Welcome to the Pitchfork Review. I'm Puget Patel, the editor of Pitchfork, and I'm here with our reviews editor, Jeremy Larson.

Hello.

Jeremy wrote an article a few months ago about why you should listen to new music, why you must, and why it's also really hard to sometimes.

Turns out there is a scientific explanation,

or what our understanding is of the science

in Jeremy's layman's terms,

for why sometimes you have to go way out of your way

to get into a new album or a new genre or sound

or an artist you're not necessarily familiar with. Even for us

who do this for a living, for people who obsessively consume music and are really excited to do so,

it can be difficult. Jeremy, have you ever experienced this kind of weird brain block? Oh,

yeah. I mean, it feels so difficult to even pay attention. You know that

experience of like you're in a car with someone and your friend's like, hey, listen to this song.

And you're like, okay. And your friend's just like grooving along next to you and like trying to

like get you really into it. And you're like, I mean, it sounds cool, cool I guess like I guess I'll have to listen to it again it's like no no no

listen to this part I'm like heard that part like I'm glad you love it like one day I'll get there

his brain or his or her brain is already at the stage where it's releasing like the right

amount of dopamine and your brain

is stuck in shitty neutral trying to relate to your friend who's showing you a cool song.

Well, Jeremy, what's your understanding of why it can be so hard to listen to new music?

Yeah. So before I go into this, I just want to say that I'm not a

scientist, but this is backed up by some science, so bear with me. Listening to new music is

...