Rebecca:

How about a change of pace? Harry Styles — the former One Direction standout — gave a solo performance on SNL this weekend, and it was kind of great.

I feel like I shouldn’t mention this, except today I caught this excerpt from Styles’ interview with Rolling Stone:

“Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”

Which made me wonder: How much of my music tastes have been shaped by a desire to avoid pop music? And how much of the whole rockist hipster aesthetic is shaped by, well, sexism?

Am I a Radiohead listener for really bad reasons?

Contemplating.

— Joel