7 August - Music & Love

What happens with music these days is strange. When it comes to classical I don’t remember s hit. I could listen to the same Bach over and over and every time it’s sort of new.
What happens with old pop/rock/any other modern genre, is that I never really want to go listen to something old, even if I have loved it at the time. Having dragged over from my house to boyfriend various containers of cds, I simply am not inspired to play anything. Hands up anyone who goes home and thinks, oh yes, Radiohead’s OK Computer, I fancy some of that. Didn’t think so.
So what I do is buy new music. Not an awful lot but I do, or borrow it. And I do listen to it. Especially at work where the discreet headphone is not easily spotted.

And some things I like, think they’re great in fact (Estelle’s album anyone? How fresh is that? Pretty damn marvellous), but then I take it home and it just sits there. Same with anything else like Duffy or The Zutons, or, or , or. And there’s lots I avoid buying because a few choice tracks have served to tell me I don’t need to hear more. And then there’s the stuff you catch in passing (some Culture Show featuring Metallica) where I actively thought oh my god it’s a dirge! It’s an old dirge! How could anyone still give these guys the time of day? Youtube has a lot to answer for. It may work in making people sample stuff and go buy it/download it but also has the reverse effect. Having spent about an hour watching paint dry (funny paint though) in the form of Dave Gahan in his home studio in NY or LA or wherever and heard snatches of what he’s working on, I can tell you that it’s hardly going to set my world alight and I’ll pass.

I think it can never happen just because of the music anymore, it has to be linked to the artist and some form of peer group belonging. Without the allegiance to oasis vs blur (not that I cared then, maybe clash vs other punks perhaps) and taken only and purely as music you hear, it just doesn’t push enough buttons to warrant repeat listening. Even when we’re in the car, we listen to the radio to at least have them supply variety and artists we don’t know. The dozens of cds kept in the car just bore us even if they’re recent.
Weird that. Nobody told me it would be like this….

Come to think of it, it’s the same for love. Nobody falls that hard for anyone when they’re older. If they do, they’re fools, you know the one, you all know one. The professor who falls for the student, the guy who chases after some unobtainable wife of best friend. It’s not so much falling in love as creating drama to stave off thought of death. So that going out with x rather than y is a bit like, you know you wouldn’t notice too much if someone came by and switched the record you’re listening to, to another one, you’d take in your stride. Not trying to rain on anyone’s parade and am not a major cynic, just a minor one, but truly, think about it. How many people do I know who are now in relationships where they are not prepared to die for them so to speak (or have a fight because David Bowie is better than Iggy Pop or that sort of thing. Ok. Maybe I’m the only one knowing what I mean here so er…. I’ll end this post here.