Good taste is not a binary value judgement: this album is good or bad. Good taste is being able to listen to a work of music and experience each texture, each instrument, distinguishing them, and yet hearing the work as a whole.
Albums that I don't like sound to me like noise, but that may be because my taste just isn't refined enough (it takes practice) to discern the nuances of such albums. Other people seem to like [recommended album], so there must be something enjoyable in that album that I'm not hearing.
For me, going through the Best Debut Album tournament, listening to each album as presented, has been a tremendous boost to my own taste. You may not know it from my voting record, but I know my taste is improving because albums that I previously would have dismissed as awful are enjoyed more because I am hearing more qualities in the music; also, the album I liked before, I'll hear more layers in that one too.
Someone's judgement of taste is subjective, just as taste is itself. I think most people (including myself) associate taste with listening experience and exposure to new musical ideas, but a primitivist might say the opposite -- that our taste gets worse, or polluted, with exposure to society and its musical ideas.
In other words, one person could tell me I have good taste and another could tell me I have bad taste, and they could both be right. In theory, my goal is to have good taste in the eyes of someone who I think has good taste. I don't know how useful an incomplete recursive definition is, but that's the best I can think of right now.
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paladisiac
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