Damn, you have summed it up very well.
Just a few details:
-Ambient music is something that bores me on its more minimalistic side, stuff like Hammock or Ulver's Shadows of the Sun are basically ambient, but as you point out, they aren't 'conventional', and that's one of the reasons I love them. And I recall listening to A Kind of Blue, and liked it, but also felt it was one of those albums I'd appreciate more as background music rather than trying to actively listen to it.
-Production: well, I guess its actually more a matter of songwriting, because, while ITCOTKC doesn't sound great (Wilson's remix is superb tho), it has excellent tunes, and sounds very different from other 60s music I have checked. I've also realised that what I dislike about 80s music is not the production, but the songwriting in general, which I find very weak. One exception is Operation: Mindcrime, as that album sounds 80s as fuck, but has excellent musicianship and, honestly, it'd suck with modern production.
-Lyrics: I guess some songs can't really be appreciated without taking the lyrics into account, and songs like Wilson's The Raven or Routine wouldn't touch me so hard if they had a different lyrical content.
-I guess I'm just a very modern person, for when I listen to older music by, say, The Rolling Stones, I cannot relate to it. The sound, the melodies, even their style, doesn't resonate with me. You know why I love The Dark Side of the Moon? Well, one of many reasons is that it doesn't feel like a product of its time, but rather the product of Pink Floyd's heart.
-Dunno if I have said it on the 5-essay, but I'm a sucker for uniqueness, for albums that sound like no other out there, in which I can identity the musician's style.
-My first experience with music was through piano lessons. I barely listened to music (this was before discovering prog and DT
), so I learned some classical songs, and lots of videogames tunes. So I guess my preference for melodic music comes that way, as none of the songs I played was meant to be sung. On a side note: my fav piece I learned was Moonlight Sonata, the first movement. I have forgotten how to play half of it, but I used to play it complete. And every time, it moved me, deeply, almost to the point of tearing up. It's a powerful song that is often played too quiet imo.
-I also appreciate when a group can do "standard" music very well, like Alter Bridge, or that ska song you sent me, because despite having heard lots of lame ska on the radio or TV, that track has an excellent songwriting.
So tl;dr: I like modern music by a nice margin, dislike generic stuff, and prefer something with lots of feels or unconventional. Or both.