I am — as far as I know — the only person ever to have corresponded with the late Roger Scruton about the merits of math metal. It was 2014, and Scruton had recently published a piece bemoaning the state of contemporary pop music, in which he criticized— among others — a particular favorite of mine: the Swedish metal band Meshuggah.
As a recently graduated music student — and, it must be said, a rather presumptuous, recently graduated music student — I decided to email him and, ahem, tell him why he was wrong. To my surprise, he replied.
We struck up a short-lived but friendly correspondence. I made the case that, once you dig beneath its often comically abrasive exterior, you can find plenty in the more complex forms of metal to please even the most conservative of aestheticians. He responded, clarifying his arguments and critiquing mine — all in good faith — and eventually asked me, after a little back and forth, to read an advance copy of his novel, The Disappeared.
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