iTunes, iPods and iPersonalities

You are what you listen to. Classical = arrogant snob. Heavy metal = angry. Pop = simple minded. Punk = emo.

There are so many stereotypes that come part and parcel with the music you listen to, made even more apparent with sites like Top five music fan stereotypes. As Levy (2006, 25) said, “When I was in high school in the 1960s, you were labelled by whether you listened to Motown or the irreverent noises of Dylan, Hendrix, and the Lovin’ Spoonful. Since we didn’t have iPods, we tipped our tastes by clothing: the Motown crowd wore highboy collars and the folk-rock “dirties” wore T-shirts and jeans.”

Like Jacob, I have a wide variety of songs and genres in my music library. With my electronic music library consisting of over 13000 songs my collection is quite sizable. With the shuffle feature in use I can go from listening to Calvin Harris to ABBA to Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I struggle to put myself into any one specific stereotype or single out specific personality traits that accompany the music I listen to, but I have identified with all at some stage. While I have no hesitation listening to my music alone, I always wait for the judgement or surprise that comes when people are looking through my playlist.

Levy summed it up nicely when saying, “playlist is character.” (2006, 41) The music you listen to can say many things about you. It can represent your personality, your past experiences, your culture and so many other aspects of you. There is no point being embarrassed about the music in your music library when people are able to easily access it with the browsing technology available. Your music is a part of you, even that Celine Dion. We need to allow our iPod’s to be a “rich personal narrative, navigated by click wheel.”

Levy, S. (2006). The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 21-41

Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2007). The content and validity of music-genre stereotypes among college students. Psychology of Music , 35, 306-326