Love me some Motown. Checkout some of their early '60's stuff if you get the chance. Grew up listening to Memphis Soul (Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Eddies Floyd, etc) and James Brown till teens then went classic rock and blues. Listening to Otis Taylor "Nasty Letter" right now.
It seems "good" music is simply vibrations tuned to our ears that moves us, or not. It always seems certain types of music move me MORE at different junctions of life. Hard Rock/Metal resonates w/ a certain mental/emotional state which I don't find myself in much anymore, not because I've outgrown it or turned snob, I don't think. Hard driving tunes fuel my aggressive side, which is cool sometimes but run at a much lower speed these days.
Wistful mentioned classical and, while not a go to genre for me, I do have times when it's what soothes me. I don't have a musician's perspective of the technical aspect. I just know what moves me, one way or another.
I stopped listening to nostalgia playlists after I had done the record vendor thing for a while. There's just too much stunning work done out there that doesn't make it through the mainstream, money oriented music machine.
I told my daughter several years ago how unfair it was that she could experience, online, in no time what it took me decades do, lol.
