I never quite know how to answer it, except perhaps 'money'.
Nobody wants to hear that rude cynicism, of course.
But an 'esoteric' reply often leaves you with fewer friends who wished they'd never asked in the first place. The album was Blackdance by German composer Klaus Schulze. As the diamond hit the plastic, and the first tones emerged, resonant, I knew I'd stumbled onto something profoundly weird. I didn't realize I was listening to a true pioneer, when 'electronic music' was frowned upon as a novelty, or the province of dopeheads. I was, for a time, writing for the sheer narcissistic hell of it, minus the neurotic yokes of money, sales, slugs and pitches.