I used to have a much stronger relationship with my music taste. My taste in music used to mean so much to me and was a big part of my identity in high school. I mostly listened to emo, rock, alternative, bla bla in my formative years. I used to rip and burn all my friends CD’s and go to concerts. I took pride in being a snob haha. Music was such a big part of my life, I had played classical piano for years, violin in my high school orchestra, and even picked up guitar for a bit. Here I am playing a song at my senior recital.
It got too exhausting trying to keep up with all the more informed music-people so these days I’m a really casual listener, maybe even too casual. I’ve lost track of my own tastes and preferences. I’ll basically listen to whatever Spotify tells me I like.
Voice of the past
Usually I prefer music played by a band with traditional instruments, a lot of like indie, folk, and R&B, but I started to think a bit about my relationship with electronic music. I listened to some albums that I still really like that have some electronic components and tried to identify what I liked about them. Here are some era’s of past-Priyanka music taste:
Height of 2012 indie hipster cringe core
It wasn’t cringe at the time, but I sometimes do looking back on what I loved. Cringe isn’t always bad, I think it’s something to lean into! Listening to this music made me into the person I am today. We’re talking Washed Out, Passion Pit, The Postal Service, Crystal Castles, Grimes, MGMT, Kishi Bashi …
One of my favorite albums from that era is Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective.
What I like about it: floaty, mushy, reverb, airy, sparkly, punchy, vocals, what’s he saying?!, kinda feels like you’re outside, daylight, rhythm
80’s alternative synth pop? art pop? dream pop?
Think Talking Heads, Kate Bush, and Cocteau Twins. Honestly, I’m so music illiterate, I’m not really sure if these truly fall under this genre. I feel like I can hear electronic components in this music sometimes, but are they even using any synths? Maybe!
Brotherhood by New Order
What I like about it: dark, crisp, fast, dynamic, sharp, moody, gloomy, whiny
90s House: World Clique, Deee-Lite
I guess I don’t really listen to any other 90s house but I had a phase where I listened to this album a lot.
What I like about it: punchy, beat, bass line, simple lyrics, simple melody, dance, fast, fun, repetitive, catchy, funky, organ, hard yet moments of softness, samples
<3 Mort Garson’s Plantasia <3
Real analog synth, right?! His artist profile pic on Spotify shows him sitting in front of one, so it better be!
What I like about it: whimsical, magical, can visualize a plant growing, triumphant, melodic, rhythmic, charming, uplifting, can focus on other things while listening but interesting enough to focus on the music as well
Makin my own electronic music
I also just remembered that I took a music technology class in my undergrad. We learned to work with DAW’s like Logic Pro and Ableton and I think I even messed around with the SuperCollider programming language. I uploaded some of my weird experiments to this SoundCloud profile.