Describe the people you know irl who listen to the most music.

[Fluffy Lothario]

What type of music do they listen to, who are their favourite band(s), comments on their taste, what impact have they had on your own taste of music, etc.

I guess "listened to the most music" could mean either owning and enjoying the largest amount of music, OR spending the most time listening to music, regardless of whether they just endlessly spin Peter Andre and Eiffel 65.



The person I know from more than a passing meeting who listens to the most music is either:

- a friend of mine called Sinead from Ireland (surprise!), listens to tons of rock music - a lot of the scuzzier variety, doesn't shy away from mainstream rock or classic rock, but sways towards early indie/noise groups and punk/punk-inspired stuff - and drum and bass. Favourite band is The Smiths (or was when I last saw her). Still makes mix tapes, as in with actual cassettes, which I think is about the coolest thing ever. At the time I met her, I avoided most three-to-four-minute-songs verse-chorus-verse guitar-drums-bass-vocals rock bands, because I found most everything like that quite dull, but a bit of time around Sinead showed me I needed to pay more attention to subtleties in many of these bands formulas, that bands can still do very interesting things within that model.

- OR a lecturer of mine called Barry, taught German. Classical "snob". Favourite artist was Mozart. Mozart still isn't a favourite composer of mine, but I like his music a lot more now after Barry's descriptions of what was great about his music. Barry also gave me general recommendations on classical. He seemed more a fan of the classical and baroque phases than of Romantic and modern classical, though he had listened to, performed and could talk about all of it. He was more or less closed off to any other form of music, though he admitted being able to respect jazz.

I also once briefly met two flatmates of a tutor of mine who were very into music. Both seemed to download absolutely everything in the vague region of rock and popular music (though nothing too experimental or too charts-ey/poppy). One was a devotee of the Counting Crows, and quickly showed the pathetic pet tendency of CC fanboys to hate on the Dave Matthews Band. Even though I met them only briefly, they were quite a big influence on my listening habits. They initially seemed very "well-read", but for all their apparent devotion to hearing as much music as possible, they actually had a boringly narrow window of interest. When I started to bring up jazz, classical, reggae, metal, etc, they were completely unable to comment. I also thought later they came across as having listened to most of the stuff they talked about only very briefly and having impressions of it which were extremely superficial, possibly even listening to a lot of it just to be able to say they'd heard and judged it. Meeting them really emphasised the importance of focussing my listening on the most acclaimed artists within a genre, or those interest me the most (or who I think will do so), rather than pointlessly trying to listen to tons of music as quickly as possible.

[Jamesman42]

My best friend listens to more of the classic rock stuff. He is also one of the main reasons I got into DT, and we saw our first DT concert together

I like some of the weirder or more indie stuff I guess. He stays with the classics and is about the rock and roll. Megadeth, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, etc. He also loves Rush as much as a lot of people here do. I also knew PT through him before even coming to these forums in '06. Very fun to talk music with.

I have another good friend who also loves DT and Rush, and loves the really guitar oriented stuff, like Paul Gilbert, Satch, Vai, that sort of stuff. It's fun to talk music with him, he won't belittle you for not knowing a song and has an awesome sense of humor.

My brother actually has had a huge impact on me, at least when we were teenagers. He is also a classic rock type, doesn't really like rap or pop at all. He sticks with the classics and modern rock they play on the radio, as well as some reggae and lighter rock. I'm trying to get him into Thrice.

[ZBomber]

Cool thread idea

-One friend started listening to metal in junior high... big Iron Maiden/Sabbath fan. Also really loved jam bands like the Dead. I've been getting him into quite a few proggy bands and his musical palette has gotten a lot more diverse over time (as did mine). We share a lot of interests and he likes most things I show him and vice versa.

-My best friend who I've known since I was born has had a pretty weird musical palette. We both used to just listen to Star Wars music pretty much.  Sometime during elementary school he got into music and showed bands to me, kind of getting me into them like all those crappy nu metal bands (godsmack, disturbed blah blah etc). Sometime in junior high he moved on to classic rock, so he was also the one who really got me into a few of those bands (my first AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd albums were from him). We both really liked AC/DC for awhile, that used to be his favorite band. Towards the end of high school he really got into the punk scene, which he also got me into a little bit. He was friends with this local band that was really awesome so we went to see their shows a lot. He's still into punk now, his tastes haven't changed for the past 6 years or so. He doesn't really appreciate my music at all.  I mean, he appreciates it but he doesn't like it at all. I think complex music turns him off and he isn't a fan of the indie-er stuff.

-One kid I met in college. The first day we hung out we discovered we both liked the same music. I only knew one kid in high school who liked prog, so finding another person who appreciates it in the first month of college was pretty cool. First night we met we got really high and listened to Close to the Edge on vinyl singing at the top of our lungs.  But he also likes some genres I hate, namely pop punk. And then he digs the whole power metal thing, as well most metal bands.

[MasterShakezula]

I only have one friend IRL who's super into music.  That music being videogame OSTs.   He's absolutely nuts for them!  I mean, I'm quite a fan of them , myself, but he's all about them!  IMO, he could probably benefit from branching out a bit.  That's quite alright, though; plenty of great stuff's to be found in that realm.  Hell, the reason I decided to finally properly get into Final Fantasy (through IV) was because of his showing off to me its awesome soundtrack! 

[Zantera]

Sounds like an interesting idea.

*Friend #1 - Who I would call my "best" friend. I've known him for almost 14 years, we met when I was just about 6-7 years old, so it's pretty cool to have known him for so long. He's pretty open to different kinds of music, but he mostly listens to hip-hop/rap and similar genres. A bit of Linkin Park and similar bands, P.O.D, Ill Nino, System of a Down and Disturbed (to name a few), but mostly he listens to rap music, and since I have no insight in that genre, I can't really namedrop.

*Friend #2 - Pretty awesome dude that I ran a music blog with a year ago. He listens to pretty much everything, and I would say he's the most open minded person I know. Lately he has been listening to tons of Post-Rock, but he also listens to a lot of "mainstream" stuff like Muse, Coldplay, to more "obscure" stuff like Agalloch for example. (not obscure, but in comparison to the other stuff) He also loves Blackfield and Aviv Geffen, though he is not so keen on Steven Wilson, even though I've tried getting him interested through various songs and projects. He also really loves Sigur Rós, another band I've gotten him into.

*Friend #3 - Another dude I've known for a couple of years now, met him back in.. '07 perhaps. He has a pretty wide taste, Porcupine Tree, Tool, Tori Amos, Pendulum and Pain of Salvation for example. He's not really into "weird" music, so I guess you could say that he's more into "safe" stuff. I've introduced him to SW's solostuff for example, but I don't think he enjoyed it too much, and anything weirder then that would probably be off limits too.
Interestingly enough, he's really not a HUGE musicfan, I can't really talk music with him because he doesn't really like it. He's kinda boring in that sense, he likes to listen to music, but has 0 passion for collecting/talking about it, which makes him a bit more dull in my eyes.