I don't think that I need to have the same tastes in music and art as my INT* but I do think the music/art thing is petty important in that link as both types tend to really like both of those things.
No samey-samey, but definitely in tune. I think my biggest issue is his inability to relate to ANYTHING that chimes with me unless he "makes" it okay with himself first.
I think it's more important to be able to appreciate each others tastes.... while I might not like everything they like I understand why they like it. I tend to have very broad taste when it comes to music. I can remember having an ongoing argument about music with an INTP.
I totally could appreciate his music and often enjoyed new music he'd send my way. He on the other hand would have negative things to say about my music. Eventually however it would always happen that he'd come round and wind up really liking (sometimes obsessing) on music that I'd loved forever. Believe it or not I never gloated
(No I really didn't
) Actually it was nice to have his approval on music that I liked (even if it took forever) because I really appreciated his opinion...even if I didn't always agree.
This experience isn't unique to me, I see. My INTP said something about big band music like I would have no clue about it (because HE didn't until recently) and I was like "Dude. I've been listening to big band music since I was a kid. Don't even TRY to school me."
As far as art is concerned I know what I like and I really like being exposed to new (old) and new (new) artists and forms of art. I like to be able to discuss it intelligently or even just having a person appreciate that it's not so much an intelletual like of some piece of art for me as it is a "heart" thing.
A heart thing is a perfect way of putting it. One of my favorite people to look at art with was an ISTP. He was SO abstract, existential, free-form. I looked at stuff I never would have on my own and I made him tighten up his definitions, get more from his experience other than what his eyes were telling him. I started to enjoy abstract art because of him (then again, he was a punk at heart too, so we had our core in the same place...)
I could be interested in what you like, not sure I could recipocate it. What do you like about Elvis or Vincent?
Reciprocation is NOT necessary for me. *shakes head* I realize not everything must be the same. That would be dull and phony at any rate. Differences are more than all right. HUGE divergences that strike horribly out of tune aren't okay though. Music is like humor -- it either draws a certain type of people to you or pushes them away.
I was raised in a Southern black "locked door" neighborhood, well below the poverty level, on government assistance, surrounded by violence, hating/loving alcoholic narcissistic bi-polar parents. I expected danger, bodily threat, illness, and constant explosions over money. My friends were from the same class, were self-medicaters, teen mothers, drug dealers, people who drank too much, drag-raced and carried loaded guns in their cars that they were known to use. I did my "growing up" in the 80s and 90s, pretty much forced to when I was too young to be carrying that load.
Irish was raised super-white, in the Midwest, no siblings, no threats other than a million brain-eating miles of corn fields and a power-tripping father. They had no money problems then. No physical illnesses. He had/still has grandparents he was/is close to. He doesn't relate to anyone or anything that isn't white. He had Peter Pan syndrome until recently. You might say he didn't grow up because he didn't have to. He's never had to rebel against anything, and he has no pride of place -- he said the entire state of Oklahoma is such a raggedy mess that it should be burnt down and started over. I get what he's saying, but even as bad off as NC has been, I relate so powerfully to being Carolinian, to being Southern, that I could never imagine wanting to destroy any of it.
I don't begrudge him good memories or a safe place. I begrudged his inability to relate to anyone else.
While we both LIKE some things in common, such as Clutch, Type O and White Zombie, everything else, and I do mean almost
literally everything else, is simply... NO. I like just about EVERYTHING and can appreciate music from any genre, but there are certain bands that rub my fur the wrong way, no matter how much I try to listen to them critically. It could be the music itself, the vibe, the off-putting vocals, you name it.
I'll use only one example of what I consider "un-listenable".
Evanescence.
I'd rather be trapped in an elevator with an angry squirrel.
Try as I might, I absolutely CANNOT tolerate the lead singer's voice. She sounds like she's straining air through a wadded up cheese cloth that happens to be permanently lodged in her throat. Everything she sings sounds the same. The notes change but it sounds as if she's singing the same note over and over (like Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks...). Plus, I find the music ridiculous. The lyrics, ridiculous. The tone, ridiculous. I like me some moody slinky dark vibes, but this? Manufactured maudlin drippy adolescent trash. It's safe to say that I cannot stand Evanescence and will never be able to "get" it.
