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Does environment affect music taste?
I have been in Southern California for about a month. It is a sea change from Brooklyn, where I spent the past year. I live near the beach, in no danger of getting robbed, knifed, or otherwise menaced by neighbors. It is quiet, sunny, and rather un-metal here.
As a result, my music tastes have shifted. Black metal has no place here. I don’t feel cold, grim, or kvlt. In fact, I often feel relaxed. (This is a novel feeling for the New Yorker in me). I find myself listening to slower and slower music. For the first time ever, I am voluntarily listening to doom metal. Stoner metal is starting to make sense to me. I never thought this would happen.
Perhaps it’s simplistic or wrong to correlate environment with taste. People listen to all kinds of music everywhere. Recordings enable one to experience sound far away, in distance and time, from its origins. Other technology enhances this displacement. The Internet delivers information from anywhere in the world. Headphones help override our environment with this information. We can imagine ourselves in Norway’s forests, New York’s concrete jungle, or Lita Ford’s boudoir. Well, hopefully not the latter.
The reach of recorded music yields fun juxtapositions. Deep in the ghetto of some American city (Baltimore, perhaps), I saw a resident wearing a Fleetwood Mac shirt. At a recent metal show in Los Angeles, I saw someone wearing a Burzum shirt and flip-flops. That’s the logical equivalent of wearing a Jack Johnson (the musician, not the boxer) shirt and combat boots. It does not compute.
Maybe I am just simple and sensitive. Put me in slower surroundings, and my tastes slow down. Others are undoubtedly more resolute. They will listen to their metal of choice wherever and whenever. Walk the dog: grim black metal. Water the plants: grim black metal. Seduce the wife: grim black metal. Tombstone epitaph: “Husband, father, grim and frostbitten.”
I don't think your theory is simplistic or wrong at all; I buy into it wholeheartedly, in fact. I've been living in New England for over eight years now and am moving to North Carolina next month. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit apprehensive about my metal tastes changing a little with the new environment. Bands like Immortal, Agalloch, Enslaved, et al ("winter" metal) will have a much shorter window of exposure to my ears.
Naturally, I have a few friends who think it's a bit ridiculous, but to me, few experiences reach heights of absurdity like listening to, say, Drudkh, in 85-degree weather.
I guess I should try again for the umpteenth time to like stoner metal.
Though I have always lived on the East Coast save for a short stretch in L.A. in the summer of 1990, I have definitely noticed my tastes shifting with the seasons over the years. In the summer months, I have a lot more time for reggae, dub and African guitar music from the '70s (the Nigeria Special and Ghana Soundz compilations, for example). On rainy days I listen to doom or blues. In the fall and winter, I'm all about thrash and tech-death.
I want that on my tombstone! Although maybe not the husband, father bit.
I have actually felt a little identified with this. I live in Bilbao, we have mild climate but there are lots of gray and rainy days. I love dark and atmosferic music, let's say winter metal as floodwatch said. I listen to this kind of music on a daily.
I don't know if the environment has an effect on that. I never thought about it. But in June I was on a 12 days holidays in Turkey and I didn't felt like listening to my usual stuff in all that time. It felt strange but not bad at all…
There's definitly truth to what you say. I will say that Joy Division never makes more sense than when you're listening to them at 1AM. They just aren't a band that goes well with daylight.
Interesting post. Everything you said makes sense and I think it would apply to many people.
This post is relevant for me at the moment because prior to this month, I'd only lived in small towns in eastern Canada (a town of 35 000 for most of my life, and a couple years in a town of 5000). Now, I'm living in Seoul, South Korea, the second largest metropolitan area in the world according to Wikipedia. However, I tend to have my hands into so many separate strains of metal at once that I can't ever really say whether my main focus has shifted.
I do notice slight changes on a seasonal basis, but I attribute that more to nostalgically re-experiencing certain albums according the time of year of which they remind me. It doesn't seem to affect what new music I seek out.
Something somewhat similar that might be fun to look at is to what extent Socioeconomic status predicts musical preferences.
I tend to think that fashionable "scenecore" (as I'll call it here) is more appealing to kids of higher SES, because they see pricey clothes and expensive sleeve tattoos, usually coupled with slick production. It's easier to identify with when you've got the money to be the same way.
On the other hand, I think grittier stuff like crust punk, grindcore, or even stuff like Slayer and Pantera is more likely to connect with kids from a lower SES bracket.
