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Authors: Marvin Lin
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was relatively inaccessible to the mainstream, critics were confused and fighting over its “authenticity,” and it was released without official singles or videos. So how, then, did
Kid A
become one of the defining albums of the new millennium?
Maybe it just took time.
The more time I invest in music, the more I get out of it: contradictions are revealed, pleasures become guilty, patterns start forming, tastes begin expanding. Prevailing values play a prominent role in guiding our tastes, but if values change over time, who’s to say that our tastes don’t also? According to neurologist Daniel Levitin, “most people have formed their tastes by the age of eighteen or twenty.” We might assume this has to do with getting older, that supposed “real-world”concerns eventually take precedence — the implication being that music is for the young and idealistic. But adulthood, in and of itself, isn’t the cause; perhaps it’s our valuation of music listening as a leisure activity that instigates this general decline. Perhaps we make less time for music as we get older because the “cultural work” involved is not conventionally considered “real” work in the first place.
But developing our tastes is much more than a flat statement of musical preference: it’s also a reflection of our willingness to adapt. This explains in part why I didn’t like
The Bends
when I first heard it, why I no longer like “High and Dry,” and why I now love songs like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Door” and “Treefingers.” It’s not because I suddenly “get it.” It’s because my values have changed, and my tastes have adapted accordingly; how I listen to
Kid A
now is dramatically different from how I listened in 2000. Sure, not everyone follows the same path of taste, but adopting adaptive strategies to inform our tastes can nudge us up that social ladder, help us forge more intimate relationships, create for us a sense of social cohesion, or even hook us up with that cute boy/girl that maybe sorta kinda winked at us in passing (“I like Joy Division. Come hither!”). Yet while today’s “coolest” musical adapters attempt to transcend time (revisionists) and space (“world music” fans) — that is, devouring new sounds both from the past and across geographical borders — musical adaptation involves more than keeping up with the Joneses, being “with it,” or frolicking with the in-crowd. Andit’s more than about redefining what’s cool, in all its multiple, contradictory definitions. It’s also about how we spend our time.
One of the greatest things that time affords us is the ability to reassess. It’s unfair to say that critics were initially “wrong” about
Kid A
, because that assumes values transcend historical circumstance. After all,
what
constitutes a “right” taste, and
when
is it “right”? And even if critics were initially “wrong,” why should we trust newer critical opinions? Revisionism can be a good thing, but it’s no coincidence that some of the most startling 180s in taste come after the music’s codes are rendered irrelevant or forgotten. Likewise, it’s unfair to say that the eventual enjoyment of
Kid A
is exclusively shaped through social experience, because where our tastes head depends less on contextual exposure and more on which values we have chosen (sometimes subconsciously) to reinforce as we listen. Perched on branches rendered safe by time’s magic wand, it’s easy to say “Hey, people had it all wrong: that music
was
good,” because the assumed perspective is so distanced from the music’s original context that nearly any personal investment could trigger a cultural repositioning in their head. Yes, we can “enjoy” whatever form of music we want, especially after history has smoothed out its political or aesthetic edginess (or when social experience blinds us to them), but why aren’t revisionists reclaiming “hate music” when the music itself can be as
Kid A
become one of the defining albums of the new millennium?
Maybe it just took time.
The more time I invest in music, the more I get out of it: contradictions are revealed, pleasures become guilty, patterns start forming, tastes begin expanding. Prevailing values play a prominent role in guiding our tastes, but if values change over time, who’s to say that our tastes don’t also? According to neurologist Daniel Levitin, “most people have formed their tastes by the age of eighteen or twenty.” We might assume this has to do with getting older, that supposed “real-world”concerns eventually take precedence — the implication being that music is for the young and idealistic. But adulthood, in and of itself, isn’t the cause; perhaps it’s our valuation of music listening as a leisure activity that instigates this general decline. Perhaps we make less time for music as we get older because the “cultural work” involved is not conventionally considered “real” work in the first place.
But developing our tastes is much more than a flat statement of musical preference: it’s also a reflection of our willingness to adapt. This explains in part why I didn’t like
The Bends
when I first heard it, why I no longer like “High and Dry,” and why I now love songs like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Door” and “Treefingers.” It’s not because I suddenly “get it.” It’s because my values have changed, and my tastes have adapted accordingly; how I listen to
Kid A
now is dramatically different from how I listened in 2000. Sure, not everyone follows the same path of taste, but adopting adaptive strategies to inform our tastes can nudge us up that social ladder, help us forge more intimate relationships, create for us a sense of social cohesion, or even hook us up with that cute boy/girl that maybe sorta kinda winked at us in passing (“I like Joy Division. Come hither!”). Yet while today’s “coolest” musical adapters attempt to transcend time (revisionists) and space (“world music” fans) — that is, devouring new sounds both from the past and across geographical borders — musical adaptation involves more than keeping up with the Joneses, being “with it,” or frolicking with the in-crowd. Andit’s more than about redefining what’s cool, in all its multiple, contradictory definitions. It’s also about how we spend our time.
One of the greatest things that time affords us is the ability to reassess. It’s unfair to say that critics were initially “wrong” about
Kid A
, because that assumes values transcend historical circumstance. After all,
what
constitutes a “right” taste, and
when
is it “right”? And even if critics were initially “wrong,” why should we trust newer critical opinions? Revisionism can be a good thing, but it’s no coincidence that some of the most startling 180s in taste come after the music’s codes are rendered irrelevant or forgotten. Likewise, it’s unfair to say that the eventual enjoyment of
Kid A
is exclusively shaped through social experience, because where our tastes head depends less on contextual exposure and more on which values we have chosen (sometimes subconsciously) to reinforce as we listen. Perched on branches rendered safe by time’s magic wand, it’s easy to say “Hey, people had it all wrong: that music
was
good,” because the assumed perspective is so distanced from the music’s original context that nearly any personal investment could trigger a cultural repositioning in their head. Yes, we can “enjoy” whatever form of music we want, especially after history has smoothed out its political or aesthetic edginess (or when social experience blinds us to them), but why aren’t revisionists reclaiming “hate music” when the music itself can be as
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