I think you're right about that mixup between listening types and music types. My attempt to draw a correlation between the two is probably not holding water.
I guess that practically any type of music can be listened to by the background listener profile of person, provided that it (i) is sweet sounding, like the tinkling of Chopin ivories, or (ii) has a strong rhythmic base, like any rock music or the faster movements of any kind of classical. The place where the background listener fails to "mask out" the music is when it contains neither of these two attributes. Some truly great music is in this category, e.g. some Hindustani classical vocal alaaps. Such music is irritating to the background listener. Only in such cases does the background listener's brain fail to mask it out.
An equally intricate alaap on the flute would be perfectly fine for background listening, because the flute is smooth and sweet sounding.
You're right about the inappropriate mix
I think you're right about that mixup between listening types and music types. My attempt to draw a correlation between the two is probably not holding water.
I guess that practically any type of music can be listened to by the background listener profile of person, provided that it (i) is sweet sounding, like the tinkling of Chopin ivories, or (ii) has a strong rhythmic base, like any rock music or the faster movements of any kind of classical. The place where the background listener fails to "mask out" the music is when it contains neither of these two attributes. Some truly great music is in this category, e.g. some Hindustani classical vocal alaaps. Such music is irritating to the background listener. Only in such cases does the background listener's brain fail to mask it out.
An equally intricate alaap on the flute would be perfectly fine for background listening, because the flute is smooth and sweet sounding.