Thanks for the laugh Mike. Pachelbel's Canon is one classical piece that I have pretty much detested since I first heard it. Not sure why exactly as it's not as if I'm not a sucker for a "simple" classical hook like Barber's Adagio for strings for example.

For classical music with no hooks to speak of check out this column from the Guardian. Joe Queenan, the article's author, has more than 20 years of classical music listening over me and has seen 1500 concerts to my paltry 30 or 40 but he gets it right on the money with respect to new classical music. The key paragraph for me is the following:

I have tried to come to terms with the demands of modern music. I am no lover of Renaissance Muzak, and own tons of records by Berg, Varèse, Webern, Rihm, Schnittke, Adès, Wuorinen, Crumb, Carter, and Babbitt: I consider myself to be the kind of listener contemporary composers would need to reach if they had any hope of achieving a breakthrough. So far, this has not happened, and I doubt that it will.

I've never heard of Wuorinen and I've never listened to Crumb but I own discs or have listened to the rest of this crew and with the exception of Berg, who can hardly be considered new since he died in 1935, there's really not a whole lot to write home about. Like the author I should be the target market for modern composers but they're failing miserably. I'd like to hear how others have fared coming to terms with mid-late 20th and 21st century classical music.

I have some Holliger and Kurtag for anyone who'd like to give this sort of thing a listen.

I'll get around to posting my top discs of the 80's shortly.