In my experience the music I like most is the one I liked less when I first heared it. If I like music a lot the first time I hear it it almost always becomes boring within the week. I believe people instinctly 'can stand' songs they can follow. The more a song deviates from the standard the harder it is to instantly say whether it's your taste or not. After listening more often you'll become better able to judge it and decide if it's good for you or not. With the huge variety of music availlable most won't end up in your favourite lists but a few would, and they tend to end up pretty high on the list.
Many times a person's preferences are based on familiarity (i.e what they are accustomed to listen to). Maybe, that's why music is repetitive by nature. The more you listen to something, the more chance that you are going to form associations with the song.
Similarly, the extent to which a musician can meet an audience's expectations, the more he/she will be liked. On a small scale, we expect certain conventions in music, we like to have our music resolve etc. We expect songs of a certain genre to have a certain sound (i.e certain chord progressions etc); and it takes an experienced listener to appreciate when an artist is breaking the rules to achieve a musical result.
As well, musicians have sometimes lost fans because they didn't meet audience expectation. Case in point, Dylan's Christian albums; Also, didn't Neil Young have problems with his label because for a period of time his music didn't sound like Neil Young? 8)
It's all pretty complicated...
Feva
