There’s no accounting for taste. This is true, as anybody who has looked through my CD changer will tell you (it currently contains Lamb, Pink Floyd, Underworld, James McMurtry, Moulettes and Brian Eno). But it’s surely better to express poor taste than to express no taste. At least it demonstrates that you have an interest.
Heart FM is a UK network of “Adult Contemporary” radio stations operated by Global Radio. Its playlist contains exclusively high-charting, recognised pop records from the last few decades. Musical heavyweights like Michael Buble, Little Mix, Take That, Robbie Williams, all inoffensive, all wildly popular, all bland to the point of being insipid. Every now and again they’ll play a blue chip classic by Michael Jackson or Sister Sledge, but it’ll be something really familiar and overplayed like Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ or We Are Family. And if you miss a track, then don’t worry, because they’ll broadcast the exact same musical menu the next day in a different sequence, you know, just for a bit of variety.
I always shudder when I get in a car and this radio station is selected. This driver clearly has so little interest in music that they physically choose to listen to Heart FM- rather than any one of the hundreds of other better radio stations, or MP3’s, a CD, even silence. So how much interest can they possibly have in driving?


The noun “driving” is a broad one. It covers the operation of any motor vehicle either for work or for pleasure. It can be deconstructed into many, many sensations and experiences, each of which are lapped up by the enthusiast. Joyful attributes of acceleration, inertia, vibration, noise and fear, as well as the less pleasurable factors of expense, despair, pain and disappointment. All of these, and more, will feature in our driving careers at some point. We’ll remember them all, because we find them interesting. Driving is interesting. Yet many “drivers” can only appreciate it for its most basic quality, that of moving from place to place. Treating driving as a way of “going from place to place” is the equivalent of treating music as background noise. For some people, that’s all it’s for.
We all have our favourite songs and many of us will be able to explain exactly why it is that we return to that song over and over again. For example I have, since childhood, held Dire Strait’s Brothers In Arms to be my favourite song of all. The sparse, simple percussion, the tremolo organ which fills in the background, the call and response between vocals and guitar and Mark Knopflers mournful solo work. All of this comes together to create a whole which I have felt especially comfortable with for my entire life. It’s my taste, and it’s probably bad. I drive, and will continue to drive until it becomes impossible or illegal, a Rover 825. This is, in many people’s view, a bad car. But one which is at least worthy of having an opinion of, and I have strong reasons for liking it, many of which are probably only understood by me.
Heart FM is the Kia on reasonable monthly payments of the radio world. You cannot listen to it with passion. I simply cannot assimilate the idea of a Heart FM listener being an enthusiast of anything, let alone driving. In my mind their modern, convenient house is full of beige walls, instant coffee and processed food. They don’t own a stereo system, they don’t read books, their holidays are always warm and pretty. Variety is not the spice of their life.
What’s your view? Is there a link between musical and automotive taste?
(All opinions are very definitely not the official views of Hooniverse.com. Dull image taken from 8tracks.com)