One of the best pop music experiences is hearing a song like OutKast's ``Hey Ya!'' -- sort of the Beach Boys' ``Good Vibrations'' of its day -- a song that makes you feel bulletproof for 3 minutes and 55 seconds, that makes you get up and dance every time or sing at the top of your lungs in the car.

But there's something better. It's finding an album that you hate at first, maybe for even more than a dozen plays, but that ends up changing your musical tastes and maybe your life.

I had one of those moments with Radiohead's ``Hail to the Thief'' over the holidays, an album that a number of readers pointed out was surprisingly absent from my top 10 for the year.

The English band has long been one of my favorites, and I agree with the Rolling Stone story that called it the best band of the past 10 years. Thom Yorke and crew are the Pink Floyd of their day, constantly surprising and defying expectations, with intelligence, imagination, elegance and grace.

But I couldn't get all the way through the last album, released in June.

It sounded garbled, frantic, accidental, as if they hadn't worked on it long enough.

I had a bad physical reaction to it: It made me dizzy, like during that giant downhill on a roller coaster or that floor-shifting of an earthquake.

It could be as harsh as a poke in the eye, such as the minute and 15 seconds of ``Sit Down. Stand Up,'' during which they repeat the words ``the raindrops'' over and over like some kind of water torture. Or the stretching of a note until it's off-key on ``Sail to the Moon.''

But I also knew that anything that could cause such a powerful reaction could turn around on me. It's happened before.

A lot of my favorite albums brought on the same reactions early on: the feedback-laden screeches of Hendrix's ``Purple Haze''; the low-fi ache of Nirvana's ``Bleach''; the nasal, grating harmonies of ``London Calling'' by the Clash; the bombast of Pink Floyd's ``The Wall''; even Bono's early wails were grating at first.

But with all of those, at some point I took a U-turn and began to love something that at first I hated. Sometimes the radio helped, easing the newness with repeated plays. Other times, one song on an album would appeal to me (like ``Comfortably Numb'') and I'd keep playing the rest to get to it. Eventually, the walls would come down and the albums would open up.

It was easier to listen more before I became a critic. When I could afford two discs a week, there was time. Now, with 10 to 30 new ones landing on my desk every week, it takes more discipline to repeatedly play something I don't like.

So it was over vacation that I left ``Hail to the Thief'' on my disc changer and nibbled away. One morning I didn't fast forward ``the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops . . .'' and it hit me like a great John Coltrane jazz solo. It was discordant, harsh, and suddenly it focused like a kaleidoscope and became beautiful.

A little while later, I was listening to Live 105's great countdown of the top songs of the year, and I heard ``Go to Sleep,'' not even realizing it was Radiohead, and woke up.

(How rare is it these days for radio to have that old power? If you check out Live 105's top 105.3 songs (www.live105.com) you realize it wasn't such a bad year after all on a station that isn't afraid to be daring.)

It's taken six months, but suddenly I can't get ``Hail to the Thief'' off my disc player.

I'd like to think that, as a critic, I should be ahead of the curve, but sometimes the best work takes some work; it takes more time to appreciate art that pushes away from the context around it.

For the record, I asked a few other people if they ever had the same experience.


Rock critic Dave Marsh: ``No. I always knew the first time whether I liked something.'' But Marsh, an old-school critic, added that he hasn't really liked anything new in years.

Jim DeRegatis of the Chicago Sun-Times: ``I think any critic who doesn't admit he or she hasn't doubled back on themselves isn't worth their salt. Sometimes really complicated music takes a while to kick in.''

David Bowie, rocker and rock fan: ``It always takes me a couple of times to get into bands that I really admire, say Grandaddy. It took me a while to get into their last album. Radiohead, it always takes me at least two or three listens, at least, to really get there.''

So half the day now, I'm humming ``Hey Ya!''; the other half it's ``the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops . . .''




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[This message was edited Thu Jan 15 22:55:33 PST 2004 by Sdldawn]

Sdldawn said:

If only more critics could admit these things...

Thanks for posting this article. This should be required reading for anyone who loves music.

What’s rather troubling is that this critic is just discovering what should have been drilled into his or her head in art appreciation 101.

There’s greatness to be found in both the deep dig and the instant gratification.

You can never expand your musical horizons by simply embracing that which you’re already open to hear, given the complex nature of who you are based on all that you’ve experienced thus far.

Lots of great art polarizes. If something has the power to inspire great love in some, it certainly has the power to do just the opposite in others. Most art isn’t powerful enough to truly inspire either extreme in most people.

It would therefore seem to follow that one should use that strong emotion of hate and rejection as a mental cue that keeps you bulling onward with a humble spirit and an open mind that says “I might not always be the perfect judge of everything. My first impression could be wrong. If nothing else, let me always remember to give the art the respect of a fair chance.”

Rock critic Dave Marsh: “No. I always knew the first time whether I liked something.” But Marsh, an old-school critic, added that he "hasn't really liked anything new in years."

You change or you die. That’s just as true for the artist as it is for those who are experiencing the art.

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[This message was edited Fri Jan 16 1:45:20 PST 2004 by Brendan]

This article is how I feel about music in general.. The digestation it takes in order to consume REAL music.. sometimes there is a haze or fog in front of you, until one day u see.. and it brings a feeling like no other when u found a song that is dear to you, when all this time it was staring at you in the face.