Girls Like Musicians

Lisa: Do you play?
Colin: Just piano, guitar, trumpet, drums and bass.
Lisa: [thinking] He's pure gold! For once in your life, be cool!

— The Simpsons Movie

Ah, music. What could be better than enjoying some tunes? Well, for a lot of girls, the answer is obvious: it's the person behind the instrument they like. Artists Are Attractive, after all, and so musicians are just inherently appealing.

After all, dating a musician has some perks. He could serenade you outside your window, or create songs just for you. He could help you get your toe into the industry, or get you free tickets to his next gig. If he does classical, he can play for your parent, winning them over easily. And even if he's not even close to being famous, but just likes to play, he'll often be charming, passionate, smart, talented... or at least, that's the ideal here. Because what's a musician without the personality to match?

And, even if the girl isn't into music herself, there's just something about musicians that make them popular love-interests. The crush will play music, regardless of what the girl actually thinks about music. This character is, after all, likely meant to appeal to the audience as well, who are also bound to find the boy more attractive just because he can play an instrument.

That said, if a character attempts to invoke this, results may vary. If their only reason for picking up an instrument is to impress some girls, they probably won't have the motivation to actually learn to play.

This role, of course, only properly applies to the rock-star type or classical musician, so the Polka Dork need not apply. And because All Drummers Are Animals and Nobody Loves the Bassist, this rarely applies to them, too.

If he plays rock music, this will usually overlap with All Girls Want Bad Boys.

A subtrope of Artists Are Attractive. Compare Quirky Ukulele for the female variant, as well as the Elegant Classical Musician and the Sexy Sax Man. Finally, see Groupie, for the dedicated female fans of an actual celebrity musician, which overlaps.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Idol Densetsu Eriko:
  • Aki the frontman of the band STEA and has a large female demographic that attend his concerts.
  • Osawa plays the saxophone and charms many women during his street performances. It helps that he's ashen-haired Pretty Boy.
• Sayaka of Puella Magi Madoka Magica had a crush on Kyousuke who is a violinist. In fact Kyousuke is the reason why Sayaka became a magical girl. Sayaka wished Kyousuke's hands to be healed so he could play the violin again.

Comic Books

• Following Archie and Betty's catastrophic breakup before the beginning of Archie Comics (2015), Jughead schemes to get Archie to perform at Homecoming. Betty, who won Homecoming Queen, looks on longingly as he rocks out on stage. Jughead admits later that his plan all along was to remind each other of what they had been missing instead of forcing a connection — evidently, Archie's musical skill was part of that.
• Johnny the Homicidal Maniac mocks this trope. Tess outright admits that she puts up with her boyfriend because he's in a band, though whether this is because she actually likes musicians or because she wants to look cool is unclear.
• W.I.T.C.H. has Matt Olsen, lead guitar player and singer for his band, Nice Guy and Love Interest for Will Vandom, not to mention a general Chick Magnet... which is unfortunate since Will is the jealous type.

Comic Strips

• In Peanuts, Lucy's crush is on the piano-playing Schroeder, fawning over his music as he tries to concentrate.
• Zits:
  • While watching Jeremy and his band rehearse, Walt reminisces about his own days in a garage band, and says he doesn't know what it is, but girls seem to love a boy in a band. Meanwhile, Connie is staring at the band with a dreamy look in her eyes.
  • Another strip has Jeremy's girlfriend watching him play guitar, wondering if he knows how hot he looks, and then Jeremy wondering if he looks hot playing the guitar.

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles:
  • Part of what cements Mittens's attraction to Berlioz in "The Paris Trip" is his ability to play jazz piano.
  • Penny has a short-lived relationship with a schoolmate who fancies himself a budding indie-rock star. While it doesn't last long, she develops a liking for this style of music as a result. Referenced in "The Ship" and "The Walk"; in the latter story, she is shown to still be unhappy with how things turned out.
  • In "The Ship," Penny's biology lab partner is described as having developed a crush on the lead trumpet player in the school marching band.

Films — Animation

• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls has Flash Sentry, Twilight's love-interest in the human world, who is introduced as an attractive guitarist with a band. He even helps her win prom-queen by playing, which leads to a shot of her gleefully admiring him.
• The Simpsons Movie: The intellectual Lisa is clearly enraptured by Colin's musical skill. The sadness of their separation is punctuated by him writing a song for her.

