Well, first of all, I know that this topic was mostly born from the exchanges of taste between different people concerning classical music; similar exchanges were done on my board many months ago and I did not participate for one simple reason: I have zero classical education. Though I have historical knowledge of the well kown names, I have no idea what they wrote, why they were better than the other etc. I understand that classical music is complex, requires talent and intelligence and is generally considered "better" that contemporary music. Still, to me, music is about feelings and emotions and classical has never, ever done anything to me. To me, it's always been "that stuff I put on the radio when my car CD player doesn't work and I don't want to listen to the engine."
So, onto the meat of the post. Whenever I inquire about someone's tastes, especially concerning music, I much prefer asking them what they don't like. "What music do you like?" Will almost always prompt: "Oh you know, a bit of everything" AKA, a useless, non descriptive answer. So let's start with what I do not like.
I do not like Rap and hip-hop. In fact, I hate those. I do not care for country music either, but I would not call it hate. When I visit my mechanic and he blares it on his speakers, I will tap my foot along with the melody, I will not cringe, but I will not listen to it on my own. I don't like most popular music. This includes pretty much every auto-tuned teenager band/half-naked bimbo that's currently out there.
On occasion, I enjoy big-band music, some classical rock and metal but not too much, not too often. Like prerry much every bullied kid of the 80's, I had my Metallica phase but I do not care for everything they did after the black album.
Now onto what I like.
I like epic metal. I love bands like Rhapsody of Fire, Nightwish, Epica, Luca Turilli and Blind Guardian. Bands that combine metal to electronic sounds like Machina Supremacy are also something I love. I enjoy bands that specialize in making movies or game soundtracks like Immediate Music and Globus.
Like a lot of people here, I love video game music. I tend to prefer old school material (up to and including most of the fifth generation consoles) but I do enjoy some of the modern artists. Well, today, video game music is hardly a "genre" anymore since games play MP3s, anythng and everything can be found in a game. My favorite game music artist is probably Motoi Sakuraba.
When I want to relax with my wife, I enjoy some trip-hop bands like Cinephile, Portishead and Massive Attack. I will also enjoy new age stuff to relax; Robert Haig Coxon is a favorite of mine. To relax alone, completely alone in my basement sanctuary, I listen to 8-bit music and chiptunes made with Amiga, Comodore 64 and PC-88 consoles. This is clearly not for everyone and I do not like sharing this experience anyways.
During the early 90s, this sort of music evolved into a genre that completely changed my life: demoscene music made with trackers and sequencers, a movement born in Western Europe. Word can hardly convey how deeply in love with this music I am. The idea of a "demo" was to create an executable program that pushed the computer to its limits by playing visual effects synced over a music track using as few ressources as possible. In short, it was a meeting of geeks and artists in a contest of skill. So many extremely talented artists out there but my heart goes to guys like Skaven, Purple-Motion and Ellwood who created songs that I will love forever. It's hard to describe unless experienced first so if you're really curious, check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtCW-axRJV8 If is implied that if you do not care for electronic music, you will hate this. This sort of music was the genesis of Nekoprism. Trackers: my dream started there.
Obviously, I love electronic music to no end, but that love is complicated. There is an awful lot of terribly unimaginative, repetitive and boring electronic music done, especially these last few years. In the 90's, the dance-club genre was unimaginative but at least it was catchy, alive and fun. I still enjoy it quite a lot once every few months. The trance movement is the worst victim of this recent stretch of mediocrity, especially since it stopped being hipster music and became popular. Everyone and their deaf sisters can whip out a mixer and do trance. Stretches of 64-128 beats where all you get is a bassdrum and a cheap bassline if you're lucky. Abuses of poorly created voice clips. Unimaginative buildups that don't deliver. It can be a mess. I also cannot digest dubstep, it is extremely annoying to me.
Fortunately, there are very talented guys out there doing trance, house and techno. Naming electro-artists I like would be awkward, everyone keeps remixing everything everyone else does. This is how we roll and we like it like that. Everyone does stuff I like, everyone does stuff I don't like and in the eyes of any electro-music fan, this completely includes Nekoprism. Over the years, the span of what I wrote and remixed is so wide, opinions will be all over the place. You'll notice however that Nekoprism songs (originals and remixes) always try to feature powerful passages and imposing melodies: this is how I picture electronic music should be. Involving, not repetitive. Imposing, not shy. It has tools that I consider vastly more powerful than classical instruments and if you put half an effort into it, you can create moments where emotions overflow. Add some good chorus to that and you get unending silicon-chip love.
Edit: typos.