“What a bloody racket.”
It is a sentence heard in almost every workplace at some point, usually when someone decides the day needs a fairly solid musical foundation.
“This is beautiful,” says one person.
The others look up as though a cement mixer has just driven through the canteen.
The lovely thing is that both are right.
Music may be the most honest thing there is. You can argue about it for hours, but in the end your feelings decide faster than your mind.
One person relaxes to soft jazz, a saxophone almost whispering that the world could slow down a little.
Another chooses Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen: songs in which the story matters more than perfection, music smelling of long roads, worn shoes and people who keep getting back up.
Then there is the person who enjoys a wall of guitars, impossibly fast drums and a singer whom outsiders suspect has stopped using words altogether.
To many people, that is just a bloody racket.
Listen a little more closely, though, and you hear something else.
Musicians in full command of their instruments. Rhythms meshing like gears. Guitar solos built on hours, days and perhaps years of practice. Compositions far more intricate than they first appear.
You do not have to like it to recognise the skill.
The same is true of many other things in life.
Something is not worth less simply because another person chooses it and you do not. Tastes differ, in music, cars, photography, food and even in how people see the world.
Perhaps that is precisely the richness of it.
If everyone found the same things beautiful, concert halls would be empty, record shops unnecessary and every playlist would contain exactly the same songs.
The phrase “bloody racket” might not even exist.
And that would actually be rather a shame.