I think.

I'm not sure I'd get by without hearing Robert Wyatt singing and playing his way through Moon in June at least once a month.

I still have a concern over what counts as liking music, for instance how often and under what circumstances it should be listened to. 

It's the 'on balance, I'd prefer a world without music' that clinches it I think.

Do you think that you once did like music? Is it a kind of gradually reducing interest/appreciation until now you realise you no longer like it, or do you think you never liked it?

Edit: re-reading some of the posts, including your first, you've answered this in part. the realisation at least was gradual "As the years have yeared, I've realised...".  I suppose what's interesting is why some people might claim that they do enjoy it.

 

I used to listen to music more in the past. Though I never listened to it as much or cared about it as much as my peers.

Aaactually, as a young kid I didn't really like music at all. I remember on Saturday morning TV they'd have sections where popular band would play latest song and my friends were often into it and I found it interminably boring. That's not to say I hated *all* music I heard but I hated most, and loved none.

The first time I loved music was when I heard Straight Outta Compton when I was 12 or so. That was the first time when I understood what people felt when they listened to music.

From there I branched out a bit into blues, funk, classical, jazz even country and bluegrass and stuff. And those are still the genres I enjoy from time to time.

So I'd say... yeah, from 13ish to 18ish I liked music more than I do now. And, as you said, it was part of a time in my life, part of growing up and figuring out what I like and don't.

But now I feel more like I did as a young kid. Maybe a new genre will awaken my music-liking again at some point!