Films — Live-Action

• Lampshaded in Dazed and Confused when Pink talks about quitting the football team:
  "I don't know, I just think it'd be the same if we were in a band."
• Love Actually: Preteen Sam decides to learn the drums because he knows girls like musicians and he wants to impress his crush Joanna, an excellent singer. It's discussed in a conversation with his stepfather:
  Sam: Well, girls love musicians, don't they?
  Daniel: Uh-huh.
  Sam: Even the weird ones get girlfriends.
  Daniel: That's right. Meat Loaf definitely got laid at least once. For God's sake, Ringo Starr married a Bond girl.
  Sam: Whatever. There's this big concert at the end of term and Joanna's in it. I thought if I was in the band and played superbly, she might fall in love with me. What do you think?
  Daniel: I think it's brilliant, I think it's stellar.
• In Zombieland: Double Tap, Little Rock runs away with Berkeley, a New-Age Retro Hippie-type musician. She swoons over his guitar-playing and the songs he claims he writes for her. After the final battle, presumably his charm has worn off and she dumps him, saying "even twelve-year-olds know who Bob Dylan is".
• The Duff: The main character Bianca has a huge crush on guitar-playing Toby.
• In The Princess Diaries, Michael is introduced playing in a garage band to establish that he's the protagonist' (and many other girls') crush.
• Sylvie's Love has a sensual sequence where Sylvie first sees Robert play the saxophone at a nightclub. Later that night her companion Mona is clearly enamored with Robert's bandmate Chico, while Sylvie finally gives in to her attraction to him by kissing him.

Literature

• '10 Things to Do Before I Die'': This seems to be how Ted got his girlfriend, Rachel, since she pretends to be learning guitar just for an excuse to talk to him.

Live-Action TV

• Awkward.:
  • Secondary love-interest Jake was a laid-back Nice Guy, who, fittingly, played the guitar and even had a short musical career. He has managed to attract four different girls over the course of the series.
  • For a brief time, Jenna had a fling with a boy named Owen, who's main character trait was being a talented and dedicated classical pianist. She even met him while he was playing, and their relationship was based on their supposed shared interest in music- with Jenna pretending to understand his jargon.
• On Community, Vaughan is sort of a parody of the Mr. Fanservice cool rocker type. He's always playing guitar on the quad and is first introduced as Greendale's main musician, and both Britta and Annie are attracted to him and date him at various points on the show.
• Daisy Jones & The Six: In the first episode, Graham sighs about a crush. Billy comforts him by telling him that he's a guy who can play guitar, so he'll have no shortage of future girlfriends.
• In Derry Girls, Erin's crush David is in a band and also works as a DJ. Erin clearly thinks this is very impressive and tries to act cooler around him.
• Drake & Josh: One of the reason Drake is so popular with girls is that he's a talented guitarist with his own band, and thus he's able to woo with his music in addition to his looks and charm.
• House of Anubis: Fabian, the protagonist's love-interest and the main-focus of a love-triangle, played guitar. He even played it around Nina, despite his general embarrassment when others catch him practicing, all-the-while crushing on each other.
• In an episode from Series 4 of The IT Crowd, Jen is smitten with the very unattractive keyboardist of a band. Roy insists she's only attracted to him because he's in a band, which she denies, but once he gets kicked out of the band Jen immediately stops loving him.
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: Ned attempted to invoke this, as one reason for learning to play the guitar was his belief that his crush, Suzy Crabgrass, would be attracted to him if he were a rockstar.
• Never Have I Ever In "...have been ghosted", the only straight guy at the coffeehouse fundraiser is the nerdy Alejandro. Devi is grossed out by him until he busts out an acoustic guitar and starts crooning. The other girls there obviously feel the same as they start to crowd around him. Lampshaded by the Lemony Narrator:
  John McEnroe: What you are witnessing right now is a fairly common phenomenon that happens to almost every teen girl. It is the moment when an unremarkable dork is given a guitar and suddenly becomes the hottest man in the world. Scientists call it the Ed Sheeran effect. There is no known cure.
• Raising Hope: Jimmy used to be a musical prodigy before he was accidentally hit in the head. When he shows his love interest Sabrina a tape of him playing, she seems impressed. This causes Jimmy to try and regain his talent, believing this will win Sabrina's affections.
• In the Seinfeld episode "The Rye", Elaine fantasizes about her musician boyfriend writing a song for her, and is disappointed that he doesn't fit the "wild and uninhibited" stereotype she associates with musicians.
• Star Trek:
  • Played With in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Someone To Watch Over Me". Seven of Nine has chosen to try dating...
    Seven: I've narrowed the list to two crewmen, based on work performance and compatible interests.
    Harry Kim: I didn't know you had any interests.
    Seven: Neither did I, but apparently they include astronomy, quantum mechanics and music.
    Harry Kim: I play the clarinet, you know.
    Seven: You are not one of the candidates, Ensign.
  • On Star Trek: Discovery, Ensign Tilly admits to going through a "musician phase" in her romantic preferences.
• Victorious: While not as much as Beck, the musically-inclined Andre gets plenty of attention from girls. Oftentimes, he's approached by girls after concerts. At the end of an episode where he was pinning over Jade, he gets over these feelings once another girl shows interest in him.

Music

• Ninja Sex Party: In "Dragon Slayer", Danny attempts to score with a woman by making up lies about how awesome he is. One of his attempts has him pointing out that he's in a band. The woman is still unimpressed.
• Harry Chapin's "I Wanna Learn A Love Song" features this trope. A lonely housewife whose needs are neglected by her husband takes guitar lessons, but ends up falling for the guitar teacher (and seducing him behind her husband's back).

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons, a stereotypical Horny Bard uses their high charisma score to seduce whoever they want. This is technically because they're a high charisma class who could easily end an encounter by...turning it into an encounter, but the way this was attached to bards rather than other charisma-based classes is likely because of this trope.

