Music is extremely subjective. What one person thinks is absolutely horrid, someone else loves to death. A diverse taste in music can be the source of discussions, arguments, and bonding between people. I am a big fan of music myself, and I have strong opinions on what I like and what I don’t. Talking to other people about what they like is very interesting. This interest made me wonder what everyone at the school liked, so I asked Mr. C to send out a poll to the students. You can see the results above, although the percentages shown are not correct.

The biggest vote-getters are labelled next to the pie chart, but there are a lot of other genres that got fewer votes that aren’t labelled. These genres include Indie Rock/Pop, Jazz, Classical, Reggae, and one respondent put down “Specifically Taylor Swift.” 

The most voted genre is Alternative Rock with 34 votes which is lumped in with Classic Rock. This made up over a quarter of the votes, with 27%. Mr. Hughes, a teacher at IHS, had this to say about classic/alternative rock: “My favorite thing about the genre is just how many different subgenres exist within the domain of general rock. You can find rock bands that embody elements of jazz, punk, blues, electronic, folk, or a variety of all of these.” I think this is a big draw to classic rock, and a reason why it’s so popular among all age groups. There’s so much variety in the general “rock” genre, that there’s really something for everyone there. I tried to generalize rock with the title “alternative rock”, but I think the reason it got so many votes is because there are so many subgenres within that label, just like Mr. Hughes said.

The next highest vote getter was Hip Hop, which I included with Rap. This genre got 26 votes, which makes up 21% of the vote. When people think about music that’s popular with younger people, Rap is usually the first genre to come to mind. Looking at this polls result, that is an accurate statement. When Elvis was around, he was really popular because teenagers felt like he was their music, and it was their way to stand away from the older generations. I feel like Rap is the same way with our generation. Having our own type of music makes it feel like we’re rebelling against older generations in a way, and I think that’s the reason rap is so popular with us.

The next popular genre was Pop music, with 25 votes. As we all know, Pop can be extremely catchy, and that makes a lot of people like it. I think Pop is kind of similar to Rap to some degree, where it feels like our music. Pop is clearly just as popular as Rap, so they’re pretty similar perception-wise.

From there, other popular genres were Country, Punk Rock, K-Pop, and Indie Rock. All of these are interesting genres that have a bit of a unique taste to them, so not everyone appreciates them as much. However, if you have an ear for one of these genres, you really like it. With how popular Pop, Rap, and Classic Rock are, some of these genres can go forgotten, but there is a lot of good stuff in there, and I recommend everyone give a listen to some of those genres that got less votes.

Finally, I’d just like to point out some unique genres that got 1 or 2 votes that are interesting. Some of these genres are Reggaeton, Hyperpop, and Electronic Dance Music. I’d never heard of Reggaeton and Hyperpop, but after looking into them a bit, they seem extremely interesting. Based on the minimal research I did, Hyperpop seems like a bit of a mix between Pop and EDM, which are two genres that seem like they would fit well together. Reggaeton seems to be a type of Spanish rap, with the legendary Despacito being the most popular example. Finally, EDM is something I like myself, and was kind of disappointed to see get only 2 votes.

Music is an interesting thing to see other people’s opinions on. People may have identical thoughts to you, or their opinion could be the polar opposite of yours. That’s why it’s fun to talk about, and have discussions about the differences between genres.