My parents liked to listen to Acker Bilk, a silken clarinettist. Acker Bilk was familiar to them. At best they found my music bemusing or bewildering. That’s our default, sticking to what sounds comfortable.
One of my aims for my 123 new albums this year was to stress test my boundaries, reach out into new music genres. Did I succeed? Not really. Over 70 of the albums were in that amorphous indie/alternative genre I call home. Sixteen were more straight-out rock, eleven were pop, nine were folk-rock. One of the highlights of the listening year were some wonderful electronic albums, but I only listened to six of them in the end. Prog rock also fascinated but there were just five of those. I’ve never enjoyed country music and that showed: only two listens. And jazz-rock, a genre I once flirted with, came up with only one representative.
So no, despite a desire to branch out, mostly I heard what I always hear.