Stop Gatekeeping Music
Those of us who are really into music may find it plays a role in our sense of identity. People often get offended if you don't like their favourite band and will judge you instantly based on the type of music you like or dislike.
I'm certainly guilty of this. With some music, it can feel like any disagreement from someone about something I hold so strongly is nothing less than a personal attack. I mean, how can someone so glibly exclaim something I find to be achingly beautiful "lame" or "stupid" or "noisy" or anything other than literally awesome, in the same sense as the vibration of the cosmos?
With other music, we proudly exclude others, making us feel like we're in on something that common people just don't have access to. An exclusive club of elite music listeners! You wouldn't understand.
Then there's that thing people do where they say, "I like anything but country", or rap, or whatever, as if they've listened to the entirety of the genre and have concluded intrinsically that not one thing is good.
There's no such thing a guilty pleasure in music. If you like it, it's just pleasure. If you feel guilty about it, it's because someone has convinced you that you're not allowed to like it.
That sucks.
Our biases may instantly convince someone that an artist or whole genre is not even worth trying, and that's just silly.
I'm a voracious music listener. The vastness of the universe is where I store the sounds I've heard. There's nothing but room for more. I try very hard not to exclude anything from my potential listening palette. Sure, I'm not generally an opera fan, but there are some pieces that can reduce me to tears. I don't care for much of what I hear on pop radio, but there are always a handful of tunes that are too fun to ignore.
Of course not every piece of music works for every person or every situation at all times. It's not always appropriate for a symphony concert to break into death metal and I get that (FYI, I would absolutely be at that concert). And some things truly do just sound bad to some listeners.
I just think we could spend a little more time sharing and respecting music and less time judging people and keeping them from finding something that resonates with them.