Tim Page’s Do Not PlayList
A couple weeks ago, the music critic Tim Page posted a shortlist on Facebook of “perfectly good music that I never need to hear again.” He included Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, acts 1, 2, and 4 of Puccini’s La Boheme, Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.
“I’m a guy in his late 50s,” Page tells Kurt Andersen, “and I’ve been listening to, say, Sgt. Pepper since I was 13 or 14,” Page explains. “I don’t need to hear it again.” It’s not that he doesn’t like the Beatles – quite the opposite. It’s just that he thinks the album has been played to death.
Aural fatigue is an occupational hazard for a music critic. “By the fourth or fifth time I covered Madame Butterfly,” Page says, “I’d said pretty much everything I had to say about it.” (He still ended up covering it another 25-30 times.) But everyone who loves music has some pieces – of good, even great music – that we just can’t bear to hear again.
â?? What’s a song or piece you don’t ever want to hear again? Tell us your pick – and why – in a comment below, and we’ll put together our Do Not PlayList. Here’s what we’ve got on it so far:
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