Music Questions Challenge

07 Feb, 2025

I saw Ava's take on the Music Questions Challenge recently, which was inspired by Taken Vault's post! I thought that it would be interesting to try to condense all my music interests into a blog post :)

Most of these are just what I can recall now and with some influence from looking at my Spotify Yearly Playlists as well as my Lastfm account that I've used since the pandemic.

I'm also experimenting with this cool new tool, Odesli that lets you share links/embeds to albums or songs that allow the person who clicks or views them to choose which medium to listen to or purchase them. You can customize individual album or song links to show/hide specific platforms, which is pretty cool I think! Quick note that it unfortunately doesn't work for artist pages, so I will be linking to their Bandcamps (if they have that) or their website, or Youtube channel.

the challenge!

1. What are five of your favorite albums?

   • 水逆 by Enno Cheng¹
   • Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
   • Marigold by Pinegrove
     • If you would like to see specific recommendations for this band, I shared a post here.
   • Folklore by Taylor Swift
   • After Laughter by Paramore

2. What are five of your favorite songs?

   • Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift
   • Don't Delete the Kisses by Wolf Alice
   • Say Yes by Elliott Smith
   • Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish
   • Size of the Moon by Pinegrove

3. Favorite instrument(s)?

   • Drums
   • Mandolin
   • Pedal steel

4. What song or album are you currently listening to?

   • Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish
     • I've been having a Billie Eilish kick for the past few weeks :0

5. Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?

   • Very rarely since most cars I have access to have Bluetooth connections. Occasionally, my dad does like to listen to his Mandarin stations.

6. How often do you listen to music?

   • Every day. It's my constant background as I go through some of the tasks for my job that don't require as much brain power to process. Sometimes, I listen to music as I get ready, and it is normal to have it playing when I'm waiting for trains and during the journey itself.

7. How often do you discover music? And how do you discover music?

   • Although I discover music frequently through the following, the staying power of most of my newly discovered music is dependent on how I enjoy it the first time I listen to it. So, although I might listen to new stuff fairly often, I don't actually add them to my rotation unless I really like the album or artist (sometimes a song or two do land in playlists though!).
     • RateYourMusic
       • This website and Reddit (specifically the r/Indieheads) subreddit) can be biased towards certain types of music. It seems certain popular artists or albums (especially within the pop genre) are not as liked.
     • Youtube: Professor Skye's Record Review
       • Skye has pretty interesting taste in music, and he adds personal commentary to all his reviews, which makes the reviews interesting, even if I don't particularly enjoy the albums he reviews sometimes! The channel started as a way for him to engage with newer music after years of only listening to the stuff that he already liked.
     • Spotify
       • I very rarely do this, but if I feel like listening to something new but I'm not in the mood to browse the other options listed, I like to look at the Discover Weekly section. Sometimes, there is some good stuff there, but I don't find the recommendations that accurate.
     • Bandcamp Lists or Recommendations
       • At the bottom of some artists' Bandcamp albums, you get to see some recommendations with a comment from someone else who purchased the recommended album!
     • At the end of the year, I like to look at their Best Of Lists and save the albums that are interesting to me so I can listen to them whenever I'm looking for a new album to discover.

8. What's a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?

   • Song: Pale Ale by Tiberius
   • Album: The Last Thing Left by Say Sue Me

9. What's your favorite song of all time?

• There are too many good songs, but my favorite is Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish. I think it's one of the best pop songs of last year.

10. Has your taste in music evolved over the years?

• I believe so! When I was younger (and used my PSP² as my primary MP3 device), I was listening to whatever was on the radio then: Imagine Dragons, Little Mix, Fifth Harmony, Sia, Taylor Swift, etc. and as I increasingly used the internet, I discovered smaller but still well-known in their niche: artists like Cavetown, mxmtoon, Conan Gray (before he boomed and was doing little indie tracks), and dodie. After that, during the pandemic, I discovered online communities like Reddit, RateYourMusic, YouTube, and recommendation lists from the likes of Bandcamp and some reposted on other community subreddits, which helped form my current tastes. I grew to use melancholic music like The National, Julien Baker, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens to cope with whatever I was experiencing during the movement control orders.

  Right now, as I'm using music less as a coping mechanism and more of something I enjoy engaging in, I find myself being more attracted to more upbeat/pop-ish music. The last year was an excellent year for pop, and I found myself listening to a lot of Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chapell Roan. I also rotate with some other artists that are outside of that genre, like: Fontaines D.C., Hurray for the Riff Raff, Elliott Smith, Hovvdy, and Bonny Light Horseman.

  I'm very much a mood listener, so nowadays, I just randomly listen to whatever I like, unless I'm in the discovery mood, in which case I'll listen to a random album I have added to a playlist with all the albums I've never listened to before.

Thanks for reading this post! I found this fun to write, as always, with these types of challenges. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any thoughts at all :)

I'm tagging Dabi! I would love to see more posts for this challenge on the recent page, so, if you weren't tagged by anyone - I'm also tagging you!

[18/100] for #100DaysToOffload

#100DaysToOffload #music