"Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succes­sion of more or less irritating sounds."

Wrote Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in "Who Doesn’t Like Music? Nabokov, For Starters On the Odd Case of the Musical Anhedonic" (via Metafilter).

The article is by Michel Faber, who says:

Musical anhedonics are thought to account for up to 5 percent of the world’s population....  The syndrome is often discussed in the same articles that pon­der the mysteries of autism. The subtext is that normal people feel and react in certain ways (e.g. laughing at the “right” mo­ments, getting chills when they hear “sublime” sounds), and that abnormal people—the autists, the anhedonics—don’t.... 

[N]otions of normalcy are used by dominant social groups to maintain control and to organize systems in ways that suit them.... 

The music lovers assume you’re no different from them and, to keep the peace, you let them believe that.... In our society it is considered shameful not to appreciate music....

... Friedrich Nietzsche declared that “without music, life would be a mistake.”  ... Billy Joel described music as “an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture you’re from, everyone loves music.”... 

The self-appointed elite speak for us all, and never hear the silence from those who don’t share their values.... [M]usic is...  tremendously overhyped. Every day, heaps and heaps of superlatives are shoveled onto it by people who, in truth, did not feel what their words tell you they felt. They heard a record/went to a concert and had a pleasant time, whereupon they tell you that their mind exploded into a million iridescent fragments, propelled around the cosmos on waves of dervish ec­stasy....