[Sorry to anyone I may have just offended.]
When I told him this, Irish gasped and thought I had committed some hideous cardinal sin in such a confession.
He looks at Elvis like a velvet painting.
He tolerates the Clash.
He thinks u2 is "meh".
He hates anything that even vaguely smacks of country or Southern-ness.
He can't relate to "black" music AT ALL.
He waves off Billy Idol and David Bowie.
He's never heard of Gene Vincent.
He's "Echo and the Bunnywho?"
He said "At least my last name's not Cochran..."
Uh. Eddie Cochran.
No you didn't just diss my man, white-bread.
We can laugh about it because we're friends. The conversation never gets ugly and is actually funny because we lean back and point at each other and say "Freak! Freak!" But the dividing line is huge and very clearly demarcated, and I could never date someone like him. (No doubt he feels the same way about me.) I joked dryly, "With every word, I hear my good name ratcheting down in your esteem..." and he laughed, "No, you like what you like. It's alright." "BULL, you space alien," I blurted. He laughed again.
I was raised on big band, classical and my mother's 45s. Mom played the upright piano in the tiny spare room and was into church hymnal music, Johnny Mathis, Roberta Flack, the Chi-Lites, Martha and the Vandellas, the 5th Dimension, etc. Dad was into the Dire Straits, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Steppenwolf, etc. We listened to Motown or Grandma's big band 78s while we cleaned the house. We'd open the windows on our little dusty saggy house in the 'hood and Elvis would be blasting out into the yard.
Punk is lower class. Angry. Needy. Bucking wildly. Elevating and self-emolating. Has a history grounded in disenfranchised people. I related to all of this. I related to the drive. To the force. The change. The furious boil. The message. Barely getting by. Being in danger. Fighting to the last drop of blood for meager returns. Watching things fall apart and not being to do anything but kick a hole in a wall. Elvis, to me, in spite of the image built up around him, was a very real, very human, very poor Southern man that related to. He even had a twin. I would see Elvis and hear him sing and cry.
Same thing with Gene Vincent. Caterwauling pain. REAL pain. Not manufactured corporate drippy tripe. Gene was in physical pain constantly from injuries (one of which was sustained in a taxi accident in London that killed Eddie Cochran) and drank to control the pain.
Gene and Elvis and Billy Idol and Eddie Cochran and Johnny Cash et al were exactly like the boys I grew up with, the hard-living, genuine people who loved me and took care of me and enabled me to survive in a harsh unforgiving environment.
The music we listened to kept me sane and ALIVE. Irish doesn't understand that. His entire world when we were teenagers consisted of Alice in Chains, NIN and Nirvana (bands I don't mind). I remember thinking back then (when I didn't even like Nirvana), "What the heck entitles you to such angry music, Irish? What's been so bad about your nearly perfect life to merit this gothy emo atmosphere? Kurt Cobain can be angry and depressed if he wants -- he has anxiety problems and a stomach condition that makes his life unbearable." I felt back then that I understood the heart of his music -- music I didn't like much -- better than he did. He didn't take time to get close to it.
According to our music types, he pretty much disowns everything I am and everything I like. That's kinda sad. I'm everything he can't understand or tolerate. A male ISFJ friend of mine once said in exasperation: "The longer he knows you, Pink, the less he knows you. How is that possible."
I love nirvana! not sure what neo-metal is, I've heard of the corrs, but the doors? bearly rings a bell.
Nirvana was ground-breaking and I totally get the new sound of grunge that made it so big in the 90s. It really WAS new and different. Nirvana was actually intelligent music (if not intelligible, Kurt Mumblemouth! lol) and I continue to really dig Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters. I didn't like Nirvana back in the 90s because it was EVERYWHERE. Now that it's gone quiet, I can look at it and really appreciate it for what it was and what it still means to people.
I would guess that you don't like very aggressive or dark music.
I love nirvana, do you like them?
Actually, I'm quite morbid, really! hahaha!! Punk music, new wave, I love the Cure, etc.
