and with this, I will lose your respect

I like music. People know this about me, the same way they know that Will Ferrell has curly leg hair or that Amy Winehouse smells like a grandpa. They don’t really remember where or how they learned such a fact, but if asked the opinion on the matter, they would say that it’s true.

The thing is, though, that I don’t know anything about music. I can’t play an instrument, I can’t sing, I have no rhythm, and a good friend who is a jazz musician thinks I’m tone deaf. I don’t think I’m tone deaf, I just think I’m a WASP. I come from a long line of pearl earrings and church bake sales; I’m never going to be uninhibited enough to let my soul seep through the strings of a guitar.

I’m not interested in music except for when I’m listening to it. I don’t read Pitchfork reviews and I only buy Paste Magazine when the free CD looks appealing, which is about twice a year. I don’t talk about music very often, and I write about it even less—I’d do the occasional music review when I worked for a newspaper in Nashville, but I was not one of the regular “music writers,” who went to five shows a week and talked about musicians as if they were close, personal friends. “Billy has changed,” they’d say when the new Smashing Pumpkins album came out, or “Did you see Jack’s hair?” referring to Nashville’s biggest mainstream-but-still-cool claim to fame. How ridiculous, I’d think to myself, and then I’d go home and make some finger sandwiches and lemonade.

But I really, really like music. I like discovering a new sound that shows me a part of myself I never knew was there, and I like familiar songs that transport me back to the moment I first heard them, like when I was seven years old and heard “American Pie” while on a family vacation to Florida, or the time I danced on the windowsill of my childhood home to Elvis Presley’s “Teddy Bear.” It’s such a short song, only one minute and 48 seconds, but no matter how old I grow or where I move, it will never change and when I hear it, I feel 10 years old again. For some reason, I like knowing that.

So what else do I like? I like the Beatles. The Who. Bob Dylan. The Clash. Led Zeppelin. The Doors. The Zombies. Marvin Gaye. James Brown. Jimi Hendrix. Buddy Holly. Elvis. Parliament Funkadelic. This weird band from the 1960s called Fairport Convention. One of my favorite CDs came from a 2005 issue of Oxford American magazine, and I find myself wishing I had better access to people like Bessie Smith and Blind Willie McTell. I love Sleater Kinney and Le Tigre. The Gossip has underwhelming lyrics, but Beth Ditto’s voice is so fantastic that “Fire Sign” is easily one of the best songs of the decade. The Arcade Fire. Ben Folds. Billie Holiday. Patti Smith. Pulp. Blondie. The Rolling Stones. Blur, although I can’t listen to them anymore because they remind me of 10th grade study hall. Chuck Berry. Bo Diddley. Cold War Kids. I bought my first Velvet Underground album when I was 14. Jethro Tull. Van Morrison. Joni Mitchell. LCD Soundsystem. Beastie Boys. CCR and CSN&Y. I love David Bowie but I love John Lennon even more. Johnny Cash. Fiona Apple. Simon and Garfunkel, with the exception of  “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” which is a bad song and you're a bad person for liking it. Sufjan Stevens. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Wolf Parade. Louis Armstrong. M.I.A.

But there’s something I’ve never told anyone. It’s kind of hard for me to admit, so I’m just going to say it and get it over with:

I don’t really like Radiohead.

I don’t hate them or anything—I have four of their albums—it’s just that I like early Radiohead the best, before Thom Yorke really knew what he was doing. My favorite album is The Bends, even though no one ever agrees with me when I argue in its favor. It’s the unloved middle child, after the debut album but before their Sgt. Pepper-like digi-sound reinvention, so people tend to forget about it. But you know what? Sgt. Pepper is my least favorite Beatles album, and Radiohead lost me at OK Computer. I recognize the album’s originality and I appreciate the way I do Renaissance art that looks like it was hard to paint. I’ve heard it at hundreds of parties and during hundreds rides in other people’s cars, and it has become so familiar to me that it’s kind of comforting, but I don’t think I’ve ever, EVER listened to OK Computer voluntarily. And Kid A? Boring as all hell. Hail to the Thief? Thanks, but I’d rather not. I downloaded In Rainbows for free, and then I listened to it once. I just…I don’t like Radiohead anymore.

It’s a hard thing to admit, this Radiohead indifference. It’s like being an English major who doesn’t like Shakespeare. Which, unfortunately, is another category to which I belong. Yeah yeah, reinventing the English language as we know it , the art of the metaphor, lyrical rhythm and romantic sonnets, never-before-done literary tricks, but two 14-year-olds who commit suicide because their families don’t get along? Lifetime mini-series alert.

I’m not all poor taste and bad decisions, though. Sure, so I don’t like Hamlet or Macbeth, but I adore A Comedy of Errors. It has identical twins and hilarious mix-ups. Like the Parent Trap!

Know what I also don’t like? Ice cream.

Comments

[Lesley]

I prefer the earlier stuff, too. But I include OK Computer in with that. They lost me after that. Don't get me wrong, they still put on a helluva live show and I'm still buying their music, but I can't listen to it just any ol' time. I was eager to hear the latest and played it in the car one afternoon and was tired and depressed by the time I got home and pretty much wanting to drag a razor blade across my wrist. I haven't listened to it since.

This isn't as bad as my admission that I prefer Wings to Beatles. I have been ridiculed and nearly spit upon for saying that.

[meg]

I totally agree about early Radiohead. I'm glad I'm not alone.

[Claire]

....wait, you prefer Wings to the Beatles? That sentence doesn't even make sense to me.

Although I'm proud of you for being able to admit it in public.