I totally agree with Simon, (Birmingham, UK), as a girl I find rock boring, but you can find me clubbing on Rihanna any time.
Personally it`s all about dancing, and doing some air guitar and head banging on the tunes of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is not what I'll call dancing.
I like Hindi girlie music, (traditional and modern), nordic Dance, spanish Pop, south american Latin, Country, Rap, Hip Hop, R&B... but all girlie.
Not much in to the female ballad thing though, I'll have my chromosomes checked, no worries.

Lucy, Madrid, Spain

I hate listening to the radio and hearing announcers, DJs and ads. Hence I no longer listen and instead buy CDs based on references from friends and reading articles of bands that sound as though they'd be something I like. This serves me well and I never have to listen to stuff I don't like and I spend more of my time listening to actual music.

As for the difference between how men and women listen to music, who cares - as long as they listen!

jen, notting hill,

Music fires the emotions and the intellect. Prefab Sprout does both for me so maybe thats why their web forum is very male dominated...

Miranda Diboll, Bahrain,

Music is not about gender. Personal taste is just what it is, stereotypes about what blokes like and what women like just make for dull articles.

Pucci, London,

This Message is for Alicia Keys iam a great fan of yours and i love the way you sing and your music is very inspirating and i am 10 years old i go to ps 160 in the bronx i hope to hear from you one day Love Samiyah

ps i wish to see you one day i hope my dreams come true thank you in advance Samiyah

Samiyah Khan, Bronx, New York

I thought everyone responded to music emotionally, men and women.
Despite what men say, I love all kinds of Music from classical to rock and pop. In fact so diverse I go from :-
Andrea Bocelli, Dean Martin (Brill), Michael Buble, Queen, Dire Straights, U2, Motown, even Abba and also CHOPIN. I even like a bit of Carmen etc.
Hey I just love music. It makes me Think! Laugh! and Cry.

Listen to a station with more music and less cruddy talk. Try Magic 104.5fm (when you can get a signal) failing that put a cd on.

mnkb, uk, UK

I don't think it is actually "men" who appreciate music one way and "women " the other. There's far too many women who conform to the male stereotype and vice versa.
The answer lies I think in Simon Baron Cohen's ideas about systemising and empathising brain types. Women are more likely to be the latter, men more likely to be the former, but there's a substantial group (17% either way) who are not.
There's more on hte basic theory here and even a simple test to see where you sit on the spectrum.
http://www.eqsq.com/theory.php

Tim Worstall, Messines,

why argue about it, just enjoy it

Dan, Stanwood, Washingon,USA

Yes men and women are different - but, when they do, men 'talk' less of their experience and more 'about' the music - that doesnt mean they dont listen to music for the experience.

Im a bloke - I like rock. In the same manner I loathe abba and dirty dancing with an abiding vehemence and regard them not as entertainment but rather a potential fuel source. In my highly anecdotal experience, most women I know dont like a lot of rock and instead go after the fluffy pop-like noise that such entertainers as Leona Lewis emit. this might explain why men like listening to a rock station more - but I could be wrong...

simon, birmingham, uk

What totally patronising remarks from Lesley Douglas, and illogical too.
So let me get this straight. Women are supposedly less intellectual about music and to be able to bear listening to the music provided by Radio 6 would need to have it interspersed with girlie type drivel.
How totally nonsesnical. If people don't like music then perhaps they should week an alternative source of entertainment and leave us music fans (male and female) alone to enjoy good music presented by professional broadcasters.
Lesley Douglas would do well to have a major clearout at Radios 2 and 6 and ensure that she is fully staffed with experienced radio presenters, not out of work singers, not resting actors and not TV presenters. radio presentation is a separate art. I wouldn't employ a plumber to
rewire my house !

Martin Davies, Welshpool, Powys

regardless, George Lamb sounds annoying.

David West, louisville, ky

i tend to agree.

gary, buxton, derbyshire

I don't think that it's necessarily men's need to impress when it comes to music trivia. It's merely a desire to know the stories behind the songs and engage in a friendly debate over what makes the song unique, special or great. No matter how useless the tidbit of information is, it's a conversation piece - something that you may remember the next time you hear the song. It's these little things that help to keep music fresh for us "music historians," and makes us want to come back and listen to the music over and over again, perhaps listening to the same song in a different way than we would have before.

Kevin Macdonald, Brooklyn, NY

Do I see the colour blue in the same way as every one else? How can I tell if I do or don't, and likely more important, does it matter.

Can u compare different people's appreciation of music? And what use is it if you can?

