Finding Your Own Kind of Music

A person can spend an alarming amount of time trying to discover whether their taste is sufficiently interesting. There is always a more obscure pressing, a band with fewer listeners and someone willing to explain that they preferred the earlier work. Meanwhile, the song you actually love is waiting rather patiently to be played again.

Finding your own music begins with the rather agreeable permission to enjoy what you enjoy. If that means a familiar pop song with a chorus you can sing before the second verse, excellent. If it means a record made by six people in a room above a bakery, that is excellent too. Obscurity is not a qualification, and popularity is not a fault.

Follow the thread

A record shop is a good place to begin without knowing quite what you are looking for. Start with an album you already like and follow a connection: the producer, a musician in the band, a label, the record beside it on the shelf. Ask the person behind the counter what they have been listening to, if they have a moment and seem inclined to talk. You may leave with something wonderful, something puzzling, or a sleeve so attractive that you decide to take a chance.

There is no requirement to understand the entire history of a genre before buying a record. Read the notes, listen where the shop offers the opportunity, and allow your interests to develop at their own pace. A collection assembled from genuine curiosity is more revealing than one built to pass somebody else's inspection.

The pleasure of a detour

Digital platforms are just as capable of delivering a happy accident. Play an artist's radio, explore a curated playlist, follow a guest musician to another album, or listen to the songs that influenced a favourite performer. The convenience is considerable: a recommendation can become a discovery before the kettle has finished.

Algorithms are useful companions, though not infallible hosts. If they keep serving you a familiar variation of the same song, step outside the suggestions. Ask a friend to make a playlist, listen to a local radio programme, visit a library or choose an album because the title makes you curious. Give an unfamiliar song a little time; not every good introduction makes its case in the first ten seconds.

Go where people listen

A listening bar, live venue or small café can change the way music arrives. A song heard through conversation and the clink of glasses may acquire an entirely different character from the one it had through headphones on a train. Ask what is playing if the staff are not busy. Notice the room, the company and whether you want to stay for one more track.

Live music offers its own surprises. You may go for the headline act and leave thinking about the opener. You may attend with a friend whose taste is completely unlike yours and discover that their enthusiasm is contagious. You may also decide the music is not for you; discovery does not require a favourable verdict on everything.

Keep the songs you love

Your taste will change. The record that once seemed impossibly sophisticated may give way to an old favourite you had forgotten, or to a song everybody already knows. There is no need to apologise for either. Music is not made more meaningful by being difficult to find, just as it is not made less meaningful because millions of other people have loved it first.

Build a collection, a playlist or a collection of evenings around the sounds that make you feel something. Share them generously. Be curious about what someone else hears. And when that impossibly familiar chorus comes on, there is no particular virtue in pretending you do not know the words.