I was hoping this was online! Nick Hornby’s review of “Kid A” is legendarily terrible and misguided, and even if you don’t like the record - I surely don’t very much - it’s a wipeout. His basic argument is: “experimental records are a con job, and this isn’t even very experimental”. Points for honesty, I guess!

But I’m reblogging this because deep down in it he’s touching on an obvious, important, little-explored idea, which is that how you think about music is very dependent on how much time you have to listen to it. Professional critics have a great deal of time and opportunity to listen to music, and so tend to operate on the unspoken assumption that everyone else does too, and that people who don’t have that opportunity don’t have it because they don’t want it enough.

I have never been very receptive to suggestions that if I gave more time to a particular record I would love it. Partly, I feel I have good instincts - I may not like something first time but I’m good at trusting my irritation or revulsion as well as my pleasure. Given that the time I have to listen to music is finite - and of course it is, and it FEELS more that way all the time - then a second play of a record is ultimately replacing the first play of another. I love my favourite albums enough that I allow them to kill other ones each time I play them. (tomewing)