"A ball of rusty barbed wire"

A fascinating addendum to Ian's On Second Thought piece about Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation and my response to it: John Harris describes his attempts to get to grips with Captain Beefheart and the Trout Mask Replica album in particular, with assistance from Magic Band guitarist Gary Lucas, XTC's Andy Partridge and Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand.

Harris articulates perfectly what it generally means not to "get" a universally revered supposedly "classic" album: "When this kind of experience happens to a rock critic, it can easily bring on a chill feeling of inadequacy". But, rather than shrugging his shoulders and deciding he just doesn't like Beefheart, he persists and eventually breaks through to a better understanding and appreciation of his music.

Or does he? Has he just started to persuade himself into thinking he likes it? I'd argue that's equally possible. Repeated exposure to a record can wear you down like that. But there are also certain "classic" albums that I know I'll never warm to. That feeling of inadequacy may be natural, but it's unfortunate too - it's perfectly OK not to like something that everyone else hails as a landmark record. It's important that there are no utterly sacred cows - even if some cows are more sacred than others...

For the record, I've not heard a great deal of Beefheart, but got on OK with Trout Mask Replica when I heard it a year or so ago. But if I ever decide to do a Harris and investigate further, I know a couple of people who'll be only too happy to point me in the right direction.

On a tangential but still music-centred tip, there's an excellent new mp3 blog on the block. 17 Seconds has already featured tracks from Low, Yo La Tengo, The Concretes and Sons & Daughters, as well as Mercury Rev's cover of Bowie's 'The Jean Genie'.

(Thanks to Jon and Simon respectively for the links.)