- Craig
I used to wear flip flops to Empty Bottle shows because I used to live 2 blocks away from there for 3 years. I didn't worry about my toes being crushed since the Bottle caters to a mostly hipster (ie; stand and cross your arms) kind of crowd. That venue even used to have a cat. His name was Radley. He loved to cuddle up with random people hanging out in the front lounge area. I just love the overall relaxed vibe of that venue because it starkly contrasts with the otherwise hectic pace of an industrial city like Chicago.
As far as my preferred tastes go and how they related to seasons, I do notice that I listen to more black metal and doom metal during the cold months while summers usually mean more sludge, powerviolence and grind for me. I think cabin fever is somewhat related to that. If it's snowing outside, it's fun to walk my dog while Enslaved or Tyr is playing on my iPod. We would sometimes go out for walks that last the entire length of the album. It gives the mundane task of dog walking a more epic and Viking feel. When it gets cold in Chicago, it really gets cold. Colder weather means more indoor shows in swelteringly hot venues. It also means drinking more fuller bodied beer and whiskey. That helps me cope with the brutal winter months. I think I've watched the "True Norwegian Black Metal" documentary on VBS.tv more than 20 times last winter alone. Summer means more fun with fests like Dude Fest and Maryland Death Fest. And lighter bodied beer like Belgian whites. You go outside more and you get to enjoy the sunshine. We appreciate the fact that we have seasons here though. It gives more variety to living…and whatever mood we are in for music.
I rock metal shirts and flip flops all the time. I'm comfortable, and kvlt.
i didn't get into black metal until i moved to alaska.
Come on, Cosmo. There's nothing more metal than that venue, and Urgehal fucking destroyed the place.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA hey, you might even find yourself listening to the likes jesu/godflesh on long night drives and pig destroyer as you stroll the streets.
I lived in Portland, Oregon for close to three years and every winter the black metal flowed freely. I had a hard time listening to anything else.
Still, I live back in San Francisco now and yes, I still play black metal almost too frequently. Life has ups and downs regardless of weather, plus BM just works for me. I like to think while my work mates listen to Kayne and Dave Matthews I am doing my metal duty by meeting deadlines with Altar Of Plagues in the headphones.
"I wear black (metal) on the outside
I've lived on the west coast all my life (current home now: Portland) and I must agree that environs dictates tastes; the farther north I moved, the bleaker and tougher the music became. Metal music especially–I can think of very few other musical strains where this is so, besides gritty urban hip hop. It's no wonder at all that Black Sabbath was born in the wastelands of Birmingham U.K or Bathory in frigid Sweden. Of course there are exceptions (Slayer was from sunny SoCal) and metal music is enjoyed all over the world now, thanks in part to the internet. Cultural differences aside, the more virulent the weather can be, the more virulent the strain of music is probably a good rule of thumb.
P.S. Since you're now closer to the desert, Cosmo, take a trip out there and play Kyuss' 'Sky Valley' or 'Blues from the red sun' and it will make sense.
Thanks for the great post.
Godflesh goes with long night drives quite well actually.
So interesting. I think one of the main reasons I started listening to and loving Wino and all of his bands–and therefore loving doom metal–was because I moved to DC, very close to his weird occult nexus of power.
I am simple and sensitive enough to where this affects me seasonally–metal just SOUNDS better to me in the Winter..though of course there are many many exceptions to this, almost on a daily basis. But what you are describing is very real, I think. While walking home from my job late at night in the bitter cold, I literally use Reign In Blood to keep me warm. And it works. So there is something there.
Then again, my musical moods have proven to be so unpredictable that trying to draw correlations usually becomes protracted and boring really fast.
And I love the odd juxtapositions so much.
My wife is extremely affected by the shifts in season. She is not happy at all in the winter. If she were in to metal, she'd probably be listening to Shining all winter.
My mood is not very affected by the weather, since I'm very "indorsy". In fact, I revere music so much that I generally depend on it to set my mood. Music, like stories, takes me to a different place. I guess that means I live a pretty artificial existence.
i am assuming your were at the Gathering of the Bestial Legions? you have to make your way over to the Black Castle one day, now that venue is Metal.
Are you bald by the way? I saw plenty more orientals than normal and assuming by Cosmo Lee, you are asian.
Also, there's always Black Metal Gardening.
Flip-flops + Burzum = true ?
black Crocs + Gorgoroth = false ?
"laceless" Converse + Antaeus = the return of the Imperium ?
LOL Lita Ford comment.
Funny. I realized today I was listening to more Doom b/c it was "fall" here in Austin.
Of course, my favorite wintery pastime being wearing pink bunny slippers while making apple pies trying to keep the house warm- while listening to Darkthrone. Kvlt!
