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Re:The Fat Lady Is Singing by JoshMnem on Sunday September 23, 2018 @10:16PM (#18054575)
Aida[1] is a good place to start. Put in on repeat for a week to familiarize yourself with the music. Then read more about it and watch a video version with subtitles. SF Opera did an amazing performance a few years ago.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2ODmcB5hE

Edit: more Jon Vickers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekicq-OC6N0

Re:The Fat Lady Is Singing by BurritoAlPastor on Sunday September 23, 2018 @10:33PM (#18054627)
A week?! How did anyone appreciate “Aida” before the phonograph was invented?
Re:The Fat Lady Is Singing by JoshMnem on Sunday September 23, 2018 @10:49PM (#18054677)
It takes a while for ears to become accustomed to new types of music. If you aren't familiar with a style of music, one way to become familiar is to play it repeatedly in the background for a week or two. Then, when you sit down to deliberately try to understand it, your ears will already be accustomed to it, and certain passages will stand out. Those ones are the hooks that will get you into the style.

It works for any new style of music.

Re:The Fat Lady Is Singing by ehnto on Sunday September 23, 2018 @11:16PM (#18054782)
I have found a lot of modern music using hooks from old pop songs to catch new listeners. I don't much like the practice.

On your original point, even discordant music can grow on you. Pino Forastiere uses a lot of dischord and I didn't like it at all at first. But I let it play out a bunch of times as there were so many other good qualities that I loved about the album. It didn't take long to start understanding what he was trying to do with the dichord and from there it made sense and I could hear it in context and enjoy it.

Re:The Fat Lady Is Singing by tacon on Sunday September 23, 2018 @11:58PM (#18054916)
"The Rite of Spring" was also hated initially, until it grew on people.
Re:The Fat Lady Is Singing by JoshMnem on Monday September 24, 2018 @12:12AM (#18054962)
It even ended up in Star Wars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX945NlXkEA