August 31st
Clannad-Two Sisters
I find
myself thinking that there isn’t
really any genre of music that I don’t like and that I haven’t got at least a
few examples of.
Is this a sign therefore that I am not really discerning and that I haven’t actually got an ability to discriminate between what is good and not so good?
It's possibly a tendency to have a magpie-type mind, to flit from one thing to the next and to have that sort of collectors’ type mentality where there can never be enough music. It's kind of like searching for a Holy Grail of music in a constant effort to find the next big thing, or at least to find something that gives that sense of a thrill and a shiver down the spine. Possibly it’s some subconscious attempt to get back to that moment when I first heard a piece of music that moved me and provoked a reaction.
Whatever it is-and it’s probably no good trying to over-analyse it- I honestly cannot think of any sort of music that Ieaves me totally cold and unimpressed. Scrolling through the iPod as this track popped up, there appears to be representatives of every possible genre on there. It’s a bit like the United Nations of music and probably as organised as inefficiently as they are. (Out of the nearly 10,000 tracks it holds,there does appear to be a lot that, because of my inefficient manner of putting them on, are simply labelled as unknown artist and/or unknown title.)
There are, of course, some genres of music that I appreciate more than others, and I think that I will always do. Blues, for instance, will always top opera, and dub probably has the edge over heavy metal. But there are some examples of Wagner and Verdi floating around, and AC/DC aren’t an unknown quantity to me.
Is this a sign therefore that I am not really discerning and that I haven’t actually got an ability to discriminate between what is good and not so good?
It's possibly a tendency to have a magpie-type mind, to flit from one thing to the next and to have that sort of collectors’ type mentality where there can never be enough music. It's kind of like searching for a Holy Grail of music in a constant effort to find the next big thing, or at least to find something that gives that sense of a thrill and a shiver down the spine. Possibly it’s some subconscious attempt to get back to that moment when I first heard a piece of music that moved me and provoked a reaction.
Whatever it is-and it’s probably no good trying to over-analyse it- I honestly cannot think of any sort of music that Ieaves me totally cold and unimpressed. Scrolling through the iPod as this track popped up, there appears to be representatives of every possible genre on there. It’s a bit like the United Nations of music and probably as organised as inefficiently as they are. (Out of the nearly 10,000 tracks it holds,there does appear to be a lot that, because of my inefficient manner of putting them on, are simply labelled as unknown artist and/or unknown title.)
There are, of course, some genres of music that I appreciate more than others, and I think that I will always do. Blues, for instance, will always top opera, and dub probably has the edge over heavy metal. But there are some examples of Wagner and Verdi floating around, and AC/DC aren’t an unknown quantity to me.
It’s all a bit Top
Trumps. I suppose the thing is, that within particular genres, there are
artists and music who I do like and those who I have less time for. Blind
Willie McTell as opposed to B.B. King for example. Led Zeppelin in comparison
to Black Sabbath. (I’m trying to think of a Goth band who are ok and I’m sure
there is one-but anything really looks good when stood next to the Sisters of
Mercy. How about the Virgin Prunes-are they Goth enough? They’ll do).
There is a
bit of blind spot however for me and that’s folk music. That’s folk with a
capital F. I know that I should like it and that’s why this track from Clannad
has cropped up.
It was in an attempt to widen my already scattered, and frankly not well thought out, musical horizons. I am aware of the indebtedness of most American popular music, from the blues to jazz to country and western and therefore to everything else, to folk music. I’ve read countless thick books about the roots of Bob Dylan’s music and lyrics and how much he absorbed from 19th century English and Scottish music. I know all about Dylan’s tramping around the folk clubs of New York and his connections with the likes of Pete Seeger and Euan McColl. I’ve even spent a lot on Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology of American Folk Music” box set and love the oddness and weirdness of it all.
But I just don’t get it at all. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the old pre-war recorded up-in-the hills stuff (maybe I like that just for its sheer esotericism-that’s a whole different question); it’s this fingers-in-the ear, Arran sweater, pipe- smoking, 1950’s style revivalism stuff.
It’s the earnestness, but ultimate falseness, of it all.
And it still carries on. It never went away in the 60’s and 70’s (see Clannad) and now we’ve got fuckers like Mumford and Sons and Fleet Foxes trying to breathe life into the corpse.
Get/see/ read! "Totally Shuffled"
as Kindle book here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA
or as paperback here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X
It was in an attempt to widen my already scattered, and frankly not well thought out, musical horizons. I am aware of the indebtedness of most American popular music, from the blues to jazz to country and western and therefore to everything else, to folk music. I’ve read countless thick books about the roots of Bob Dylan’s music and lyrics and how much he absorbed from 19th century English and Scottish music. I know all about Dylan’s tramping around the folk clubs of New York and his connections with the likes of Pete Seeger and Euan McColl. I’ve even spent a lot on Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology of American Folk Music” box set and love the oddness and weirdness of it all.
But I just don’t get it at all. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the old pre-war recorded up-in-the hills stuff (maybe I like that just for its sheer esotericism-that’s a whole different question); it’s this fingers-in-the ear, Arran sweater, pipe- smoking, 1950’s style revivalism stuff.
It’s the earnestness, but ultimate falseness, of it all.
And it still carries on. It never went away in the 60’s and 70’s (see Clannad) and now we’ve got fuckers like Mumford and Sons and Fleet Foxes trying to breathe life into the corpse.
Get/see/ read! "Totally Shuffled"
as Kindle book here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA
or as paperback here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X
You're listening to the wrong folk :)
ReplyDeleteI have tried- I really have! Still don't get it!
Delete