Adele in the Goldilocks Zone

Abstract

This chapter explains that when it comes to music, we like the novel to be familiar. That is, we like familiar varieties of unfamiliarity; we like things we have never heard before that sound like things we have heard before. If the music is too familiar, it is dull. But if it is genuinely new, if it really is novel, then it is obnoxious, or, worst of all, not even recognizable as music at all. We are attracted to music in the Goldilocks zone, as it has been called. And it is this that explains a familiar but nonetheless remarkable fact about musical style—namely, that styles change, and that therefore music has a history. However original, however diverse one's influences, the art we produce bears not only our individual mark but also that of the time and place where it originates.