magic in music: courage, honesty and taste

When I was a musician, people, naturally enough, would ask me what sort of music I liked. And I was painfully vague. All sorts, I'd say, which was true. If pushed, I'd say that I liked anything that was good, but the truth was my response to music was (and is) 100% emotional and intuitive, in a way that was hard to pin down. Some music would just make my breath stop and all the hairs on my arms stand up straight. Other music was clever, and well played, and well produced, and left me cold.

I used to feel a need to justify what I liked, and I don't really, any more. Because it was hard to, because there wasn't any objective pattern.

But what I think now is that I respond to music that I intuit to be honest and courageous.

As a result, I can appreciate that Coldplay are clever at writing songs that people like, but still find them the polar opposite of everything I think music should be. They seem like kids who found a book of how to write emotive songs, but never knew what emotion was. I'm not sure about that, of course. I've never met them. That's just how my gut responds to them.

What gets me is Bjork, deciding to do a tour with a harpist, an Inuit choir, a full orchestra, and two weird scientist looking guys. Total honesty and commitment to her vision, and you can see it in her interactions with the harpist - the total joy of nailing what you've only imagined.

What gets me is Nina Simone singing 'How it Feels to be Free', and particularly the second of half, and especially the end.

And what gets me, more than anything, in my favourite musical moment (even though it's not really a musical moment at all) is Dylan responding to the 'Judas' taunt: 'Play it fucking loud' and into 'Like a Rolling Stone'.

ALL of my hairs standing on end.

All of this could, of course, just be a fancy way of saying and justifying "I like what I like".  But it's a useful shorthand, and it aligns with the qualities that I admire most in people I know.