I think "speaking to" does not have to be just on the emotional level, and perhaps better off not just on the emotional level.
Most recently, some of DDT's music has been massively effective on me. I would even take the first 3 songs of their 2002 album "Edinochestvo-1" as excellent examples ("Kogda Edin [When you are one]", "Poet", "Rabochiy Kvartal [Working Quarter]").
DDT's work, primarily Shevchuk's lyrics, has had 3 important 'speaking-to' effects: bringing me to better terms with the idea of letting go, bringing me to better terms with to better terms with the idea of not letting go, and bringing me to better terms with my nationality and culture - which I fervently tried to escape for the last six or so years.
The effect of 'speaking to' by DDT can be measured by the fact that it had seriously knocked me out emotionally for a period of about 2-3 months, and caused more permanent effects elsewhere.
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Otherwise, David Sylvian will be one of the artists whose songs have consistently 'killed' me, in a way I can't quite explain.
And of course, I think my encounter with King Crimson material was more than 'speaking to'. That music blew my head off, not for a definite period, but to a large extent - permanently. This might sound like an exaggaration, but it isn't. Contact with that music had put me in contact with things I hadn't thought of before, and had led to a complete changeover in my internal architecture and external approach to life. Some pieces, mostly instrumentals like 'Fracture', in excercises of active listening caused not only emotional reactions and changes in ways-of-thinking, but even very real, almost physical sensations. If I were religious, I would probably say that the music "put the fear of God in me".
'Speaking to'? I guess so
