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Comment by blfr | Hacker News Reader

> Thinking this a little further, it provides the perfekt basis for a dating application. Music is a very personally representation of oneself and if you find someone who has the same muscial taste, you already have a common basis for communication.

I don't think a shared taste in music is that important, or at all, in a relationship but this is the premise of aptly named Tastebuds[1], a dating app based around favorite music. You can import your listening data from Last.fm and Spotify.

[1] https://tastebuds.fm/

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In isolation, perhaps not, but musical taste plus another characteristic can say a lot about someone. (I might be biased because my future wife caught my attention when I overheard her say she liked a certain band in a group setting where most people hadn't heard of it.)

Spotify doesn't have its claws in real-life gatherings yet, but they might have something with their music (personality) and podcasts (interests, affiliations) data.

What does someone's music say about their personality?

Openness to new things? Variety is the spice of life, how spicy are they?

If someone likes a lot of niche stuff and more complex, less accessible music, they are likely to take passion for music more seriously as a hobby than somoene who just listens to chart stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that per-say, but I feel being that level of passive would lead to incompatibility).

Certain genres and scenes are also linked to demographics and lifestyles (e.g. hyperpop being very queer leaning, chiptunes being nerdy, punk being political, bassline and techno being linked to the underground rave scene, etc...)

Also if one of your favourite things is going to gigs and festivals, producing music, or following it, having crossover in taste means being able to share a passion.

A large part of my relationship with my partner is listening to music, either at home on the hi-fi, or at events. If we didn't have a decent amount of crossover, this wouldn't really work.

Having exactly the same taste is probably not so great as I think the differences and gaps are a great space to grow and discover.

True, there are definitely people who don't place any importance on music but for those that do, musical taste can be very important in a relationship.

So, no music taste isn't ultimate be-all-and-end-all factor but for some it can be very important!

Tastebuds seems only to have a facebook login - hm, not everyone uses FB! Strange that they don't have a Spotify login, probably the same issues that other apps face when they start to store Spotify data.

You can register by email and then import your info from Spotify.

You can base a relationship on plenty of other things, but shared interest in something is pretty important. Music can be a big one for a lot of people. My wife and I met at a KMFDM show, and traveling to music festivals is still the biggest social thing we have going on at all. Doing that without her would be a lot less gratifying than doing it with her.

I feel like there is a difference between sharing a love of music and sharing a love of the same music. I believe I would struggle with someone who loved no music and/or with whom there was zero overlap. But I'd not expect to love the same things

Somewhat agreed. Basically I found most people learn to like the music of their latest romantic partner.

I think partly it's just familiarity. There are plenty of "classics" I didn't really like when they came out but now they bring a feeling of nostalgia so even though they weren't "me" back then, for some reason they now feel like part of me, my history, my experience.

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