True story: I was a terribly cranky baby for the first 5 months. My poor mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were at their wits' ends with me, certain something was horribly wrong. Put me to bed with the radio, I'd cry. With the record player (I was born in the 70s), wails. Car radio? Screams. Getting me to sleep took acts of god and congress.
A cousin needed to listen to some music for class, and since my great-grandparents had the best stereo in the family, he brought over the Bach and Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Mom was running late getting me out of the house (since the then working theory was that I didn't like music at all) and Cuz was about 6 weeks behind on his paper, so he did what any teenager does and cranked the volume. On the 1812. And suddenly, they had a very happy baby. Who was giggling at the cannons and waving at the strings. Apparently, none of my family can abide the 1812 now because they used it for a year as bedtime music. But they also had a very sunny, easy baby who bounced to bass and learned to walk by reaching for the volume knob. I still use the 1812 on repeat when my insomnia drugs don't work. (Though I now prefer a really interesting extended electronic remix.)
It took them all several years and lots of experiments to figure out that I really didn't like *their* music -- and their music was 70s era C&W, bluegrass, and Elvis gospel. My mother's flirtation with rock ended with the Beatles, and it was never very serious, so it took many, many years for me to figure out for myself that I cannot abide a specific chord progression common in those genres. It is like fingernails on a blackboard for me and literally hurt my ears. (It's clearly something in my brain, since I never heard anything else in utero or infancy.) I have to be careful even with folk and folk-punk.
On the other hand, I didn't flirt with rock, I took it into the backseat with me and I married classical. I fell deep for electronic pop when I was 7, went deeply punk and goth when exposed, and the closest I come to a religious experience is an electronic dance festival or front row by the cellos at the symphony.
Babies are little, not stupid. They know what works for them.
(Turns out, one of my nephews has the same quirk, though his talisman piece is the 9th when cranked to 11 and on the "deep bass" equalizer setting.)
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I remember my dad playing this at top volume, while my sister and I would jump up and down on the bed like a trampoline ...
