Ira, Ken, Sean, Thomas -
excuse this (long and sort of tangential) sidebar, but it came to mind:
about 15-20 years ago, I was with two friends who were the first people I knew to have ipods-apple playlists, and who had compiled together about 500 songs -- which, because both friends were in the tv commercial industry and wanted to stay current, included both past hits/older performers as well as the newest songs and hippest up-and-comers.
We were sitting around, eating, talking, laughing, playing cards, and all the while, in the background, the music played, one song after another in random order. We must've sat there for 4 hours, chatting away as the music played on.
And in that entire time, only twice did I ever actually notice the music -- despite the dozens and dozens of songs I 'heard' (but not really), only twice did I stop talking or eating and turn my full attention to the music, i.e. because the music demanded my attention.
The first was when Louis Armstrong played his opening cadenza of "West End Blues" (which I'd heard many times before).
The second was when I heard the first few words by a female vocalist -- who I'd never heard before or even dreamed of hearing, and whose voice literally yanked my head up and pushed me back in my chair:
"Who's that?!" I asked.
And my friend smiled knowingly, as if to say 'I knew you'd love it, and you have good taste', and said "That's Amy Winehouse".
Think of that: music for hours, all of it merely a blur in the background, and then in just the first few words that she sang, Amy's enormous talent and wonderful style cut through like a knife, and I instantly knew that it was great.
And why did that great talent and style strike me so immediately and so hard, and why do I remember that experience 20 years later? Maybe precisely because I'd never heard her before or read about her even once or even knew she existed.
Of course, I'll never know how I would've reacted if I'd read all about Amy Winehouse before first hearing her, and had been informed by countless experts that she was 'great'.
But I sure treasure the experience as it was -- a true revelation.