Two types of music

We were drunkenly choosing which of her records to play. We’d gone through Led Zep, the Beatles, Springsteen (which nobody but me had liked), The Kinks, The Jam… it was now probably about 4:30am. The guy talked about music constantly. He’d asked me earlier what the only two types of music were. After thinking about it then saying ‘jazz and classical?’ (no), ‘the Beatles and the Residents?’ (no), ‘opera and pop?’ (no), ‘Chuck Berry and Mozart?’ (no) and probably some others too, it suddenly came upon me and seemed so obvious: good and bad*. But, still, that guy just really annoyed me.

*Years later, I found out it’s actually a Louis Armstrong quote: “There ain't but two things in music: good and bad”. Everything the guy spoke was either cliché or quoted from somewhere else, and claiming as his own. Roland Barthes’ also has two types of music: the music one listens to, and the music one plays.