It's definitely true that environments mould your perception or, more precicely in this context, what music you feel like listening to. Although it does not always need to be a geographical move that alters ones taste in metal. I "moved" from a relaxed agency into the grim and frostbitten reality of the big-league corporate world and my taste in music has since become more and more extreme.
While I always loved Nile, Behemoth and the like, I now find myself listening to Black Metal and other forms of more extreme Metal more than ever.
Hmm … maybe it does have something to do with wearing a suit almost every day of the week that almost completely purged my iPod of tamer music …
Great post though and even the comments are fun and inspiring to read. I really can't think of a lot of sites where that would hold true as well.
Craig – I'd buy your SES theory without needing numerical data. I would say, however, that slick production is universally appealing in the same way that sugary foods are.
bacon – Chicago is hectic? I guess coming from New York, I'd find pretty much anywhere else laidback.
Anon – That desert trip with desert jams is certainly in the works.
Danny – Yes, out of the Asian guys with shaved heads and glasses there, I was the one with the backpack. Evidently no one else in LA wears a backpack.
blank – Thanks for the kind words. I wonder how many others in the corporate world have tastes to match their aggression.
It is difficult reconciling black metal with flip flops and beach cruisers fo sho! This totally explains why I have been obsessed w/ doom/stoner metal since I moved to Manhattan Beach though. I have been buying hordes of doom/stoner vinyl. Goes great w/ bbq.
Yuck, people are supposed to have looks over there? Welcome to California, we up the douche quotient but at least no one gives a shit about anyone!
Unless you're in LA, if so, then sorry buddy!
Cosmo,
as far as comparable tastes in music I seem to be quite alone in my company, at least as far as I know. But then again it is quite a large company and I guess hardly anyone would guess my taste in music without asking.
But I guess it doesn't matter where you work or what you do, everyone needs some kind of release to vent aggression/frustration or whatever. Be it extreme metal, video games, sports, etc. So maybe there is a correlation in pretty much everything we do in any given environment.
It is probably really no surprise that Black Metal originated in Norway and not in SoCal or Chile.
But I sure as hell finding myself relaxing like a shy bald buddhist (to quote Morrissey for the second time in this thread – hi Chris!) listening to CELESTE, DEP, Mayhem, etc on my subway ride home, while most Pop music would cause me to plan mass murder …
blank – American Psycho comes to mind. Not to suggest that you're anything like the main character!
I'm glad you're warming up with some doom and that you're relaxing well in sunny California.
Cosmo
I'm interested to know what doom you've listened to which got you into it. Could we get a short list?
Cosmo – true. And having to listen to Phil Collins or the others that Brett Easton Ellis devoted whole chapters to would almost definitely turn me into a raging Patrick Bateman. Or maybe Bruce Banner or a Gremlin, you never know …
Miska – If you mean what doom I have been listening to recently, Ahab, Culted, and the recent Overmars reissue have been doing it for me. On the sludgy tip, I've been enjoying a band from SF called Flood. On the drony side, I've been digging the latest Nadja/Black Boned Angel collaboration on 20 Buck Spin. And as for straight-up drone, I like the M.G.R. y Destructo Swarmbots record on Neurot.
I'll have to check out the Nadja collab. Didn't even know that was out! They're great and actually calm me down on stressful days.
Ahab's Call of the Wretched Sea was one of my first doom albums (yeah, I just barely got into doom a couple of years ago.) It's quite good. I'm not done with it yet because it takes forever to absorb. Maybe I'll get the new one next year. Never heard of Culted, Overmars, Flood or M.G.R. Black Boned Angel has been one of my favorite alternatives to Sunn O))) and I like Nadja. I think I'll pick that one up.
One recommendation: Voices of Omens by Rwake.
I'd like to post a link to my blog, whose latest (and first) post talks about it…
http://www.eniaksolution.com/alex
I'd really like you to comment on this! Thank you!
PS: i suggest you to follow it, as it's gonna be developed a lot and it's gonna talk about metal as well..
fall and winter means its time for some dooooom and grim black metal
it certainly makes sense that to some degree your location is going to dictate your desire to decorate it. especially if you're in the habit of soundtracking your environment (headphones to drown out the subway/train/walk to the store/etc) and tend to get sucked into whatever musical narrative is playing. no wave just makes more sense in the context of a shitty, heroin-filled early 80s new york, for example, just like the shiny cocaine gloss of the early 2000s illustrates (but does not excuse) electroclash in brooklyn.
along those lines the wacky winter landscape of the scandinavian countries goes a long way in explaining how the equation of "relative comfort = wacky dress-up" balances.