Peter Lock, Leicester, Leicestershire

Music aficionados are like like train spotters or stamp collectors. The enthusiasm is self sustaining, however meaningless the music. The greater the musical talent, the less likely that it will attract those semi religious 'supporters' who instinctively know that, without acolytes willing to treat every utterance, musical or otherwise, as godlike, their hero will drop out of sight.

Real talent doesn't need acolytes. It is the acolytes who need the less talented. After all, once talent has been fully recognised everyone owns it. It loses exclusivity.

Great music is able to speak for itself. If it needs to be accompanied by extraneous information such as the identity of the sound man or the sexual attractiveness of the performer or composer it has probably failed.

In 15 years time, if your children hear it and want to hear it again, then it is worth something.

Peter Ryder, Middlewich, UK

I think the BBC person quoted in this article actually meant to say, not men and women, but "people who care about music" and "daytime Radio1-in-the-background listeners". George Lamb is a pain to listen to (I'm a woman) despite being quite attractive apparently (which doesn't really carry over the radio frequencies, no matter how exciting DAB is). Gideon Coe, whose slot Lamb took over, is a knowledgeable person - the same difference there would be between a Radio4 investigative journalist and Jeremy Vine. In general, the argument fails on other levels too: I fail to see how Shaun Keaveny is any more female friendly (but much less funny) than Phill Jupitus - though thankfully the producers of the breakfast show seem to have kept to similar standards for the playlist.

Carla, Leicester,

For those not aware, this all started after BBC 6 Music were deluged by complaints about a particular "presenter", George Lamb. This inane and witless DJ, with no previous radio experience, was brought in to "develop" the daytime schedule and appeal to female listeners. The controller, Lesley Douglas was concerned that too many of the show's listeners were male and wanted to achieve a greater balance. She's well on the way to achieving this by getting most of the listeners to switch off.

He is a throwback to the worst excesses of Radio 1, with fake West Indian accent, pointless sound effects, street lingo and a "zoo" radio format. What has really upset the 6 Music (remember that word Music) listeners however is that, in a typical 3 hour Lamb show there will be less that 20 tracks (18 on Monday) whereas there will be nearer 40 on other similar 3 hour shows.

Douglas was forced to defend her actions on Radio 4's Feedback where she came up the this pearl of wisdom.

Caped Crusader, London,

Men and women are 'wired' differently. Some men have a more female outlook, whilst some women are more masculine in thier opinion. I listen tio, and play music as a DJ on local radio. Some evokes memories of diferent times, sometimes I think 'why the hell did I like that' or 'Paul McArtney really does sing flat, why didn't I notice that in 1964?'. The answer is because it was the music of the time. As I grow older, I like more music, some of it from today, some of it from bands of tomorrow. The important thing is that I never want to stop enjoying music in it's many forms.

Ron, Milon Keynes, Bucks

I think the lady who made the comment about women understanding music in a way men never will was out of order as there was no need to have a dig at us men was there. Anyway I think the article does make a good point as I have 600 albums (CD's I'm afraid, sign of the times) and there organised in a certain order and I do know everything there is to know about my favourite aritsts. But I also get the tingles when I hear 2Pac say "my broken down TV, show cartoooons in my living rooom". As well as many other lines that I can't think of at the minute.

David Angel, London,

I'm sorry but this is a pointless discussion. No one can possibly make a valid comment on such a broad topic. Whilst there may be some general differences between the sexes on how they listen to music, there is simply no way anyone can make generalisations that would be of any worth.

Let's not turn this into a stereo typing exercise. That appears to be George Lamb's job.

This whole issue sprang up because Leslie Douglas decided to defend her position on hiring a bafoon [who irritates both sexes] by saying she was trying to attract more female listeners. That's not why she's done it, she made a mistake in her desire to have a station with bigger ratings at the cost of what got her an audience in the first place. Since the backlash that followed, she's come up with a flimsy excuse and is pretending that it was a pretext. Its all nonsense and the more we all discuss her smoke screen, the less we focus on the fact that a much loved station has been reduced in quality to improve ratings.

Sam, London,

Well, I am a man. But I don't know what it means to respond to music on an intelectual level. I like music. Probably the same way women do. But when I hear something I like I don't scream or wail "I love this song!", because I know I am not supposed to do it and I don't want to look strange. That's all.

Peter, London,

It's strange to think that people are so generalised (and stereotypical) about the way we listen to music these days.

I couldn't care less where something was made, who produced it, sometimes even what the names of the band members are...however i've currently got 12000 songs on my iPod and i can't get through the day without listening to something different to the day before and I go to gigs, festivals etc. on a regular basis.

Men having more music than women doesn't mean that men appreciate music more, it means that they buy music more!

As far as listening in different ways i listen to a singer because i'm a vocalist and having spoken to my friends if they play an instrument that is in the piece they are listening to they hear that above all others.

