Increasingly people seem to be willing to broaden their music tastes, there used to be stronger splits between genres and the style of music that people listen to. These days when you ask someone what music they like they will typically say that they listen to a little bit of everything. At very least they will say that they listen to a multitude of genres rather than one. Whereas in the past people had stronger connections to music and it was typically done based on race and class lines. 

I particularly believe that it is due to streaming services allowing people the freedom to spread their wings to find new music. I spoke to a worker at our local record store, Berget, I think that she put it best by saying:

“ I feel like with streaming services you are able to find more stuff that you wouldn’t, like some people only have one record store and that is stoked based off of what the owner enjoys”.

This issue with physical media is why there were such strong divides based on class in the past, people in rural areas generally preferred country/bluegrass so all the stores stocked was country and bluegrass, contrasted by in the city people may prefer jazz or classical so it was primarily stocked there.

A man at a local DIY music show said that he did not use streaming services, However he will look up his favorite bands and fine ones that are similar on things like YouTube. I asked him if he would branch out as much with his music taste and he said that he likely would not. He is very careful when it comes to money so if he had to purchase music to listen to it then he would likely stick to the mainstream and just get what music critics would say is good music.

The influence of how you were raised is still not lost in the digital world, both my coworker TJ and Berget mentioned that they think they could still have a broader music taste because of how they were raised.  They were both raised in households that put value on music and physical media. This gives them the background to find things that are indier or less mainstream.