How much do you think you can tell about a person just by looking at their collection of music?

My music tastes are pretty eclectic.

Pretty much is me.

And, what @deni says.

One thing for sure, their collection of music will tell you what type of music they like. i am an old rocker and my music collection will verify this. john

I don’t really think you can tell things about people based on their music. My music varies from classical, through to rock, through to electro-house. It doesn’t really say much about me as a person besides the fact that I like a wide variety of music.

i think folk and less known music say a lot about a person, as does having whole cd’s rather than just one popular song by every artist. i dont think there are any certain single songs that could throw an entire collection off. i have a lot of weird stuff. i have a shit ton of Raffi because he’s the bomb. I used to look down on people who liked Lady Gaga I will now unfortunately admit that I like a few of her songs. eek. I have a ton of Christmas music that I listen to year round. CHristmas music is FUN AND SO AM I!!!!!!!

SO I wouldn’t say that any single song can throw off how I look at a person, I just think it makes em more interesting.

ps @ChazMaz i dont luv you anymore, i flat out LOVE you. l. o. v. e. L is for the way you look…at me….

I like if someone has various genres, it shows that they know how to expand their horizons are more tolerant and open minded.

@Blackberry that too! one genre kind of makes me think they might be sort of narrow minded. bbbbbboooooooooooooooring.

If you had access to all of their music, not just the stuff that they present to the world, I feel like you could get a pretty accurate picture of most people. By looking at their genre choices, you could probably guess at their political leanings (If they’re a big Toby Keith fan, you could assume a more conservative stance). Looking at the age of the music could probably give you a vague estimate of their age (My father has a ton of moody blues albums on vinyl; ergo, he came of age in the seventies). Also, looking at what medium they use for their music says a lot about people. If everything is on Itunes or Limewire and they have no hard copies of anything, they’re probably sub-25.

A single song shouldn’t throw off the analysis, but if they have a secret cash of Englebert Humperdink, you should probably back away slowly~.

I have everything from MotorHead to the Monkees in my music collection. I’m not real sure WHAT that says about me….

Or anyone that has KoxBox in their library could propose to me and i’d say yes

Not a lot. I like almost every kind of music. I LOVE MUSIC! Country, Rock, Jazz, Blue Grass…........Pretty much all music.

You would get mightily confused if you tried to characterize me using my music collection as an index.

@deni – Go fly a kite.

@ChazMaz WHAT DID I DO?

@deni – That is a KoxBox song.

Was hoping you would get it. ;-)

I have a little bit of everything. I’m all over the place when it comes to music. It’s not so much about the genre of music; for me, it’s the song/particular piece of music.

I guess what you can get out of all of this, is that you can’t plop me into one category, folks. “Don’t fence me in..”.

@ChazMaz oooo shit! i dont know most of the names of their songs. i’m bad with names but boy do i enjoy me sum koxbox :D :D :D

@deni O.. is for the only ONE I see…

loving this question!! i think i can tell a lot!! as much as in whether i would get on with them lols, im a music maniac, but its gotta be good stuff! :)

Not much.

I have a friend, and we joke that he is the “whitest person ever”, because he is. But his whole collection of music is old school rap.

I must confess that my collection of Original Cast Albums might drop a clue that I am gay. It also might suggest that I was in my younger days, an actor.

I think that in my case you could get it just about right. A huge collection of classical ranging from Gregorian chant to Bartok, complete collection of Moody Blues and Enya and a moderate assortment of “space music”. That’s right, I’m an intellectual nerd who doesn’t care about current trends.

I think books are more telling than music.

I agree with @aprilsimnel – books are where it’s at.

I guess you could tell the kind of people they hang out with and what their views are on popular culture. I myself prefer music from the olden days as in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. There is some new stuff that I like but I hate rap. You could tell that I would have been a hippie if I lived through the 60s.

I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about anyone by their music collection.

I think you can a lot about a person by their music library. In my dorm a lot of people enable others to view and listen to their library through iTunes. I can usually get a feel for what the person’s personality is by looking at their library. Your tastes tell a lot about you, if you say music doesn’t reflect the personality of a person, I don’t know what does.

About as much as you can tell by looking at their front lawn, or their collection of books, or their other possessions, I suppose. Which is to say: Not a whole lot with any kind of reliability. Unless they’re relatively simple folk, like a lot of college students.

Let’s see. If someone found these songs listened in one collection, they’d probably think I was very odd:

1. Marche pour la ceremonie des Turcs – Jean-Baptiste Lully
2. Momo no Hanabira – Ai Otsuka
3. Bumble Bee – Bambee
4. Party in the U.S.A. – Miley Cyrus
5. It Sucks to Me – Avenue Q
6. Book of Days – Enya
7. Dice of Life – Andre Nickatina

Honestly, I don’t think there’s any kind of coherent theme to that music and I doubt you can tell much from it. The only thing I can tell from a person’s music collection is what type of music they like most based on how much from each genre or band they have. Other than that, I don’t think you can tell much of anything.

I don’t believe that you’d know too much about me . I enjoy everything from classic rock to Alternative to hard Rock to Opera and Operaetta to Blues and Jazz… Country/Southern Gospel , Bluegrass, Country, Techno, Alternative and lots of stuff in between…..

I generally try to keep My life Private and personal… let out Basics but no real details….

Quite a bit, I think.

My psychology instructor laughed, I will go with what I told him, nothing

I think that sometime you can tell quite a bit, and at other times it’s hard to tell much at all…

It depends on the age of the person. If someone my age or close has the tunes I enjoyed at the time they are cool. If they have a bunch of bubble gum stuff, I figure they are pretty straight. I appreciate it when someone knows my old favorites and can keep up with me on guessing titles and groups of the 60’s and 70’s. I feel a kinship with others that have my taste in music. Hard to explain really.

Don’t think books can tell you more than music. I got all sort of books and i read them all [ over 2k books ] and I own a lot of discs [ 500+ ]
If one can try figuring me out i’ll let him ^^