do you know me any better, now?
I read this [what does your music say about you?] a while back & thought, this is what cog psych is good for: articulating and theorizing the patently obvious. you can tell people by their music. duh.
still, it's nice to have some statistics -- apparently when meeting someone new, people use music as an inroad into the conversation nearly twice as often as any other topic. I am slightly dubious about the applicability of the study to social groups outside the, say, 18-25 age range of undergraduates. I also don't think it traces change-over-time very well (assuming people have a largely static, core personality but their music tastes alter wildly over their lifetimes -- what of that?), and its categories are a little limited (there's factor analysis for you). but most of it is fairly intuitive, and at any rate, this [my top ten music] looked too fun to pass up :~) here is a sample top ten, which is in no sense complete, ordered or 'top', just loosely indicative.
death cab for cutie: I will follow you into the dark
schumann: piano concerto in A (martha argerich)
pixies: where is my mind
the shins: a comet appears
oscar peterson quartet: when summer comes
radiohead: creep (beautiful acoustic)
joshua radin: closer (a lackluster video) or winter (not a video)
smashing pumpkins: 1979 or bullet with butterfly wings I CANNOT DECIDE
maurice ravel: string quartet in F (hagen quartet)
keith jarrett: my funny valentine (see this video too for the amazingness that is keith jarrett)
things also worthy of being on the list: any and all bach, muse (hysteria, butterflies & hurricanes, etc), brad mehldau (e.g. exit music), snow patrol (run, chasing cars, chocolate), rachmaninov (piano sonata no.2, the 1931 version), the sweetest ever love song, etc.