extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod" when music gets too much...how I felt on...
February 12th
Beethoven-Symphony No 4 in B Flat, Op 60-4th
Movement-Gianandrea Noseda/BBC Philharmonic
Sometimes music
gets just too much; there is too much music and I end up flitting from one
thing to another, never fully satisfied. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen that
often as there is usually something that fits. But when it does, I have
developed two different solutions.
The first is to listen to Bob Dylan’s “John
Wesley Harding” album. This blows the cobwebs away and clears the palate (to stitch
a couple of metaphors together). There’ll probably be some Dylan cropping up
later-I wonder if it’ll be a track off John Wesley Harding?
The second solution
I have is to listen to some classical music. This was originally just a
solution, just a way of getting back into music, but recently I have found
myself listening to classical music for pleasure and not just a means to an
end.
Classical music,
like jazz and reggae, appears to be such a massive and wide-ranging genre that
it is seemingly so difficult to find a way in. I don’t wish to be one of those
people who start off with a classical-music-for-dummies mindset or with some horrible
compilation e.g. that’s what I call classical music CDs. Neither does anything
like Classic FM appeal: the only time I have heard that was when I was at the
dentist, and for that reason alone it has enough bad connotations, let alone
the idea of popular little snippets of classical “hits”. So I dipped a toe in
the water through Radio 3, a couple of classical blogs, reviews in the papers
and half-remembered ideas of what might be interesting. This meant that I ended
up with about 250 or so classical CDs, including the one above. I suppose to
anyone who is well-versed in classical music that I have maybe picked my
selections at random, magpie-like or only gone for the obvious. I know that
there is a whole world of other stuff there and that such a small amount cannot
even be representative but for now, it’s enough for me. I suppose over time,
different things will pique my interest and take me in fresh directions.
Looking at what there is here now though- Beethoven’s symphonies, Tchaikovsky,
Schubert, Bach, Bruckner, there’s plenty to be getting on with.
After reading
Alex Ross’ “The Rest is Noise” book,
I developed an overarching interest in Mahler, and downloaded a few complete
sets of his symphonies, as well as some audience recordings of highly praised
concerts. For someone coming from a “rock” background, it always strikes me as
odd that there can be some many different interpretations of classical music
and massive arguments about what is the best or definitive version. It’s a bit
like searching for the Holy Grail, but never getting there-it’s unattainable by
its very nature. I don’t think that in popular music that there is the same
debate-cover versions are just that and they are all are different. Maybe it’s
because we know what the first recorded version sounds like but that you can’t
get back to that in classical music; it’s impossible to know even what the
first performance sounded like.
One track per
day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553. From the
obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). From the
sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse).From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music
to The Monkees. From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz,
classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between. This is what I
listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to
hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some
artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of
critical kicking. There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops,
prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that
I’d completely forgotten about. But with 40 years of listening to music, I
realised that I’ll never get sick of it.I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but
I’ll never fall out of love with music.
Imagine, if you
will, a strange parallel universe, where U2 had not become the mega-selling
behemoths of rock which they are now.Imagine if they’d only released this one album and sunk without trace,
like many of their contemporaries did. Imagine if a fiendishly difficult quiz
question was asking what was the name of the lead singer of one-hit wonders U2?
It seems impossible. U2 were always going to be successful; and therefore
subject to massive acclaim at the hands of the record buying public and
incredibly harsh judgements at the hands of the critics. They are such an easy
target that there’s not much point running through the list of ways to have a
pop at them. But if this had been the only record they’d ever made, would it
have all been different?
(I should say
that, at this point, in an wholly unfashionable way, that I have always loved
U2-right from this record through all the chest-beating and flag waving, wrap
round shades, Christianity and tax avoidance schemes. To this day, seeing them
live at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool when on the War tour, was one of
the best gigs that I have ever seen in my life. I therefore hold no truck at
all with the long line of here-today-gone-tomorrow, Johnny-come-lately,hipper-than-thou,London-centric,public-school
patronising fuckhead journalists who condescend to us with their opinions from
on high. I don’t care one jot if U2 are the most unfashionable band ever. I
like what they do.)
