Good Or Shit: Do Women Share Music Differently To Men?

What music are you into?

The email popped up in that little preview rectangle on the right hand corner of my screen, several months back when I was comfortably employed in my role as a content writer in one of the least glamorous sectors of the advertising industry – daily deals.

It came from one of the other two girls on my team who, although they seemed nice enough, I hadn't really bonded with. Not through any dislike or tension or primal circling of each other, sizing one another up to see if the other is a bitch or not. It just hadn't happened.

Not until we brought music into it. Once we opened up that little floodgate, the sharing started.

You like Solange? My workmate said. Then I think you will like Kelela, an LA based experimental electronic/R&B artist.

It was just the beginning. From that moment on, the artists began to flow back and forth between the three of us. Some we all liked, others we weren't that into. And it wasn't just the artists, the tastes and the opinions that were filling up my inbox; seeping through with the songs came the little personal details – about ourselves.

What music are you into? The question is common as muck when you're getting to know someone. Like bookshelves, you can tell a lot about a person from their music collection. I'm not that judgemental in this regard. I don't care if a person only reads Jodi Picoult while listening to Taylor Swift; as long as you don't vote Liberal, I don't necessarily see this as proof of your potentially rotten moral core. Hey, I even kinda liked Love Story. It's probably indicative of the existence of a hopelessly romantic nature I harbour deep down inside but never, ever show anyone – see what we're learning about me right now?

Most of my friends love music, and many of them are musicians. But I've noticed that the majority of my music sharing is done with my girls, the ones in London and the ones at home. My inbox is littered with links, my private Facebook group is scattered with posts.

There are two types of communication I find to be the most common – the simple What do you think of this? After which debate and hilarity often ensues.

Lorde:

“Everyone is all out fapping.”

“She's actually Australian now you know.”                                                                                                                
“I have listened to Pure Heroine in full and I thought I liked her at first but never went back to re-listen. Then the global masturbation began and I just got turned off.”

“I really like the thought of global masturbation. World peace? For a brief moment? ... Then a shame spiral I suppose.”

And then there is the song to convey something we're feeling.

A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, Say Something:

“So I've been sitting around today feeling a bit sorry for myself... and this song came on. I bawled.”

“Would you believe I also had a moment to this song recently?”

“I've also already recently had a moment to it. It's beautiful but so sad.”

Pharrell Williams, Happy:

“This song actually does make me feel happy.”

“So uplifting! I love it!”

“I preferred the sad one.”

Nearly all my offloading, all my sharing of myself is done with women through, via, kick-started by, music. Sharing music with the men in my life just doesn't seem to come with the same fierce self analysis and criticism. Analysis and criticism of the music, yes. Of the self, not as common. I rarely hear men say “I really identify with this song” or “I lost my virginity to this.”

For example, I sent a male friend of mine the link to a Jen Cloher track when I was having a moment. It made me feel homesick, I confided to him, and I had been seeing signs that were pointing me home. “It's a nice song,” he said. Then proceeded to launch into a spiel about how there is no such thing as signs.

Let me tell you, that wasn't how the girls responded.

It just takes one post; the music serves as a jumping-off point. We don't just share YouTube links, we share ourselves. Our insecurities, hopes, dreams, frustrations, rages, dirty secrets, spiritual beliefs and sadness. It's like a gateway drug. Bond over a song and you'll soon be having longwinded email discussions about love, life and letting go.

Personally I find the responses, the conversations that ensue, so satisfying. The music being discussed of an excitingly broad variety and the fearless emotion being shared is inspiring and comforting. Even when the sound of heartache is being typed phonetically.

James Vincent McMorrow's Cavalier:

“Oh god. I heard this today and nearly burst into tears.”

“Uuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh.”

“This video...uggghhh killed me.”

This made me think of you, my work friend wrote months later, at the top of a stream to Angel Olsen's new album Burn Your Fire for No Witness which she posted on my Facebook wall.

I clicked on the link. The guitar strumming was damp and cool, the vocals were angsty and bittersweet, the song was called Unfucktheworld, it was perfect, just my thing. For weeks I became obsessed. I bought Olsen's first album Halfway Home and I listened to both albums, over again, hummed the songs to myself mindlessly, day in day out, without realising I was annoying the hell out of everybody around me, but not being able to help it because I felt like something had been injected into me and was coursing through my veins. Or, as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy said of her – “It's almost like I get hollowed out and then filled, but I don't know what it's with.”

That's when I realised that my friend...she got it. She got me.