1) I've noticed a lack of rap/hip-hop son your banned list... What's your take on that kind of music?
I don't know.
Seriously, I have never sat down and listened to rap or hip-hop. I've heard some stuff in passing that I thought was fairly good, but I really have no idea what my reaction would be if you sent me a song and I sat down and listened to it several times.
My guess, and this is only a guess, is that it would be a genre where I would like some of the music, but where it would be unlikely for a song or album from that genre to rank up as high as those from some other genres. The big obstacle to me enjoying it might be that I really like vocal melodies, and if most of the vocals aren't sung, that might be a barrier.
2) Do you have any musical fetishes? Like, specific things you dig a lot? For example, I'm sucker for feels, creativity, traditional Japanese music ( ), choirs, pianos, and cellos, among other stuff.
Hmm. I'm sure if I took a few weeks and just kept a running list I could come up with a lot more, but here are some things off the top of my head:
I definitely like emotionally powerful music. I think that's fairly clear at this point from my writeups. For me, that's mostly sadness and happiness. Anger in music is one of those things that I liked when I was 15 but now I only like if it is well executed (typically, more of a subtle anger like
Death Cab for Cutie's Styrofoam Plates than, like, thrash metal). Morbid stuff also kinda hits me in a weird way. I might like a morbid song for the musical content and might even appreciate the intelligence of the lyrics, but I'll secretly be wishing that the lyricist had written about something else (this is a big part of my struggle with the music of Steven Wilson).
I like the smart use of strings, both synth and real (if it's a good synth I won't be able to tell the difference), and horns.
I love vocal harmonies. Whether that's the same singer's voice layered several times or (preferably) multiple singers or a singer and a chorus, I really like it. Basically just multiple singers is cool.
I also like certain synth sounds. I don't really know how to describe my favorite types of synth sound, but I like ones that sound kind of hollow, like the one that Jordan uses to play that solo between the Medicate and Full Circle vocal sections on Octavarium, and I really like a style that Neal Morse uses a lot, like on that big melody at the beginning of
Transatlantic's Set Us Free.
I also really like instrumentally sparse, vocal-driven songs. Often you would describe these songs as being dirge-y, sad ballads or as being "spacey" or both. If there's one of those on an album, odds are it'll be among my favorites. Two examples:
Taylor Swift – Last Kiss as more of a ballad type song, and
Coldplay – Midnight, as more of a "spacey" song.
Finally, I really like these two songs. So there's that too.
Death Cab For Cutie – Stable SongColdplay – Every Teardrop Is a WaterfallThat's what I can give you right now. May not be helpful at all, or may be too pop heavy for some people to really get me (I have to imagine that I lose at least half of my readers every time I use the name "Taylor Swift" on a prog website, and I lose half the remaining readers when I go on to also say "Coldplay") but there it is.