In which I am ridiculed for my music tastes ...
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.
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.