Music Tastes

Ever heard someone say they loved something so much they could swallow it whole? Eat it up? Devour it? Sure you have. Anyone who has ever tuned in to ‘At the Movies’ will have heard Margaret Pomeranz excessively use the adjective delicious. Delectable. Scrumptious. Mouth watering. The sense of taste is so often used as a kind of bench mark to measure elements of our daily lives. If you’ve had a particularly crappy day, your face might look sour. Pretty much every participant on A Current Affair could be described as bitter. A surfer will frequently boast about riding a sweet wave. Or, less frequently, about riding a salty wave. So what are your tastes in music? You might want to grab a napkin.

BITTER:
Facing tight competition between bitter 90s songstresses, Liz Phair seems to take the lemon. Her 1993 debut Exile In Guyville pretty much sparked indie-alternative angst for the remainder of the decade, leaving that distinctive tang embedded in our music mouths. Spitting out material which basically covers every unpleasant angle of relationships, Phair doesn’t bother to sand down the edges as she sings her homage to bitterness: Divorce Song. Close behind in the acrimony polls are Fuck and Run, Polyester Bride and Shitloads of Money. Not suitable for people with sensitive teeth.

SOUR:
The absolute warhead of sour songwriters, Leonard Cohen brings poetry to the term ‘morbid, sombre intellectual’. AKA: Folk Singer. With countless covers of his material, Cohen has etched his name deep into the history books as a remarkable writer and deeply moving musician. In his most successful release Songs of Love and Hate, Cohen presents an almost monotone voice which practically weeps with heartache and genuine sorrow. The acidity of this stuff is positively corroding, particularly in the classics Hallelujah and Suzanne. Like chewing a fist full of warhead candies, no mortal can walk away from this guy dry eyed.

SWEET:
Originally named Carl and the Passions, is it any wonder The Beach Boys have such a squeaky-sweet musical image? Sporting candy striped shirts and the occasional NAVY headwear in perfect imitation of five walking lollipops, The Beach Boys’ musical content pretty much covered hot rods, babes and Californian warmth with titles such as Then I Kissed Her, Smiley Smile, Summer In Paradise and Wouldn’t It Be Nice. Considering the sugar intake each of the boys would have had to endure in recording this stuff, it is my opinion that their teeth are far too white. Keep your insulin handy when playing a Beach Boys record.

SALTY:
Björk Gudmundsdottir is weird. We get it. We’ve all heard the good old, “I like her, but I can only listen to her in small doses.” Brash, intricate and hugely exposing, Björk’s music seems to skin us like a chemical peel – I guess whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on the listener. Her vocal gymnastics plough through an absolute warehouse of musical influences and somehow she finds herself sandwiched between jazz ballads (Possibly Maybe) and punk hostilities (Army of Me), adding her eccentricities to each style as opposed to identifying solely with any one subgroup. Regardless of your musical tastes, in varying quantities Björk is pretty much essential to any dish.