Music: What I Listen To...An Unscientific Sampling

The question was recently posed to me: "So, Phil, what kind of music do you listen to?"


After a brief pause I said, "A little bit of everything." This comment received a weird look, followed by a "That's so cliché."


And I'm like, Wow, that's a little harsh. Anybody who knows me reasonably well has heard me quote lyrics from pretty much every genre of music. I have no radio stations programmed in my car, opting instead to change the radio knob until I find a song I like (perhaps bad news for other motorists, but it's always been how I roll).


But this did get me thinking. Shortly after this conversation took place, I had a day where I had to do a lot of driving (more on that in a future blog). And I decided that one way I could occupy my mind during the long drive was by keeping tally of what songs I listened to by format.


This, of course, is an inexact science. Some artists have crossed over from one genre to another. A few years ago you could only hear Imagine Dragons on modern rock stations but nowadays they're a pretty common staple on adult contemporary/pop stations. By definition anything that's an "oldie," at some point, fell into another genre. Taylor Swift used to be country and now she's pop; Darius Rucker used to be pop and now he's country. Some artists don't like to be categorized, period.


But, for better or worse, here are the results (drumroll, please):


Modern rock: 15 songs
Pop/adult contemporary: 12
Classic rock: 10
Hip-hop/R&B: 10
Country: 9
Oldies: 4
Classical: 1 (I lucked out on this day and heard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries".)


Also, I listened to four segments of Sports Talk Radio (this car trip took place during all the craziness involving Super Bowl XLIX, which was pretty tough to ignore).


I'd say that's more or less a pretty balanced sampling. For whatever reason, radio stations seem to cluster all of songs I like (particularly in hip-hop and country) at once, so if I did this on any other day you could probably flip-flop any of the top 5 genres above in any order. And, bearing that out, on this day I heard two of my favorite modern rock songs,  "SAIL" and "Do I Wanna Know" multiple times, which ma\y have edged modern rock into the top spot.


So, Person Who Wanted To Know What I Listen To, here is your definitive answer...sort of.