What kind of music do you like (right now)?

In keeping with my habit of making broad generalizations based on my personal experience w/ media...

As I was assembling a playlist for an upcoming roadtrip, I was thinking about the kinds of music I would want to listen to but also, acknowledging the social nature of most media consumption, what kind of music the people I'll be traveling with would want to listen to. Naturally, I thought in terms of genre. I'm pretty sure these guys don't like metal much anymore (if they ever did), which is a shame, b/c I do. Then I thought about my answer to that classic get-to-know-you question "what kind of music do you like," and, of course, my answer would be that typical avoiding answer: "lots of kinds, pretty much everything."

If you looked at my music collection, you would find many different genres from different eras and different places around the world well represented. But that doesn't mean I'd want to listen to any of it at any given moment. Our media preferences are governed by long-lasting preferences (I've liked metal since about 9th grade) as well as short-term moods (I'm not in the mood for metal right now). Here's my theory: as music collections expand due to the falling monetary value of songs vis a vis Napster, Torrent, and all that shit, long-lasting preferences broaden and explain less and less of why anyone wants to listen to any kind of music at a given time. As choices expand, mood and immediate context play a greater role in determining what you will choose.

But its tougher to know what kind of music you're in the mood for than knowing that you like rap or hate country. I've tried relabeling my music according to mood (so, there are rap songs and metal songs that are both labeled "energetic" and classical and rock songs that are labeled "melancholy") and occassionally that helps me find music that suits my mood and feels right, but most times, I find myself cycling through my shuffle until something clicks.

The way we engage with music changes when options becomes plentiful. Choice increases due to falling production/distribution cost. It happened w/ music, but the trends you see will happen with all other media. When you have all of those options, you can't rely on your identity as much to determine what media will satisfy you. You can't just say to yourself "I like this kind of music, or that kind of TV show, or that kind of news, so that's what I'll choose." Something happens to our decision making process when we have abundant, diverse options. I'm not quite sure what it is (experiments to follow, I hope), but my hunch is that we want to cede control to something else. Shuffle is one thing. Search engines are another. We're wary of being controlled, but we experience so much uncertainty and regret after choosing something when there are too many other options that we want our choice to be restricted.

Sometimes, we do know what we're in the mood for, but those moods and those preferences become more diverse given more and more choices.