As a hip and happening entertainment reporter on the bleeding edge of what’s hot and what’s not, I’m regularly asked by my adoring fans what type of music I listen to.
And rather embarrassingly, the honest answer is ‘I don’t know’ because I don’t listen to music.
Unsurprisingly, then, I can’t reliably name any artists or songs beyond the tunes my fiancé plays in our flat and half-remembered bops from my youth (Swing, Swing my friends).
This has generally baffled colleagues and friends over the years, who cannot wrap their heads around my choosing to live in a world without song.
And I should clarify I’m not some lyrical luddite.
I know, for example, who Taylor Swift is and that she sings Opalite; I enjoy the songs in Hamilton; and I even like dancing at weddings.
There is music in my soul (to borrow an absolutely mortifying cliche), but the thing I’m told is unusual is that I don’t seek music out, and I would never choose to listen to it or go to a gig.
It sort of has to be forced on me; I’m like a temperamental kid refusing to eat broccoli.
So what brought on my aversion to all things acoustic? Well, like all traumas, it started when I was a boy…
Now I’m not sure if I was dropped on my head as a kid or something, but I cannot tell you – in the way I can identify why I like a movie or TV show – why or if a song is good or bad.
Indeed, my tin ear for a tune then led to some mortifying moments in my life, including a formative encounter in my youth where I expressed admiration for a band called Nickelback to a friend.
Well, while I thought I’d said ‘I liked that song from the Spider-Man movie’, he clearly heard, ‘I’m going to break into your house while you and your family sleep and lick your spoons.’
Or at least he reacted as if I’d said that.
Indeed, the entire experience left something of an impression on me. What was he hearing that I wasn’t? Was there something I didn’t understand?
This wasn’t the only time this happened when I was younger. I’d say I liked an artist or a certain song, and people would act like I’d been sick on a kid’s Christmas presents.
And I know that art is subjective, but I’d never had that happen when I mentioned liking a film, book or TV show.
Seriously, why is it that people get so judgey about music? If you told someone your favourite colour was red, you wouldn’t expect them to go ‘ughhh that’s terrible’, would you?
No, of course not, but for some reason, with music it’s fine to tell someone their ears are wrong.
And I should know. I’ve heard that a lot – including today, by the person who proofread this.
The truth then has always been clear to me: I have bad taste in music, and therefore, as an insecure youth, I avoided talking about it whenever I could – from high school to the end of my university days – to spare my blushes.
This has left me without a musical hinterland, so to speak.
I don’t have an appreciation for music because I don’t necessarily have shared connections or emotions associated with it.
To make matters worse, not talking about music meant I didn’t really try to keep up with new stuff.
Effectively, I was wounded as a youth, and the resulting injury has scabbed over, turning into an armoured callous which new music bounces off.
All I have is some enthusiasm for some early 2000s pop punk ditties and my natural Mancuanian enthusiasm for Oasis (Boooo, Blur! I guess?).
I should add as well that I have tried to pick this gross scab off my soul.
I’ve downloaded Spotify and listened to Doechii on the recommendation of a colleague (not quite my tempo), and I’ve even attended concerts, which really were not my cup of tea.
By which I mean I’d rather strip wallpaper with my teeth than go to another one.
My feet hurt, I got annoyed at the price of a drink (£9 for a beer is bad even by West London standards), and it was too loud.
Seriously, even if I liked music, I don’t understand why you’d waste the best part of £100 to hear a worse version of a song you can hear for free on Spotify?
And I think that might be the issue here, really. I am bored by music.
It just doesn’t engage me the way it engages others. There’s always something else I’d rather be doing, whether that’s watching a film, painting Warhammer or listening to podcasts.
Seriously, why would I listen to a forty-year-old croon about some lost love when I could hear a fifty-year-old explain why you shouldn’t get involved in a land war in Russia?
Even better, I could listen to a podcast about Napoleon and Hitler’s shared folly while painting an Eldar War Walker! What an afternoon that would be!
There is, of course, another element to my musical distaste.
I like not knowing about music. It’s formed part of my identity.
I enjoy the odd looks people give me when I say I don’t have a favourite artist or song: it’s part of who I am.
I get a buzz when I say ‘I’m Tom, and I don’t like music.’