Player1 I strongly agree with your perspective. Now I don't play piano for a living nor do I need to appeal to an audience, so I choose pieces I like, and I have a strong aversion to spending time on popular pieces on the sole basis of their being popular. Call me a hipster or an elitist, that's just how it is. Some portion of that is tied to my self-esteem - I don't like perceiving myself as following a fad. I realize this can be a bit of a negative trait too - sometimes my teacher will bring up a piece she wants to teach me. Objectively I know I should go for it because my teacher has taught that specific piece to many other students before and so that suggests she's already highly experienced in knowing what students struggle with, but emotionally I really don't want to learn something that all of her other students also learned... It's a character flaw for me, really.
It's not a 100% aversion - I do still like listening to pieces such as that theme from Amelie whose name I don't want to look up right now, Satie's Gymnopedie no. 1, the third movement of the Appassionata, Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, or Liszt's Paganini etude 'La Campanella' for example - but I do not want to strive towards playing those pieces. I derive a lot of enjoyment from looking for hidden gems. If I ever play the more popular pieces, it'll be when I'm good enough to learn them in a very short amount of time.
