so weird how our deep music programming affects all the songs we hear later: our affinity for or revulsion from any given sound seems so tied up in whether we heard Bach or Funkadelic or Hank Williams or whatever in our youth

like, does a drum'n'bass drum-break turn you on or off; a twanging lap steel; vocal melisma... That deep programming sets all these triggers.

there's so much music people love where just the colour of the vocal, the drum pattern, even the synth patches just make me instantly

like—why am i so put off by this song? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

(that's no shade—it's clearly "good"; but i... hate it!)

usually @carlzoilus's "Let's Talk About Love" is the text that helps me through this stuff, but I don't recall it unpacking/challenging these less obviously value-driven aesthetic preferences

something i like about writing/literature is that we have fewer of these deep triggers; even if a certain writing voice "turns me off," I tend to be more patient with it, curious for what that voice can/not accomplish