Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Hmmmmm....maybe...I've only heard the twee shite.

Now, I'd have put you down as a bit of a fan of at least a few of her albums based on your tastes in other bands and genres. How odd.

Like Miles Davis said, there's only two types of music, good and bad. In respect of the broad church that is individual musical taste, there's always something that you just can't get. Leaves you unmoved, perplexed, or even raises the sonic hackles. Sometimes it's something clearly talented, and you can appreciate why others like it, but it just cannot connect with your groove sockets and vibe receptors.

For me the prime candidate is....Steely Dan. I cannot stand them. I have to turn them down if they come on the radio. They somehow manage to produce an almost allergic reaction in my head. Where others hear wit, finely crafted and expertly performed songs, all I hear is elevator music for coke sniffing californian yuppies. Is it me ?....

The less said about James 'fill my ears with boiling tar please' Taylor, the better.

You certainly can! I quite liked the odd early song as a youngster, but what an awful band they became. U2's Attic Portrait hits the road. Horrible. That 'Everybody Hurts' is another one for Satan's jukebox. Worthy of Gary 'head up royal rectum' Barlow. Totally formulaic band and indescribably boring IMO.

I'll go along with that. I think you can tell things are going wrong with music when the BBC start using songs for the back drop of a programme plug. I particularly remember "Everybody Hurts" being used for the London Marathon one year. Satan's Jukebox wouldn't even accept it.

No completely coherent theory on this, more of a floating clutch of different ideas/angles of approach to the problem and purely personal observations ...

People respond to different things in different ways. Something that someone can take completely in stride in their life will knock someone else for six. No two persons account of the same event, at which they were both present, will be exactly the same, sometimes differing wildly.

It occurred to me many years ago that every album I have contains something that I respond to for some reason, something that seems to chime with or reflect some aspect of myself or seems rooted in a particular time of life and recalls some experience or sensation. Therefore my collection could be seen as some sort of attempt to map or model my internal workings. It's making these things real and tangible and getting them on the outside. Not everyone feels the need to do this.

Not everyone uses or even listens to music in the same way. Not all music has the same function, or does the same thing if you prefer. Some folks see listening to an album as an activity in it's own right and will listen intently, concentrating on each nuance of every separate instrumental, percussive and vocal part while appreciating how they combine to form a whole that may feel like it has an overall effect greater than the sum of these parts. Some folks just like to have something to drive to or do the housework to.

Some music is easy and immediate. Some is not so easy on the ear and demands more work on the part of the listener, an active listening process. Some works equally well either way depending on what the listener requires of it at the time.

None of this means to say that, objectively anyhow, any of it is any less valid than anything else.

Maybe this particular album says nothing to me about my life ... maybe sometimes I just don't want to be reminded of my life and would like to feel something else for say the next 45 to 60 minutes or thereabouts.

Having said all that ... I find My Chemical Romance's 'The Black Parade' overbearingly derivative, pompous and pretentious ... but then, that's something I can't stand in myself.