depeon wrote: is it right that we should listen to something repeatedly in the hope that we can somehow connect with it?
That is exactly what I had to do as an adolescent in the early 80s in order to evolve as a musician. As a child who felt as though he must conform to get along with his peers, I had become accustomed to drek such as Van Halen, Kiss, Led Zepplin, Rush, AC/DC, etc. I also had the good fortune to be exposed to The Beatles by my parents, so that was a much better starting point.
But what was hot and popular at the time? Men At Work, The Police, Culture Club, Michael Jackson, The Clash, Prince, Duran Duran? With the exception of the potential that Sting started to show on Synchronicity, I knew these bands were not going to expand my horizons as a musician. I had been introduced to the sound of 80s King Crimson (Beat '82) by an older girl up the road from me, and that band may have been my first tangential acclimation towards jazz.
So I focused on much more challenging artists within the genre of jazz. At first the style was entirely foreign and some of it was not all that palatable to a boy of 12 years old (for example, Thelonius Monk and Charles Mingus were ahelluvalot more challenging than listening to Pat Metheny or Weather Report). Yet through repeated listenings, the musical vocabulary made more and more sense to me, which brought about a greater appreciation for what I heard - ultimately that perseverance and intake of information also helped me to develop a greater facility and dexterity on my chosen instrument.
Once the connection was made around my mid-teens and essentially my musical horizons were broadened, I became not only a well-rounded player but a more sophisticated analyst of other styles of music. I'd then go and borrow records from the local library with absolutely no idea of the content. This exposed me to even more music I would have missed out on, such as the amazing career of Frank Zappa - who was far too subversive and occasionally much too perverse and sardonic to ever attain consistent radio play. Coincidentally, I first heard AMM (Rowe, Prevost and Tilbury) way back in the mid 80s....that was well before I even had any exposure to Sylvian's music (thanks to NPR in '88).
So from my personal experience, I have found that if one only listens to music that appeals to them on a superficial level, then one misses out on a lot of intriguing music. Music doesn't only have to be positive and beautiful in an aesthetically pleasing manner, it can effectively work well while reflecting dark, negative, disturbing, ugly emotions - it can elicit anger...it can provoke fear. It can provoke disgust. It can do all of this and still work effectively as art. Sylvian is well aware of the vast amount of negativity in the world and his music sometimes mirrors that negativity.