(Reprinted from NPR music)
Kyle Perry writes: “Do you ever feel obligated to return and re-listen to something that you don’t like, but that everyone says is great? I just can’t seem to love and adore In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, but it seems like everyone in my life insists that it’s great, so I’ve tried multiple times to get into it. At what point do you give up and concede that something that’s critically or popularly acclaimed is just not good to you?
I think you’re just about there: You’ve listened to your friends; you’ve listened to the record; you’ve tried. Great music isn’t great to everyone — it simply can’t be. Great music stirs intense emotions, and intense emotions are destined to polarize, or they wouldn’t necessitate intensity.
Now, I do happen to think that In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a masterpiece, and it’s certainly one of my favorite albums of the last 15 or 20 years. But I’m not coming to it cold. I found it on my own and I fell in love with it at my own pace, under pressure from no one, on headphones, during solitary walks. It came to me a little late, when I was ready to come looking for it — I was ready for its passion and intensity and sideways beauty, and the mystery of it transfixed me. But that doesn’t make me “right” or “wrong” about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea; if it were made for everyone to love, that fact would alienate the people it now attracts.
I’m a big fan of “not for me” as a descriptor — tinged with a hint of disappointment rather than defiance. It bugs me when I don’t love something that’s supposed to be great! I like loving things! This past summer, I dragged myself to a Lumineers concert because I wanted to interrogate my reflexive dislike of the group’s music; it didn’t help, but I still do my absolute best not to dump on The Lumineers’ music around friends who rave about the band. It’s just that it’s Not For Me.
Finally, while this isn’t true in all cases, it doesn’t hurt to revisit classic records at different times in your life, whether you love them or not. When I was in my early 20s, Tom Waits was squarely in the Not For Me bin. I just needed life to smack me around a little bit before his music meant to me what it was meant to mean.
Every Moment Has A Song 
Jan 20, 2013 @ 05:28:02
I absolutely agree with this writer’s response to the write-in. Tastes vary from person to person regardless of what’s “great”, tastes develop over time, the memorable moments in our lives create in us the emotional backdrop against which to set great music, and people can’t be made to like great music.. Just as my taste for mustard didn’t develop until my mid twenties, I know that tastes for other things develop, too. Maybe this writer will never come to like Neutral Milk, but that’s ok. Music does move people emotionally and affects people differently. Different people bring their own individual experiences to the music they like. Sometimes these emotional responses have easy to identify stimuli: “I like this album because I played it a lot during a really great time in my life”, “I remember listening to this when I was going through a really rough breakup”. And, as this writer notes, sometimes you just have to go through some heartbreak to appreciate some really great music.
I think it also helps for one to come to a great piece of music on his own. I’ve had albums sit, lost in my CD collection until years later when I was ready to accept them at that particular moment, and no earlier for who knows what emotional reason. t took me some time
to love Jethro Tull’s complex renaissance-rock album “Songs from the Wood”. if I hadn’t arrived at it in my own time, the cajoling of a well-intentioned parent might have destroyed its appeal for me.
Jan 20, 2013 @ 09:07:37
Ha! What a cajoler your mum was…
Well said Zack. And how appropriate I read it while listening to a Partridge Family remaster. Some music is good for one person and vile to another. As for older music, nostalgia can be a powerful pull toward certain music that can’t necessarily be confidently recommended to others. I fell in (and out) of love for the first time to Lionel Richie’s first solo album; it’s still emotion-loaded for me today. Bet you’re glad I didn’t cajole you with that one!