I was giving a talk last week about music recommendation at a local college. I was explaining how some of the various online music recommenders work when I noticed that some of the students were chuckling and laughing. I had checked my fly right before I started talking so I knew it wasn’t that. Then some wise guy in the front row made it all clear: “Do you really like to listen to Hilary Duff?”. After a moment of confusion, I realized that I was showing my Pandora radio stations that included the second most infamous Hilary.
My Pandora Radio stations
I tried to explain that I sometimes listen to my Pandora radio with my 13 year-old daughter. I’m not sure that they really believed that.
This evening, my daughter and I were having dinner and talking about music. She’s past the Hilary Duff and Hannah Montana phase. She’s moved onto the Veronicas (check out her latest review) – so we listend to a bit of Veronicas’ radio on Last.fm – which has now been faithfully scrobbled as part of my listening history forever:
I do like listening to music with my daughter. She knows all of the artists, and (seemingly more important), all the back stories, interconnections, failures and gossip about the artists. That seemed to be as important as the music itself. And although it is fun to listen to with my daughter, the music is not really to my taste. I do want to make it clear to anyone, whether it is a class at the local college or a potential future employer that I’m not really that into bubblegum pop.
Music Machinery 
#1 by bruce on February 16, 2009 - 8:22 pm
another reason I don’t share all my musical tastes… my top track (900+ spins) is something I titled ‘air cleaner’. I recorded the sound of our air cleaner to play back as white noise at night.
#2 by tam on February 17, 2009 - 9:42 am
Don’t ever try to justify yourself in front of a classroom, that is worst than no justification. After all young people are just future older ones.
I had experienced something similar in one of my courses (game related) where the lecturer gave Lara Croft as an example, and as every body start to laugh at him, he gave the same justification you did: his daughter was playing that specific game and he only ever watch her playing. I gathered that most of people in the class actually laugh because he gave such an old example for a popular adventure game at the time.
So, never justify yourself; give the opportunity to give the audience examples.
And for the record, as long as you are not blasting your musical taste into your neighbour’s ears, like so many people find it acceptable to do now these days in public transport, who should give a damn what you are listening to?
#3 by Scott on February 17, 2009 - 5:41 pm
Just out of curiosity, why don’t you have a separate user ID on the computer for your Daughter?
If she had her own you’d not be having this problem.
Another thought…
I disable scrobbling sometimes when I’m in the mood to listen to my fave song-o-the moment repeatedly.
I don’t end up embarrassed. :D
#4 by plamere on February 17, 2009 - 7:24 pm
scott – we were actually listening to music together while we were eating dinner.
#5 by Scott on February 17, 2009 - 8:31 pm
But it was coming from your computer, right?