Your music = your life

White Trash Satan's recent blog post about goth music got me thinking: to what extent does the music you listen to define who you are as a person? I've always thought that you can tell a lot about a person by scrolling through their iPod and thumbing through their CD wallet.
I think first of all, a person's favorite genre has something to do with their geographic location and cultural background. It's completely wrong to generalize something like "all black people listen to hip hop", but there's some element of truth in your physical and cultural surroundings having an influence on your style of music. A lot of people who live in the midwest listen to country, in larger cities to techno/electronica (because of the rave scene), in inner city areas to hip hop and rap. That's not a stereotype...it's about the contents of the lyrics and what you can relate to. A lot of the country I've heard has to do with dogs, pickup trucks, guns, and guitars - I'm sure a hell of a number of midwest farmers can relate to that. (Good) Hip hop and rap speak about the more difficult things in life: growing up in a bad area or with a non-ideal family situation, and the personal conflicts that come with that. Slug, from Atmosphere, raps about his struggles growing up in Minneapolis: women, cops, weapons, and everything in between.

However, I think the music you listen to does NOT necessarily reflect your values. I find that the lyrics of my favorite music are a vital part of WHY I treasure the song...but for other music, I just like the beat and the feel - what the artist is saying is not all that important.
Instead, I think the music that a person listens to is one of the best indications of their emotional temperament. Goths tend to revel in negativity - those thoughts, emotions, and concepts that are dark and typically considered taboo or freaky by mainstream American culture. Rockers/industrializers/metalheads edge on the angrier side of the musical perspective - not as intense and morbid as goths, but just tend to have more of a rebellious "fuck you" attitude towards life. Fans of rap, R&B, hip hop, and reggae range from 'hardcore gangstas' to laid-back, 'go with the flow', chill types. People who enjoy jazz and classical appreciate the intellectual aspects of music: the technical details that give the sounds their meaning and effect. Then there's the music that's difficult to categorize: techno/electronica/dance, indie, 'alternative' (whatever that means), funk, pop (which I don't even consider a musical art form but feel like I have to include for the sake of completion), folk, acoustic, ska.....These categories comprise much of the vastly wide range of sounds that help make the term "music" so diverse. They're difficult to pin down as evoking one specific emotion or feeling.
Of course, everyone listens to different types of music depending on what moods they're in. I can't tell you who you are as a person because you listen to hip hop... But I can guess certain aspects of your personality and temperament. The music that means the most to you reflects the beliefs you hold dearest to you in life. Disclosing what music you listen to, your favorite songs, and why, is probably one of the most personal things you can reveal about yourself. Your past, what's happening in your present, and things you dream of in your future are all intensely intimate pieces of why you find that song moving or that band important. "Our music" is not just something that we fill our ears and occupy our mind with when we're bored. "Our music" exposes our most secret emotions, beliefs, hidden sides of our personalities, and ideals. "Our music" defines who we are for all the world to see....if it looks closely.