“What kind of music do you like?”

It’s practically an obsolete question because everyone inevitably answers with “I like all kinds of music.” It’s a question rarely met with a concise and specific response. But ask someone what kind of music they don’t like and you’ll find a different pattern. The difference between a casual music fan and the kind of obsessive enthusiasts that hang out on music blogs is that the dilettantes will usually list off broad genres that draw their ire. “I like everything but rap and country.”

I don’t hate jazz; it just doesn’t give me goosebumps. Likewise, if an artist’s sole objective is to make your ass shake, it most likely doesn’t hold any interest to me. Blame my two left feet. Yet I don’t actively dislike this stuff. Ask me about my taste in music and I won’t tell you that I like everything except for jazz and club music. There’s the cliché where people state how much they hate opera. Really? How often is anyone actually exposed to opera music? Who complains about music they’re not routinely forced to endure? It’s akin to holding a grudge against Tuvan throat singing.

Blanket dismissals of genres are for novices. Music nerds’ objects of derision are usually much more specific, and generally geared not towards music forms they don't get, but forms they understand all too well. They hate music that hits too close to home. Case in point, my knee jerk reaction is to state that I hate screamo. But to be honest, a notable chunk of my record collection is comprised of releases by labels like Dischord, Gravity, Great American Steak Religion, and Ebullition. While I would argue that “screamo” was a termed coined by music writers in the wake of crossover successes like At The Drive In, there’s no denying that the term now covers the entire lineage. It’s that love and appreciation for bands like Nation of Ulysses, Antioch Arrow, and Swing Kids that made me cringe when I heard bands like The Used. I don’t hate screamo; I hate Thursday.

The music we hate isn’t the music we can tune out. Muzak isn’t painful; it’s background noise. We hate what we find too familiar. It’s the Minutemen-sampling, Op Ivy-copping, Toot & the Maytals-covering swill of Sublime. It’s the so-not-Daft Punk thud of Ghostland Observatory. It’s the vestiges of Faith No More in Korn. We hate it when a fatal flaw ruins a potential good thing. It’s that Smashing Pumpkins could be such a great band, but Billy Corgan ruins it. It’s that Vampire Weekend can craft an album full of earworms but the “upper Westside Soweto” gimmick comes across like a smugly self-aware “African Child” (sorry, Eric). It’s that Metallica cut their hair and started working with Bob Rock.

Perhaps there’s a relation between a person’s level of music geekiness and the specificity of their dislikes. From here on out, if someone asks me what kind of music I like, I’m responding with "anything but ‘Money For Nothing’ by Dire Straits.”