Theatre

• In 1776, the song "He Plays the Violin" explains how soft-spoken Thomas Jefferson managed to win over his beloved wife.
• In RENT, recently sober rock musician Roger describes himself as having had "the world at his feet...in the eyes of a young girl," his deceased girlfriend April. His neighbor Mimi is drawn to his sensitive rock musician persona, although their relationship is anything but smooth. Roger's drive for most of the musical is creating the one song that will live on before he dies of AIDS complications. In fact, it's his song that brings Mimi back from a Near-Death Experience.

Video Games

• The King of Fighters: A part of Athena and Kensou's backstories is that, as a guitarist in Athena's Idol Singer concerts, Kensou gets his own fangirls too, from which he gets a lot of gifts. Athena is also his Love Interest, although she acts more like his caring best friend.
• Duke Evans, the local playboy/charmer of Harvest Town is also a guitarist/musician. However, his popularity is more or less an Informed Attribute, given that the female characters in the game barely ever say anything about him or his music.

Visual Novels

• Being A ΔΙΚ: The MC is a skilled guitarist (for bonus points, he is self-taught) and is attractive to several girls at B&R. This plays into the relationship with Sage, who bonds with him over his guitar lessons to her, and most strongly with fellow musician Jill (she's a pianist), most notably if he saves her recital by going on stage himself and playing the guitar when she is consumed by Performance Anxiety. Notably, this is also invoked by Tybalt by Episode 9, who starts playing the cello at the same time as when Jill practices the piano in an apparent bid to impress her, although he is...not good at it.
• Melody:
  • Bethany is mentioned to be the one groupie that the protagonist fell in love with, and he turned down sex from lots of others while in his relationship with her.
  • Melody can be seen as a deconstruction. She falls for the protagonist - a good musician - but angrily rejects a bad musician who opened for her favorite band.

Web Videos

• Lampooned in a set of CollegeHumor videos titled "Learning Guitar/Piano To Get Laid". The guys in the video managed to attract an entire harem by the end. Also, no, learning the bass will NOT get you laid.

Western Animation

• In Futurama:
  • "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?" features an alien called Edna who wants to mate with a rock star.
  • Leela reveals she has a thing for musicians, having dated a saxophone player (until he cheated on her) and swooned over Fry when he played the holophonor for her when he was infected by a parasite that made him smarter, and again in the original finale when he trades his hands for the robot devil's.
• In Phineas and Ferb, Candace's love-interest Jeremy plays guitar in a band, which has lead to her fawning over him as he plays, being directly sung to, and even buying him a special silver guitar she knew he wanted. Meanwhile, her friend Stacey ended up crushing on his band-mate and best-friend, Coltrane.
• Sonic Boom subverts this with an insipid pop star named Justin Beaver, whose Chick Magnet status is only because his manager wrote Mind-Control Music for him. When Sonic breaks Justin and his fangirls of their brainwashing, Justin loses his appeal and abandons his music career.
• Total Drama Island: When Gwen was falling for Trent, one of her main reasons for liking him was that she just couldn't resist boys who played guitar, which he was known for. The opening even has him playing his guitar for her near a campfire, the two of them just about to kiss.
• Miraculous Ladybug: Both of Marinette’s love interests are talented musicians with hearts of gold, Adrien being a classical pianist who is selfless to a fault, and Luka being a cool guitar player who can get in touch with people’s souls.
• In American Dad!, Steve mentions taking up the cello just so he can hook up with girls.
• Steven Universe:
  • Greg Universe was a fledgling rock star who had one of his modest concerts attended by Rose Quartz, a "magical alien" known as a Gem, and the leader of the rebel faction known as the Crystal Gems. Drawn by Greg's personality and love of music, the two began a romantic courtship that consummated in the birth of their son and eponymous protagonist, Steven...at the cost of Rose's own life.
  • It's also implied that Greg was not the first "musician" that Rose fell in love with during her many millennia on Earth. One telling of her origin story shows an image of her falling in love with a dancing tribesman from a very ancient civilization.
• Gravity Falls
  • Wendy seems to be into musicians, if her relationship with Robbie Valentino (whom Dipper describes as "a jerk with tight pants and a guitar") is any indication.
  • This trope plays a major part of the episode "Boyz Crazy", where Mabel and her friends rescue a boy band made of enslaved clones, only for Mabel to get a little too attached to them.
• Daria: The mostly stoic Daria used to have a crush on Trent, the Lead Singer And Lead Guitarist of an alternative band with a sort of rebel appeal. Even if the band is pretty bad and Trent is a flaky slacker, Daria remains smitten with him for a few years.
• In The Little Rascals episode "Rock & Roll Rascals", Darla asks the boys to get her an autograph from a rock 'n' roll singer.
• Kaeloo: Kaeloo's love interest, Mr. Cat, plays the piano. While she's already attracted to him, she fawns over him even more when he plays music.
• Stripperella. In one episode Erotica mentions she's crazy about musicians, but worries that the one she's interested will be turned off by the fact that she's a stripper. When he finally gets up on stage, his singing turns out to be awful, so she immediately confesses to being a stripper.

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