Anyway the 2 artists I added are Beck and Radiohead. Most of the reluctance to add them admittedly comes from the "Trout Mask"-loving hipster in me, who feels like they're both too popular and mainstream. Then there's the fact that I've never really gotten much emotional resonance from Beck, which is one of the main things I love for in pop music. As for Radiohead, it doesn't help that they've got some of the most irritating fanatics of any musical artist (sup Trung- hope fatherhood's treating you well!).
But I recently went back and relistened to a bunch of stuff by both artists, partly inspired by getting into the recent album by Radiohead side project The Smile, which prompted me to reassess both "Moon Shaped Pool" and "King of Limbs". Yeah all 3 albums aren’t as good as the early stuff but judged on their own terms (with a focus on mood/atmosphere/arrangement as opposed to hooks/melody) they’re still enjoyable. These are records made by old men *for* old men. So maybe turning 40 helped as well.
And getting older makes me care less about what others think of my taste and whether any of my favorite artists are "too popular" etc. When I think about how much their music means to me (including how many of their songs I've learned to play/sing and how often I play them), I simply can't deny that Beck and Radiohead are among my favorites. Prior to adding them, Nirvana was the only 90's artist on my list, which seems crazy given how important 90's music was to how my taste developed. And yeah, there were a lot of great grunge/alterantive artists that I still love but IMO Nirvana, Beck and Radiohead are at the top of the heap.
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