[JLM]

So like any good audiophile I asked for almost nothing but music for Christmas.  My whole family (wife/adult kids) use Amazon and so nearly everything I got was from there.  I'd 'wished' for almost exclusively classical and jazz selections, mostly to round out my library with more or less standards (some really great ones too).  But what I got was a total of 9 CDs, 7 of which were various collections:  'Adagios for After Hours'; 'Bach for Breakfast'; 'Tchaikovsky at Tea Time'; 'The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe'; 'Chopin and Champagne'; 'Beethoven at Bedtime'; and 'Baroque at Bathtime'.  (Most of these were not on my 'wish list' but do come up as suggestions.)  The two non-collections came from my son (Cab Calloway and Van Cliburn).

Is that weird or what?  Does my family not know what to pick?  Am I being stereotyped?  What do they think of me?  Should I just ask for money/Amazon credits for next year?

[Bob in St. Louis]

Sounds like they did their best. My Mom would not be a good person to shop for Dubstep either.
That sounds like what you got..... Something that looked like what somebody with their tastes should purchase for a person with tastes like yours, yet they don't understand that they don't understand you or the content they're buying.

Good luck with that.

[Ericus Rex]

Did you send them a direct link to your Amazon wishlist?

[WC]

This was the first year we sent out Amazon Wishlists to everyone. It worked OK. I put some items on my list that were not music and I got all of them. I had about 30 CDs on my list and I ended up with 5. Some people don't like buying music for others. My brother in law had me this year. He selected the items he liked the most from my list, so Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree, Throwing Muses, and Arcade Fire. My mother will not buy me music, she would rather get me gift cards.

[JLM]

Bob:  I will confess to listening to mostly smooth jazz when reading.

Rex:  Once they have your name (or you have their name) their wish list shows up under 'Wish List'.

WC:  Never realized picking music (even from a provided list) could be hard to do.


But it just strikes me weird that they would have picked so many mellow compilations.  Maybe they've listened to wifey's complaints of loud music coming from my insulated listening room (those occasions are really quite rare and not very imposing as the room is under the kitchen/mud rooms).  Maybe I'm more of an Ogre than I realize.   

[Diamond Dog]

Next year :  coal. 

D.D.

[rockadanny]

Most of these were not on my 'wish list'

Doh! I feel for ya.

Non-audio/musicphiles just do not get it. They mean no harm. They are just not as informed as they could be as to how particular a wish list can be. They likely really thought they were providing you with the best selections. My wife had fallen into this type of gift giving for me. For example, a large part of my rock music collection seems to be from between 1964-1969, so one year, as a token of her love for me, she suprised me with this (gawdawful) multi-disc box set of "hits of the 60's" she saw on one of those 30-minute TV commercials. It was not cheap. And the experts on the commercial were very convincing. But I just could not even open the thing. I felt bad having her return it.

I've had the music (and beer) snob talk with my wife several times. I think she finally gets it now. This was the first year she stuck strictly to my wish list. The result: best Christmas gifts ever. Even though none were surprises.

[JLM]

Yeah, last year I had fewer music wishes, so I got fewer CDs.  Books are OK, but I can go to the library to borrow a book (unless its a reference I'll donate it to a library when I'm done reading it).  So I thought I'd make it easier by broadening my wish list.  It's not bad selections, just not quite what I really wanted.  Oh well, better than getting ugly sweaters or horrible fruit cakes (or that lump of coal).