But this is
about “Boy” and I’d bet if this had been their only release then by now if
would be lauded as a total classic; a cult album; a forgotten gem and a bit of
buried treasure. Instead, it’s seen as yet just another U2 record and I’d think
that even people who class themselves as U2 fans wouldn’t necessarily class it
as their best record. For me though, and even given the hindsight of time and
rose-tinted glasses, it is an uplifting, joyous, ecstatic record. From those
very first echoed chords there’s something special about it. Listening to it
not as a “U2” record but just as a piece of music I can’t see how anyone would
not failed to be moved by it; even just a little bit. It’s timely to recall
that when this came out, it was so different and against the grain of
everything else. It was all post-punk, long coats, Factory and Joy Division
miserablism etc. Along turned up this bunch of Irish kids (and at that time U2
were just kids and not grizzled old rock stars) who came up with something that
wasn’t narcissistic, self-centred and introverted but something that was
life-affirming and inspirational. And all these years later, it still is.Just give it a listen and imagine you are in
a different universe. You’ll be surprised.
Whilst I
mentioned at the very top that because of a lack of albums released by blues
artists that many of them missed out, I can’t really exclude one of my all-time
musical heroes, the great Willie McTell. (I could really have comprised this
list with 19 blues artists and one Fall album; for me it would have been hard
just to pick 19 blues artists. But some of them only ever released one 78 and
those recordings are scattered across the internet and crop up, oddly enough,
on £1.99 blues compilations on the Hallmark label that you only ever see in
service stations and all-night garages.)
But this collection of Blind Willie
McTell tracks on 3 CDs is what may be termed the bees knees. It’s not the first
Blind Willie McTell record I ever had; that place is reserved for a 12 track
vinyl album released on Yazoo and for which I paid a fortune for a long time
ago. This collection has six times the number of tracks than that old record
and was cheaper as well. There is the old saying-“never mind the quality, feel
the width”-but every single track on this has deep, deep quality to its very core.
I don’t what’s
more of an inspiration to me; Blind Willie McTell’s life or his music. I guess
that you can’t really have one without the other. One fact about Willie McTell;
he was blind since birth yet carried a gun and managed to shoot dead at a distance
of twelve feet someone who was attempting to rob him. There’s loads of this
stuff but I’ll just write about the music and just one track. I could have
picked any of his songs; all of them touch me so deeply that a random selection
is good enough.
“Travelin Blues”
was recorded back in 1929 and is a thing of such wonder and beauty that mere
words cannot do it justice. There’s a lot of stuff about Robert Johnson being
the greatest blues guitarist ever but for me, the rolling, twisting, bubbling,
constantly looping notes that Willie McTell brings out are beyond comprehension.
I have a vague clue about how guitars are played but this is something else. I
have no idea how he managed to makes such sounds come out of a simple stringed
acoustic instrument-it’s like hearing an angel play. The fact that he manages
to sing at the same time just adds to the magic. It’s not some ordinary voice
as well; even though I have listened to this song hundreds of times it never
fails to give me goosebumps. Not figuratively but literally. The hairs on my
arms stand up. (If I had any on my head they would as well.)
8. Prefab Sprout-Jordan the Comeback
“If there ain’t
a heaven that holds you tonight, they never sang doo-wop in Harlem”
There’s no point
in writing countless words about this album- or indeed about this song.
I don’t believe
in a God or any higher power, but something was going on when Paddy McAloon
wrote and recorded this track.
It is the most
perfect song I think that I’ll ever hear.
It’s the last
song I ever want to hear.
9. Crass- Christ The Album
It’s a bit of a
switch from Prefab Sprout to Crass but one thing that Crass have in common with
a lot of the artists and therefore a lot of the albums on this list is their
single-mindedness in their craft and their art. To me, there is nothing worse
and nothing more false than any artist just going through the motions, just
putting out any old rubbish. Now, Crass’ music may have been rubbish-but their
devotion to what they did and the care that they put into everything speaks
volumes. Actually, I quite like Crass’ music; it may have never been the most sophisticated
racket but as rackets went it was pretty exciting.
