Questions to Ask People About Music
Twenty questions for talking with someone about music, from what they have on repeat this week to the records they grew up with and the songs they can no longer play. Written for conversations rather than interviews, whether you know their taste or none of it.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What have you had on repeat lately?
Why ask it
Asking about this week rather than all time gets you a real answer instead of a curated one. People name a favourite band out of habit, but what they are actually playing tends to match whatever is going on in their life at the moment.
What was playing in the house when you were growing up?
Why ask it
This is usually the most generous question in the set, because nobody has to defend their parents' records. You also learn which tastes they inherited and which they built specifically in opposition to what was on downstairs.
What was the first record or song you bought with your own money?
Why ask it
The money detail matters: it separates what they were given from what they chose. Expect a slightly embarrassed answer, and expect the story of where they bought it to be better than the record.
Which song can you never skip when it comes on?
Why ask it
A sharper question than asking for a favourite, because it is about behaviour rather than opinion. The answer is often something they would never list as a favourite, which is usually the more honest data point.
Do you play anything, or did you at some point?
Why ask it
The second half is what opens it up. Most adults quit an instrument somewhere between ten and sixteen, and how they talk about stopping, relief, regret, a teacher they disliked, is more revealing than whether they still play.
What do you put on to get through a boring job?
Why ask it
Functional listening is a whole category people rarely get asked about, and it exposes the gap between the music they admire and the music they use. Someone whose answer is silence or a podcast has just told you something too.
What do you put on when you are in a bad mood, and does it help?
Why ask it
Some people match the mood and some try to break it, and neither camp realises the other exists. The does it help part stops the answer being a playlist recommendation and makes them think about what they are doing.
What is the best show you have been to, and what made it?
Why ask it
Push for the what made it, or you will just get a band name. The reason is almost never musical: who they went with, what age they were, an unrepeatable night, a room that held four hundred people.
Have you ever left a gig early?
Why ask it
A cheerful way into the negative opinions people usually keep quiet, and it tends to produce a story rather than a verdict. Anyone who says they never have is telling you something about loyalty or about stamina.
Do you follow the words, or is it all sound to you?
Why ask it
Listeners divide fairly cleanly here and are often surprised to be asked. Lyric people can quote whole verses of songs they dislike; sound people frequently cannot tell you what their favourite song is even about.
Do you still listen to whole albums?
Why ask it
Avoid making this a complaint about streaming and it becomes a genuine question about attention. The interesting answers are conditional: albums on a drive, singles at work, one record they always play from start to finish.
Who has put you on to something you would never have found on your own?
Why ask it
Turns the conversation towards people rather than catalogues. Answers name a sibling, an ex, a colleague with the office speakers, and the music arrives attached to whatever that relationship was.
What is a band everyone rates that does nothing for you?
Why ask it
Permission to be unimpressed is a relief in music conversations, where most people are braced for judgement. Go first with your own if they hedge, because the question only works once someone has taken the risk.
What did you listen to at fourteen that you would still defend?
Why ask it
Splits nostalgia from actual conviction. The reasoning they offer for the thing they still stand by tells you what they value in music generally, more reliably than any question about genre would.
What did you used to be snobbish about and have since let go of?
Why ask it
Almost everyone has abandoned a position on pop, country or a whole decade, and describing that shift means describing who they were trying to be at the time. A blank denial here usually means the snobbery is still live.
What is the last thing you heard that you did not get at first and then did?
Why ask it
The rarest kind of listening, since most of us decide within thirty seconds and move on. If they have an example, ask what made them go back; that is normally a person, a film, or a room, not the record itself.
What would you put on with your parents in the car?
Why ask it
A question about negotiation rather than taste, and the answer maps their family. Some people have one safe artist that spans three generations; others describe an hour of silence, which is its own answer.
Is there a song you cannot listen to any more because of who it belongs to?
Why ask it
The point where a music conversation stops being about music. Leave room for them to decline, and do not press for the story: the fact that a track has been retired is usually the whole disclosure they intended.
What is on your phone that you would rather I did not scroll past?
Why ask it
Works because it is asked lightly and answered honestly, and it usually lands on something from a film soundtrack or a chart from twenty years ago. Laughing at the answer ends the conversation, so do not.
If people were going to remember you by one song, which would you pick?
Why ask it
A closing question, because it invites them to say what they think their own taste amounts to. Watch whether they choose something they love or something that flatters them; those are two different answers, and both are interesting.
Talking about music without it turning into a test
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting past the genre answer
- When someone says they like a bit of everything, ask what they last put on deliberately. The vague answer is usually a defence against being judged, not an accurate report.
- Ask about occasions rather than categories: driving, cooking, the gym, getting through a hard week. Almost everyone can answer that even if they think they know nothing about music.
- Follow a band name with a why. Names alone stall a conversation; the reason someone gives is where the actual overlap with your own taste shows up.
- Ask what they were doing when they first heard something. Music memories are stored with their surroundings, and the surroundings are the better story.
Where these conversations go wrong
Testing their knowledge
Have you heard of, and its cousin, do you know their early stuff, both read as an audit. If you want to share something, play it rather than quizzing them about whether they already know it.
Correcting the label
Arguing that a band is not really punk, or that a song belongs to a different subgenre, ends the exchange for everyone but the two people arguing. Take the label they used and ask what they like about it.
Reacting to the embarrassing answer
If someone admits to a guilty listen and gets laughed at, the honesty stops there and does not come back later in the evening. A flat nod is enough.
Talking over the thing you just put on
Playing someone a track and then narrating it means neither of you hears it. Say one sentence beforehand, then let it run.
Adjusting for who you are talking to
Someone who plays or performs
They get asked about their band constantly and about their own listening almost never. Ask what they put on when they are not working, and what they cannot listen to casually any more because they hear the parts.
Someone who says they are not musical
Skip anything technical and ask about function and memory: what was on at their wedding, what their mother sang, what they play in the car. Nobody needs vocabulary to answer those.
Someone much older or younger than you
Ask what listening to music physically involved when they were fifteen, radio, tapes, a shared laptop, a phone. The logistics differ enough between decades that it opens a real conversation rather than a comparison of charts.
A group rather than one person
In groups, choose questions that do not require a confession. The bad live show, the overrated band and the first record all work aloud; the retired song and the phone library do not.
Keeping it going afterwards
- Send one track, not a playlist of forty. A single song gets listened to and a long list gets saved and forgotten.
- Say why you are sending it and what it reminded you of in their answer. Recommendations with a reason attached actually get played.
- Ask afterwards what they made of it, and accept a lukewarm reply without arguing.
- Write down what they mentioned. Referring back to a band they named weeks later carries more weight than any amount of taste in common.