- Buena Vista Social Club (the everyman’s world music)
- Ibrahim Ferrer (I’m in love with him)
- a Putamayo “summer party sampler” (great for housecleaning) that I got for free back in my music-seller days at B&N
As I was sitting in traffic, I decided that I fear too much world music would suggest a shift in identity, like I would have to start burning incense all the time and drinking yerba mate.
Why, as adults, do we still associate music tastes with identity? It seemed vaguely reasonable to falsely claim love for Skinny Puppy as a teenager in order to cultivate an appropriate goth identity, but now? We all do it, right? While music tastes may no longer be relationship deal breakers, they do provide pause (like the time I found a Spice Girls cd in an ex-boyfriend’s otherwise acceptable collection). And we all have some music preference that we keep hidden. Mine? Barry Manilow (I can sing all the words to Copa Cabana).
2 comments:
Of course--I'd rather you know that I'm listening to Beck and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, say, than that my default music is always--always!--Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor. This is not to mention secret shames like certain Backstreet Boys songs that I sing alone in my car like a teenager.
The MTV/VH1 folks would have us believe that music defines our lifestyle. I know it is not just those folks, but is, in fact, a whole consortium of folks who wish to find easier ways to sell things to us (what better way than to create a lifestyle that people need to buy things to be involved in.) Anyway I am preaching to the choir, here, so I will shut up about it. Ultimately, if I looked at my musical tastes I would be a combination of some aesthete and trailer trash, I think.
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