This morning, I had an interesting experience while taking a music survey…

And I didn’t take the survey because I write about music. I actually took the survey because I am a member of MySurvey.com, which is a site where members take surveys and earn points that can be traded in for cash or gift cards. I’ve been on MySurvey.com for about ten years and it’s been an interesting experience. Sometimes I test products. Sometimes I watch videos or commercials, then answer questions. Sometimes the surveys are really boring and tedious and sometimes they’re pretty interesting. This morning’s survey was one of the cooler ones.

The first thing I liked about the music survey was that it was visually very appealing. It used bright colors and graphics, which I found engaging and exciting. I was asked about a variety of popular music artists, everyone from Andrea Boccelli to Lady Gaga. The questions on the survey asked if I had ever heard of them, liked their music, or owned their music. I was asked if I bought CDs, downloaded albums, or listened to “free” music sources like Spotify. I was even asked if I used a peer to peer music service like the old Napster. Next, I listened to fifteen music samples from a variety of different artists– everything from reggae to modern country. I heard a few folks for the first time that I actually really enjoyed. In fact, I found that I liked a lot of the music that was sampled, even though I’ve fallen out of touch with really mainstream pop music. Another part of the survey was about how much of certain types of music I own and whether or not I ripped CDs owned by other people.

I noticed that the people who made the survey were probably British, based on the language they used and the way they spelled some words. And I noticed that they seemed to be pitching U2 and Lady Gaga…

As this classic U2 song played during the survey, I realized how awesome and iconic U2 is… But maybe that’s just because I’m old.

Those two artists got several clips dedicated to them.

I’m sure the music survey I took this morning is about finding out what people like and what people are willing to buy. For me, it was kind of an interesting discovery process. I kind of wish I had written down the names of a couple of the singers I was introduced to on the music survey, even though they seem like they might be a bit trendy for what I usually like. But then, I don’t pay attention to what’s hot as much as I do to what I like. If I’m somewhere out and about and hear a song I like, I use Shazam to find out what the title is and who’s singing it.

I don’t often enjoy the surveys I take on MySurvey.com, though I have made some money and scored some freebies doing them, which makes it worthwhile for me. I hope they send me more music surveys, though. This morning’s experience was very intriguing. It makes me realize that I probably ought to turn on the radio more often.