#(I'm cool with getting asks about music headcanons as long as the sender respects the stupidly detailed headcanons I've already posted lmao)

[ckret2]

The music questions are making me want to ask a music related question.

Bill’s criteria for weird is probably too high for these songs, but never hurts to ask! (Unless you’re tired of these questions in which case, I’m sorry)

Tara the Android - specifically I Feel Fantastic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VVyVXz-drQ) - and Throbbing Gristle - specifically Hamburger Lady (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fih-xzWGKPA)

These songs aren’t very danceable, so it’s possible he might not like them, but I think they’re good so maybe the quality will make up for the fact that they’re not pop.

but I think they’re good so maybe the quality will make up for the fact that they’re not pop.

you've activated my trap card: Very Specific Personal Criteria For How I Decide Whether A Character Likes A Song!

There's no such thing as a universally "good song" and your personal "this is SO good that it TRANSCENDS genre and EVERYONE would like it" is somebody else's "this is so bland." What songs resonate with you is a function of how YOU'RE wired, NOT how the song's wired; the character you're making a playlist for is not wired like you.

As soon as you start going "this song is SO GOOD the character HAS to like it," you're no longer making a playlist of the character's tastes, you're making a playlist of YOUR tastes.

now, all that said: you sent in a couple of songs that are pushing at the outmost boundaries of human listenability, so you're in the clear lmao, you're cultivating a Billish mindset. (The above disclaimer is what I more often pull out if someone goes, say, "but Bohemian Rhapsody is SO GOOD, surely the character loves it too"—which has happened with multiple characters in multiple fandoms.)

Throbbing Gristle is actually one of the bands I looked into when I was looking for songs to fill out the "weird alien noises" side of Bill's playlist. (They didn't make it on just because I didn't happen to find a track I vibed with enough to add lmao.) For the "weird alien noises" side of thing, the songs I've picked out for Bill are like... you're right in that Bill himself would probably think Throbbing Gristle still sounds "too human" to meet his alien tastes; but on the other side, the way his weird alien tastes sound TO US probably sounds the same way that Throbbing Gristle sounds to us, so they (or bands like them) work for me to like symbolically represent the kind of music Bill would listen to. Simply because human beings are incapable of imagining entirely inhuman music; if we imagine it, it's not inhuman.

Particularly the instrumentation in Hamburger Lady pulls off a similar disconcerting repetitive drone to what you get out of a rising shepherd tone, so good pick.

Tara the Android I don't think quite goes far enough, but it's in the right direction.

last time I tried to fill out the "weird sounds" side of Bill's playlist, I mainly looked into noise music and electroacoustic composition. The latter especially is my go to for alien Bill music.