I keep forgetting what I want to be writing here, its definately becoming a problem. Like my spelling of 'definitley' there. I still refuse to use the spellchecker though, let my ignorance be wide and sweaty, and need a sit down. So what has the day brought to me? I have noticed that as you get older, I think I may have nailed down the reason for loosing the interest in music. Music, as you should know, works on a sort of cycle thing. Some say a cycle of new crazes and stuff, but I disagree. The cycle is the distance, roughy, in age that it takes for the second generation of children to fully establish itself as 'seperate'. In fact, I think this may be a ten year gap, but I'm not wheeling out any adding and counting appearus, like a mathematician, here. I think it has something to do with the fact that, as you get older, having livedf longer you have had more and more time on your hands in which to do stuff, goes without saying. Now, if music is indeed your thang, then your time will have been spent asorbing lots of music. There are always exceptions to the rule, I admit, but I think that you reach a point at which you have heard all the music available which centres around the sort of music that you like. You can't be bothered listening to imitators and so give it up as a bad job, or your buying peters out as you intake drops in proportion to the amount of quality stuff coming out. As I have said, exceptions usually mean people with a wider range of tastes and areas of music to draw from, or with changing areas of preference. That, and of course, the fact that we view our earlier records through rose tinted ear glasses, and we always thinks that it was 'better than the rubbish nowadays'. Sometimes. Persoannly, I stand by some of the tat that I bought because I either feel sorry for it or I continue to enjoy it because it means something, despite my knowing it isn't that 'good' anymore. Maybe its meaning to me changes.
Whoo. That wasn't as in depth as I'd like but my back hurts on this chair,although it might be the height of the keyboard doing it. Brief adjustment finds me just as uncomffortable so screw it.
On another note, I have actually bought and sent off my Dad's birthday card which may, or may not, actually arrive at his house tommorrow, but considering the address styling I doubt it. I think I actually combined at least three different addresses to make it. Soon know I guess.
Signing off
The Manga Revue: I Am a Hero
8 years ago
1 comment:
In some ways I think you're right about the music thing. I find my interest in (acquring) music is split about half and half between things I don't have recorded by people that I like, or things that I want to hear because so many people recommend them (This is a potentially infinite list, so I go for the one that feels right.
Does this mean I intake less music? Yes, I suppose it does. At my peak, before I left for uni, I might take in 6 or 7 albums a week, and listen to & get to know them all. Brian Eno, Smashing Pumpkins, Kid Loco...all sorts. I always worked on recommendations of people who either knew music very well (Incidentally, on a completely separate note, I was praising our communist approach to music yesterday - the way we sort of merged record collections when we lived together. I might draw a really cool set about that later. It won't contain badgers, though) or people I knew had similar taste to mine. This served me well, and I became familiar with bands like Cud, Ride, The Lemonheads (Things that were before I was really interested in music but that were reference points). So maybe I intake less music, but then I've filled in reservoirs of missed opportunity with music pumped in from larger lakes elsewhere, if you'll excuse the world's shittest analogy.
As for music being looked at through rose tinted spectacles, I think you border on touching the truth. If, and a lot of people would disagree with this, but I'm going to do it anyway, you take on band from when we were kids, and one band who are that sort of size now, and compare them, you see a funny thing emerging.
Blur - I loved as much as anyone, Parklife was (one of) the seminal record(s) of Britpop, and reached their fanbase in a way that you could almost see. In the mid-90s it made sense. The 'Lad' was amongst us, so songs about going down the dogs, and girls and boys and girls and boys were relevant. It fit the bill. The Great Escape was panned for a similar reason, though I really liked it, especially side two, which seemed to accept the emptiness of the lives people lead. There is a really good analysis of The Great Escape on Murmurs. I'll link you to it soon.
The Libertines - are a very personal band, they're close to their fans and (in the things they do) run themselves like a very public soap opera. I'm not going to criticise this, but I have other things to do in my life than worry about what the Libertines are up to every minute, and better things to worry about than how many drugs are being taken within the band. Consequently, I don't have the association with songs like "Can't Stand Me Now" that other people will. They can sing the lyrics from a combination of knowing them and knowing what they are about.
Both kettles the same make, both fish of a different species.
If you look, for the best of my examples thus far, at Modern Life Is Rubbish, the bus/tube (I forget) seats on the cover.... nobody under 19/20 would understand them, but they were an un-noticed part of the culture back then. One of those things that went without saying. No longer.
So, as ever my theory is this. Listen to what you want to listen to, and to hell with what anyone says.
M. Tired (And having being heavily chastised for spending so long on a comment).
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