LizSara, Liverpool,

As a musician I find this debate fascinating. So far I have not managed to drive women to drink, dance on tables - and the rest so wittily described by Caitlin Moran. However I live in hope !

However the music I play is traditional morris dancing tunes and I do manage to get an entire team of women dancers shaking their clogs at me! And they say thank you afterwards so I guess that I my music may have struck a chord (sorry) with them. Playing for men doesn't draw the same response.

John Howard Norfolk, Tiverton, Devon, UK

SOME women, SOME men - why do we need to generalise?
When I listen to music, often the more I know about when, why and by whom a song was written, and some of the recording details, the more I get out of it, especially if it is a band I usually like - but there are some songs I know next to nothing about, but they still put me in a certain beautiful mood every time.

Abigail, London,

Could someone please explain to me in what way George Lamb is meant to be female friendly?
I am a female listener and have been one of the many complaining at the direction 6music is going in ( I am also quite happy to discuss release dates/production quality or vinyl vs CD and don't think I'm odd). The channel is moving very quickly away from it's remit and that is what so many of us are upset about.
Does it really matter if we are male or female and why are the ratings so important for a station that isn't governed by how much advertising revenue it can generate?

Lucy , Cambridge, England

I think that this article is fair on the whole - I'm regarded by my friends as being an unusual woman because I have a wide variety of music in my (alphabeticised) collection, I regularly attend gigs and festivals and am happy to sit in a pub talking about the ins and outs of the production of an album. However, I do believe that men and women get equally sensuous enjoyment of music - and a lot of my male friends are quite put out about this article suggesting that they don't - it's just that men seem to have the competitive "I know more about the workings of it than you do" trait, and women, in general, don't give a monkeys!

Pea, Whyteleafe, Surrey

I'm quite offended by this article. It's such a generalisation to say that women only respond emotionally to music, don't have a large record or cd collection and are not interested in talking about music. I know loads of girls that are really passionate about music in every way!

Suzanne, London, England

I strongly agree with some of the comments made by other contributors, in relation to women not moving out of their comfort zones and having a very much smaller and less varied collection than males. I have been lucky enough to establish a few female friends who have the same verve and appetite for music as I and wish to god there were more of them. It would make my long car journeys so much more enjoyable if my wife had a better appreciation of music and perhaps then it would change the repetitive record of "what is this depressing rubbish, can't you put the Scissor Sisters on" - We live in hope..!

Phil King, Reigate, Surrey

A friend of mine who also makes music (as do I) reckons that women focus on the lyrics whilst men tend to focus on the music in a song. That might account for emotional perception.

Personally I just like it when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I get a tingling feeling so I know that a song's a winner. Then I get my girlfriend to stop kissing my neck and the song goes back to normal again!

Justin, London, England

No ! Surely everyone likes exactly the same things ...

Benzo, Nr Chelmsford,

The only reason more women are not complaining about George Lamb is becasue they are NOT listening. How can a man who talks like a yob in the pub with his mates be classed as bringing 'a warmer, more female-friendly touch to mornings'?

The whole argument about the way men and women listen to music is not important. What is, is getting George Lamb off the air NOW.

Kerri, London,

I have a woman friend who is just as into the details of the music as I. She is an avid REM fan and is also into Americana and off-the-wall British acts such as Robyn Hitchcock and Stereolab. She has a huge music (and DVD) collection to which she is constantly adding. She laments the decline of the music shop. She is single...

Zabadak, Stratford, London

Lets face it, who writes and plays most of it!

John, Perth, Wa

Remind me again - how many of the serious conductors are women?

deond, edmonton,

I'm always fascinated by the fact that men seem to be much more interested in innovative and unusual music, and are always on the lookout for the next big thing.

Women, with many honourable exceptions, rarely seem to venture outside the safety of the familiar pop/easy-listening environment (unless led astray by a man?!).

A few years ago I had the opportunity to explore the music collections of a number of women friends, and I would invariably find the same albums...The Corrs, Simply Red, Dido, Gabrielle etc. Mind you, had it been 'boy bands' it would have been a lot worse!

Simon B, Bristol,

What an unsurprising stereotype from a woman - naturally women will be able to appreciate music in a better way than us. What utter drivel.

I have over 7,500 tracks on my iPod and alphabetise my CD collection so I can find things, but even if I knew where more than 2 of those albums were recorded (Low and Heroes) or could name more than a handful of bassists in those bands it wouldn't affect how I listened to or enjoyed that music.

What does seem to be true, in my experience at least, is that men tend to have larger, more varied music collections which is at least evidence of a greater appreciation and love of music.

Chris Jackson, London,