opinions on popular music?

[chopincat]

I keep encountering this stereotype that people either like classical music or popular music but never both. I know this definitely isn't true for me - I love lots of different music! How do you the rest of you guys feel about popular music? (By popular music I don't mean the top 40 crap, but rather anything from rock to rap to folk to r&b etc. I'm not sure about jazz though, it could be considered popular but it could also be considered a category of its own).

[cwjalex]

i enjoy all types of music.  the only kind of music that i'm not a fan of is modern country, which is really closer to pop.  what i listen to depends on my mood and environment.  when i work out in the gym i tend to listen to hard rock/metal.  when i listen to the radio i tend to gravitate toward alternative/rock but sometimes i listen to rap as well.  lately on the guitar i've been playing a lot of blues/jazzy stuff.  on piano i play mostly classical but i do play other stuff.  for christmas my sister got me some elton john sheet music which is fun to play through. 

[thalbergmad]

I keep encountering this stereotype that people either like classical music or popular music but never both. I know this definitely isn't true for me.

Nor me, or a large percentage of people here i would have thought.

I was bought up in a house full of music, but not classical. That came to me later when i started piano lessons.

To have a rounded experience of music i would have thought essential for any aspiring musician. At the moment i am well into gypsy jazz.

Thal

[indianajo]

I like selections from nearly every genre.  I found pop music on the radio age six a couple of years after my Mother bought me classical LP's with little stories- age three.  Mother always listened to the AM radio while working, which had the early fifties pop classics on it between commercials.  
While I was trained classically on piano to read notes, and discouraged from learning to play by ear by my teacher, I've rebelled and am trying to teach myself how to do that.  My classical pieces are making much more progress, but pop pieces are so much easier on the thumb tendon.  The teacher is in the nursing home now, I no longer have to follow her program.  
I mostly listen to classical FM radio, WUOL ,  but when they do too many Mozart-Telemann-Haydn-contemporary of Mozart but forgotten until today! pieces, I roll down to the dial to WNAS FM a high school station that plays a bit of everything.  They are guarenteed to gross you out once an hour, and are half as likely to bring up some pop/country/rock/hip hop/? track forgotten and cherished from the past.  Not too many 1946-56 pop songs though, for that I have to listen to 700 AM Csomething radio from Toronto midnight to five AM.  

[outin]

Regardless of the "genre" there 's good music and bad music (it's all subjective of course). Some genres have less of the good one (or even none). I have favorites in many, but I do tend to go through phases when I prefer to mostly listen to one. Right now it's classical piano music. 5 years ago it was jazz, 15 years ago it was something else.

I'm the same with food...when I like something I can eat it every day until something else comes up

And BTW some "popular music" isn't popular at all, but can be much too innovative and "difficult" for the masses

[chopincat]

Regardless of the "genre" there 's good music and bad music (it's all subjective of course).

This is exactly how I feel!!

[pianoplunker]

I keep encountering this stereotype that people either like classical music or popular music but never both. I know this definitely isn't true for me - I love lots of different music! How do you the rest of you guys feel about popular music? (By popular music I don't mean the top 40 crap, but rather anything from rock to rap to folk to r&b etc. I'm not sure about jazz though, it could be considered popular but it could also be considered a category of its own).

There is alot of classical that has always been popular and mainstream. Some of it will never die with each new performance or recording. Just like some modern popular stuff. On my car radio, have always been a fan of the latest rock/alternative/top40 crap but will listen occasionally to classical or jazz. I have found most of the time classical is way more fun to play rather than listen to. Of course some of it is absolutley gorgeous to listen to