[ThomPete]

To the virgin ear, yes.

[AndyKelley]

Virgin? http://www.last.fm/user/superjoe30

According to this website I listen to 60 tracks every day.

[ThomPete]

60 Jazz tracks? That's what I mean with virgin ear.

You are not used to listen to Jazz so it's more likely to sound horrible to you since it's often rather complex.

Why do you think that parents of the 68' generation hated Beatles despite it being what we consider pop culture today.

You need to understand this in context rather than in absolute terms.

[AndyKelley]

Makes sense except for one point: Why would a person purposefully subject themselves to a musical genre that sounds bad? You said yourself, to the virgin ear, jazz sounds bad. That means that everyone who likes jazz music at one point thought that it was terrible music yet listened to it anyway.

[ThomPete]

That is up to the individual.

Many people as they start playing instruments they start developing a more and more sophisticated sense of harmony.

It's not different than code looking like nonsense to the noob.

This is where culture comes in. Jazz used to be pop-music, people grew up with it.

Context history culture sophistication at any given subject.