I'd love to say I have wide tastes, but in truth there are many genres I don't touch, and some that I moved on from decades ago, such as jazz, country, and punk. Thankfully I find new music I love on a regular basis, thanks to the fine folks at RYM. The fact that my favourite artists somehow qualifies me to be 'hipster' is an unexpected and very welcome insult as I turn 50.

Classical music and particularly opera have been my passion for the last 20 years, with much of that time to the total exclusion of anything rock or pop. However in the 2000's I got back into rock, pop, folk. From Beethoven to Broken Social Scene, it's all ours to enjoy! There are no barriers.

In terms of pop and rock, music with classical leanings, unusual instrumentation, adventurous song structures and such will appeal to me most, which makes my user name work at many levels. Much of what I listen to is classified in the realm of chamber pop/baroque pop/folk, psych folk, freak folk and I primarily try to stay abreast of those genres.

I nearly always buy CDs rather than downloading. I own anything I review, and will often comment on the packaging and artwork, which I hope may be of interest to other readers.

My blog is at www.baroquepop.com... sometimes I even update it!

My rating system:My 5* are reserved for favourites, new and old. Albums are likely to come and go from this list, and it'll always be a limited collection. For the sake of clarity, I've given classical and opera recording a max rating of 4.5 otherwise they would dominate the 5.0 listing.
I don't expect to rate anything less than 2 because I simply wouldn't be listening to anything that bad or outside my taste, therefore in all good conscience I can't rate them.
If I've rated anything less than 2, I'm probably marking the times I've listened to it, and the rating will probably increase.