"What kind of music do you think you like?"
True or false: The music a person listens to reveals many truths about that
I spend a lot of my life attempting to avoid situations where people make small talk. As a rule, I generally don't enjoy conversing with anyone I haven't already spoken with on at least 120 previous occasions, which makes acquiring new friends difficult. But whenever I do find myself meeting a stranger for the first (or second or third) time, I'm struck by how often they ask me one specific question: "What kind of music do you like?" For many years, I did not know how to answer this. I experimented with a litany of abstract responses: "rock," "active rock," "hair metal," "disco metal," "girl metal," "everything," "nothing," or whatever I suspected the other person might not actively hate. But (I think) I've finally found a response that is both accurate and honest: Whenever someone asks me what kind of music I like, I say, "Music that sounds like the opening fourteen seconds of Humble Pie's 'I Don't Need No Doctor,' as performed live on their 1971 album Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore." Beyond being true, this reply also has the added bonus of significantly changing the conversation (or ending it entirely).
But I'm starting to suspect this seemingly innocuous inquiry (and my unnecessarily specific answer to this unspecific question) might be weirder and more complex than I originally assumed. When someone asks me what kind of music I like, he is (usually) attempting to use this information to deduce things about my personality; this is (usually) the same reason we casually ask people about what TV shows they watch or which NBA franchises they support or what political movements they align with. It's the normal way to understand who other people are. But here's the problem: This premise is founded on the belief that the person you're talking with consciously knows why he appreciates those specific things or harbors those specific feelings. It's also predicated on the principle that you know why you like certain sounds or certain images, because that self-awareness is how we establish the internal relationship between a) what someone loves and b) who someone is. But this process is complicated and (usually) unconsidered. It's incredibly easy for me to grasp that I love the first fourteen seconds of "I Don't Need No Doctor." A harder task is figuring out exactly why I feel that way.
But I've been trying.
The opening of "I Don't Need No Doctor" is performed by a twenty-one-year-old Peter Frampton on a modified 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom guitar with Picato guitar strings through a Marshall amplifier. After Frampton plays the first four bars, Humble Pie's bassist (Greg Ridley) hits one exaggerated note on which he rapidly slides his fingers down the neck of his instrument, and then Frampton plays the core riff another two times, this time doubled by Steve Marriott. I would describe the speed of the playing as "slightly faster than mid-tempo." I would describe the level of distortion as "faintly less than what one would expect from the live analog recording of a very loud song." I would describe the feel of the music as "stoned and woozy, but not to the detriment of technical proficiency."
These explicit elements, it would seem, are (or must be) the sonic qualities that I most like about music. But why is that? (1) Is it because of something Peter Frampton has personally achieved? Is it because those chords are simply the clearest, most aggressive amalgamation of early-seventies boogie rock? Does my relationship to this piece of music have something to do with my own specific life experience? Is it because of the random anatomical construction of my inner ear? Even if I'm having a purely visceral reaction—in other words, if the only real reason I love those fourteen seconds is because "they rock" (or whatever)—there still must be something about the musical introduction to "I Don't Need No Doctor" that triggers the (normally dormant) part of my brain that longs to be rocked. It's sort of the ultimate question about being alive: What makes us love things? Is it possible to know?
What I am searching for, I suppose, is a unified field theory that defines what I like about sound. As such, I have tried to compile all the best parts of all the rock songs I consistently enjoy the most, in the hope of figuring out whatever they have in common. My partial list is as follows:
• The acutely sleazy guitar lick Mick Mars plays behind the beat on Mötley Crüe's "Ten Seconds to Love," particularly from :30 to :44 on that track.
• The vocal sequence from Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" where she sings and talks to herself at the same time, which starts at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds into the song.
• Pretty much all the bass playing on "Paperback Writer" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko."
• The closing 1:02 of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top (if You Want To Rock and Roll)," when Angus Young's playing devolves into an inverted riff-o-rama in response to the bagpipes.
• Michael McDonald's backing vocals on Steely Dan's "Peg."
• Michael Anthony’s backing vocals on Van Halen's "Dance the Night Away."
• Several eight-second, stylized, repetitive clips inside ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'" (:24 to :32, as one example) and within multiple Pixies songs (such as 1:59 to 2:07 on "Gigantic," as another example).
• The last 3:57 of "Layla" (a.k.a. the piano part). Also, the last 2:47 of Guns N' Roses "Rocket Queen" (a.k.a. the sensitive, mid-period Queen part).
• The guitar solo near the end of Helmet's "In the Meantime" where it initially seems like Page Hamilton can't decide how fast he should play, but then he suddenly does (2:08 to 2:26).
• The manner in which Kate Bush sings, "Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy" on "Wuthering Heights."
• The moments in Belle and Sebastian's "I'm a Cuckoo" where they mimic Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town."
• The way the vocals are mic'd on the Pet Shop Boys cover of "Always on My Mind," which sound as if they were recorded in an abandoned Vatican City cathedral.
• Almost all the main power chords played by Tony Iommi from 1971 to 1983, most notably "Thrill of It All," about 17 seconds of "Hole in the Sky" (:25 to :42) and the hydroelectric bonesaw that emerges from the drum solo on "Supernaut."
• The combination (and separation) of all the instruments during the last 1:25 of R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming."
• The first 20 seconds of Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean," performed live, during the summer (or fall) of 1973.
• Karen Carpenter's repetition of the word baby at the end of "Superstar."
Viewed pragmatically, I don't see a great deal of aesthetic overlap with this material (although it appears my dream musical creation would be a white, semigay metal band that features soaring background vocals while battling anorexia). Moreover, the list's contents contradict the assertion of my original thesis: With the exception of Mötley Crüe and (possibly) Led Zeppelin, almost none of this music mirrors the introduction to "I Don't Need No Doctor." These songs' only unifying element is that I have written about them in this column; essentially, the sole unifying element is that I personally like them.
This is why I hate small talk.
When people at cocktail parties ask me what kind of music I like, I generally assume they don't care what my answer is. I assume we're both just killing time. But let's assume they do care: Even then, our conversation is doomed. I have been actively thinking about this question for nine consecutive days, and I've probably thought about it unconsciously for the last twenty years. I can isolate and answer this question more specifically than anyone I've ever met. Yet not only does my answer fail to reflect anything meaningful about my personality, it doesn't even reflect what I fundamentally like about music. Because I can't answer that question. Nobody can.
So here is my advice: The next time you have to talk to a stranger against your will, don't ask, "What kind of music do you like?" Instead, ask him, "What kind of music do you think you like?" This question may confuse him, and—depending on how you ask it—he may end up striking you. But at least the answer will be true. And as an added bonus, you'll probably get invited to fewer parties.
Footnote:
(1) Cognitive neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin has written a book about this titled This Is Your Brain on Music.
By Chuck Klosterman
