So, browsing through the 2004 edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide, one reads about a group called Cibo Matto, made up of two Japanese ex-pats in New York who write songs about food (you know, like, "Apple," and "Birthday Cake," and "Know Your Chicken"), and one feels suddenly and strangely pulled to listen to every song they ever produced. One starts on YouTude with "Sugar Water," and you think -- oh, this song! Well, this song is famous. I've heard this loads of times. This band must be better known than I thought.
Then you realize -- oh, it's actually not that famous. I've just heard it a million times because it appears in that one scene that I've watched a million times from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the episode "When She Was Bad" -- that part where she weirdly tempts Xander and then leaves the Bronze (which is host to many a forgettable mid-90s music act that never made it far beyond its appearance on this show) and Cordelia tells her to stop being so mean because she might lose "even the weirdo friends that you currently have," or something like that.
And strangely, you love this song, "Sugar Water," by Cibo Matto. Strangely, it sounds indescribably beautiful. The music of angels. The loveliest thing you've ever heard.
And one starts to credit a theory propounded in Aeon a little while back: that the main reason we enjoy any piece of music has not a lot to do with its intrinsic quality, if there is such a thing -- but with the fact that we've heard it before.
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