Music Tastes Around IMSA

IMSA is a school made up of “Illinois’ Best and Brightest.” We’re comprised from across the entire glorious state of Illinois, and that raises the question: Do IMSA students like the same music? Sure, we’re all nerds who lose sleep because of the next math test we have, but do we all listen to similar music to keep ourselves from falling asleep on our textbooks?

This survey was conducted through both in-person interviews and through DMs in Messenger and Discord. Participants either sent/showed a picture of their Spotify Wrapped (or equivalent for other music streaming apps), or just said their top artists. Out of the list given, the top three were taken. 

Survey results: sample size for the survey was 21 students, covering all 7 halls and all 3 grades.

The answer is, in fact, no. The most times an artist was repeated was 3, with Taylor Swift. The other repeats were Queen, Kendrick Lamar, Ado, and Laufey, who all appeared twice. 

Surveyors were also asked about why they enjoyed the artist they had at #1. Here are some of their statements:

“Because funny guitar go brr.” -on the rock band Yes

“They write music that evokes deep emotion within me.” -on singer and rapper Banshee

I think this reflects the IMSA community. We’re all over the place, and it makes sense that our music is too. As mentioned earlier in the article, we’re made up of kids all around the state. It makes sense that we’ll have variance in our music. Looking at polls conducted by Wide Open Country, the most popular genre in Illinois is classic rock. This is pretty accurate to the poll, as over 8 artists in it are rock/rock-adjacent. Hip-hop is also big in Illinois, thanks to Chicago. This also checks out with the large number of hip-hop/R&B artists in the poll. Something I found interesting, though, is that there are a lot of non-English artists in the poll, most of them being either Japanese or South Korean. 

So what does this tell us about IMSA? It says that we’re a diverse group of people, not just through things like our culture shows, but also through what we listen to. And, hey! Don’t see your favorite artist mentioned and/or want to get in on this next year? Drop a comment, and maybe I’ll be able to run an even bigger survey. Who knows, maybe we could get teachers’ opinions too.