Today's David Brooks column on technology and autonomy is filled with great lines, but here's my favorite:
Musical taste? I have externalized it. Now I just log on to iTunes and it tells me what I like. I click on its recommendations, sample 30 seconds of each song, and download the ones that appeal. I look on my iPod playlist and realize I've never heard of most of the artists I listen to. I was once one of those people with developed opinions about the Ramones, but now I've shed all that knowledge and blindly submit to a mishmash of anonymous groups like the Reindeer Section - a disturbing number of which seem to have had their music featured on the soundtrack of 'The O.C.'
I know the feeling! It was through an "O.C." soundtrack that I discovered The Album Leaf, a band I highly recommend. You can read the rest of Brooks's column here.