Musical Eclectisism for Elitists

"I have a broad taste in music. aka I listen to everything." versus "I only listen to trance."

Don't you think that the person who listens to everything is more open minded? Maybe you can identify with them on some artist that you both like. For some counterintuitive reason, the perception of those who listen to anything is that of an elitist. Weird, huh? Consider that the person who specializes in only one (sub)genre of music can know much more about it than the casual listener of everything. Also that specialist probably selects their music because it is the best kind of music.

I am one of those "listen to everything" people, within limits. Some music has a time limit. For instance, when I first started listening to rap and techno, I couldn't stand either of them for longer than an hour at a time. I realized that even though I listen to "rap, hip-hop, country, classical, jazz, reggae(tón), flamenco, 'latino' music, rock & roll, punk rock, indigenous, ska, pop (well, at least a little bit...FOW are really popPY), folk, techno"...they're all really the same. I'm not sure how to explain it being without much of a music education, but they seem to all do the same thing. There are a few bands that seem a little different...Rasputina, Sigur Rós, Björk, (can't think of many others right now), but they're only a little different. Maybe it's something to do with an inherent quality of music that I don't know about (Paula tells me something about eastern v. western music produces this kind of effect).
I also realize that I don't listen to much "world, oldies, a capella, show tunes, heavy metal, grunge, eastern music (see above), blues, bluegrass, *other types of music that I don't even know exist*."

I've noticed that instead of the musical specialists looking down on the "everything listeners," it's the other way around. I don't look down on single-genre-listeners for their musical practices. I simply wonder how they can stand it. Sometimes I want to hear the light voice of Sarah Brightman or Norah Jones while other times I want to feel the energy of Millencolin or System of a Down. At times it's the rythm of the horns that gets my feet tapping while other times it's the violin popping out of an orchestra that makes my heart race. Sometimes I yell "SHUT UP" at the computer or CD player and skip to the next song or album because something just triggered a switch and I can't listen to the current thing anymore.

I'm always looking for more good, new (to me) music no matter what the style. If you have suggestions, please pass them my way. I must warn you that it might take me a while to listen to/get in to the music you throw my way. Thank you to the HC Spanish-speakers for helping build my library of Spanish-language music; to Stephanie for all kinds of awesome new stuff, random friends for sporadic suggestions, TBW for all the poppy stuff, Abercrombie Zach for a freshman year music raid, and everyone who uploaded stuff to me while I was on the network.