Everything You Need to Know About Someone is in the Music

First impressions count for a lot these days. Most peoples lasting impressions of you will be formed within the first five minutes of conversation. In some cases, how you come across to others in those five minutes can get you hired or fired, accepted of rejected, laughed with or laughed at. So what is the best way to find out what someone is like without asking them straight out blunt questions? Ask them what music they like listening to.

When I went to both the informal and the formal interview at my current workplace I was asked this question but I gave different answers based off the first reaction. The first time I was asked was at the informal interview to which I answered that I liked Alice Cooper, AC/DC and Guns 'N' Roses. From that answer I was instantly judged and not in the best way either. What I displayed was a small portion of my personality; the slightly aggressive and psychotic part of me which despite what most people think, is defiantly there. At the formal interview I said truthfully that I had, over the past ten years, progressed through music history. Starting from classical and organ, through jazz, prog rock and then eventually to harder metal based melodies. In fact at the moment of writing this I'm listening to In the End by Linkin Park. I like the simplicity to the melody and the depth of the emotionally powerful sections. But it showed the people that were asking a greater portion of my personalty and it's contrasts which subsequently worked in my favor. 

Now it's certainly not true that you can tell because a person like one particular band that they must be like that bands music in some aspect. For example, if I said I like Paramore (which I do), that could mean that I like the music, how it has a certain rhythm that I can connect to. It could be that I like the voice of the Lead Singer or the words that are sung or the overall atmosphere it creates. Also, when I say I like Paramore I might mean that I like the harder, more upbeat songs like Ignorance , or I the relaxing acoustics of Misguided Ghosts. There so many angles that you can come from with this but if the discussion gets into enough detail and includes many bands across the spectrum, you can start to build up a mind map of the music and see how they intertwine. That can all be done within a couple of minutes and by doing that you know more about the person that is presently with you than you otherwise would if you asked them a series of generic questions.


There you go, it's all in the music.