I hope I acquire the ability to appreciate chant, as it's intended to be enjoyed. I was bred on 3 minute pop and rock songs. Now that I'm getting older I find that popular music doesn't have the seductive power over me that it once had. In fact much of it sounds downright bland to my aging ears.

I hope I acquire the ability to appreciate chant, as it's intended to be enjoyed.

I know what you mean.  But ultimately it is for the glory of God!

music: Gregorian chant - Deum verum

"Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services. It is named after Pope Gregory I, Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, who is traditionally credited for having ordered the simplification and cataloging of music assigned to specific celebrations in the church calendar, although it is known now that he could not have done it as a system for notating music had not been established at the time.[1] The resulting body of music is the first to be notated in a system ancestral to modern musical notation."

The linked YouTube recording has "artist Schola Hungarica."

There's a lot I could say about this, but my first impression is it's like no other
"rendition" of the Dies Irae I've ever heard, or performed. "Nobody sings it like
this" would be my offhand remark. But here it is, so I guess not.

I'd like to know what school of theory they're going by, because it is entirely
different from any I have studied and nothing like the one printed for all to read in
the front section of a very common pre-Vatican II Liber Usualis edition.

The style of this recording would not be allowed in an SSPX chapel, for example.
I invite any SSPX priest to come in here and comment on this.

These guys have interrupted the flow of the music, which is generally regarded as
a serious corruption. They have made it a men/women antiphonal style, which
isn't so bad by itself, but the entrances being alternately very soft and then
extremely loud, is not conducive to contemplation, any way you slice it.

They do seem to stay in tune, which is good on the surface, and there is no
instrumental background, and that's a good thing. But those two things are about
the end of what I can say they're doing properly.

Their breathing is audible, and that's no good, ever, in Gregorian Chant, especially
for the women! But you can hear the men breathing too. Very bad, very bad.

When they get real loud, they slow down too, as if to prolong the agony. I'd call
this quite ugly, to be honest.

There are a lot of ways to sing Chant badly, and this is a pretty good example of it.

The Dies Irae is one of the most moving works in Chant, and it doesn't take a
genius to do it well. It takes a little practice, but obviously you have to rehearse
with someone who knows how to sing Chant well. Whoever these people studied
with knows little or nothing about traditional Chant of the Catholic Church.

Musicians today are wont to get their interpretive clues from the composer's
markings on the printed music. But in Gregorian Chant, you don't see much on the
page to tell you how fast to sing it, where to crescendo, where to diminuendo,
where to use sostenunto or staccato, etc. The way you find out about those things
is by singing with others who know it well. One of the great tragedies of the
conciliar age is that Chant "scholas" have sprung up with entirely new ideas on
how to sing it, and the continuity of tradition is under attack most perniciously.

Those who know Chant from traditional experience really ought to be doing
something to preserve it, by singing with local people on a regular basis, such as
every week.