What Crass did,
away from the music, was open everything up. They showed up punk for the hollow
shell and collection of smoke and mirrors that it really was; the same old
“showbiz”; record labels, management, tours, single, album, single, producer,
artist, consumer. They (unlike the rest of the school of 1976) actually showed
that it was possible to go out and do-it-yourself. Anything was possible. You
didn’t need to be anything “special” to make music or make any form of art. In
fact, it was better to do-it yourself than any other way. In spite of what may
be considered as trite sloganeering to
this day, I’ll still have Crass hammering away at the back of my mind when I’m
writing anything or listening to an item on the news or reading the paper or
looking at a politician on the TV; “fuck off you lying bastards.”That’s how Crass have inspired me; to be
inherently suspicious and paranoid.
Oh, they were
very funny as well.
10.Bob Dylan-John Wesley Harding
It has to be
said that there’s just too much music out there. I can, at the click of a
touchpad, get hold of anything and everything that I could possibly want to
hear. I probably (almost certainly) have more music in the house than I will
ever have chance to hear more than once. I know that there a numerous tracks on
CDrs and cluttering up my hard drive that I’ve never played or listened to and
possibly never will. Being the wrong side of 50, I have to face facts that some
of these unlistened songs will outlive me. I know that’s a bit desperate but
quite true.
What’s all that
got to do with this Dylan album? Well, whenever I have got a bit bored of music
and can’t think of what to play (out of all these thousands of hours worth of
music), “John Wesley Harding” is the one touchstone that I can rely on. I was
going to write about how inspirational Dylan is and how for a long, long time
I’d dismissed him as a whiney-voiced, over-rated hippy but I’ll stick to this
record. Not just one track but the whole thing.
What’s so
special about this record is how that it can cut through all of the rest of the
music and in an aural sense, clear the palate. It’s also a measure of what I
now recognise as the genius of Dylan; bringing out such an unexpected, stripped
down record straight after the electric conversion and all the controversy that
it involved. This album is so very simple and basic that it initially appears
to be a bit soft; a bit folky and a bit singer-songwritery.
But it’s not and for the reasons above.
Turning from the electric phase to this, Dylan brought out the hardest, most
diamond-like record that he ever made.
And what does it
show me?
Just make it simple.
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
(Due to a lack of Dylan on YouTube you'll have to take my word for it.)
The Latin
Playboys are a side project of David Hilgado and Louis Perez from Los Lobos
along with Mitchell Froom, Los Lobos’ producer and keyboard player. This track
is from their second of two albums they released, “Dose” in 1999. Their first
self-titled album came out in 1994.Originally the majority of tracks on the
first album were recorded by Hilgado simply as demos on an old 4 track recorder
in his kitchen. On hearing them, Froom thought that they were too good to be
left just as demos and too different to be recorded as Los Lobos songs. On his
cajoling, Hilgado was persuaded to re-record them and thus the first Latin
Playboys album came into existence.
I’m not a big
fan of Los Lobos- in fact apart from a few tracks that are scattered on the iPod
thatprobably only ended up on there
because I ripped them onto the pc from cover- mounted free cds that came with
music magazines-I don’t think that I’ve got any of their music. I think that
they backed up Dylan on some of the tracks on his “Christmas From the Heart”
album, and that they may have even written one of the songs, but having them on
there was more by accident than by design. I wouldn’t have bought-or not
bought- the Dylan album because there was something to do with Los Lobos on it.
(If the roles were reversed however, it may have caused me to buy a Los Lobos
album. Even if Dylan had just turned up in the studio as Los Lobos were
recording and made a brew for everyone (as if) that would have been enough for
me. The Los Lobos album where Dylan made a pot of tea and walked round with an
assortment of mugs on a tray. Can you imagine it? “Who wanted the one with
three sugars? Who was the decaff? No, there aren’t any fucking Custard Creams.
What do you think I am a bloody tea-lady? I’m a renowned rock star for
goodness’ sake and here I am making cups of tea.” Yes-I would have definitely
bought that Los Lobos album).
But the only Los
Lobos albums that I have are these two by The Latin Playboys- and I don’t think
that they really qualify as Los Lobos albums anyway. It’s hard to describe what
they are exactly. They do sound like some sort of soundtrack album for a film
that’s not been made. All the songs are short on both albums; I don’t think
that there’s a track that lasts over five minutes on either of them and some
are barely 90 seconds long. They sound like you’ve just tuned into some weird
radio station where the signal keeps fading in and out-it’s really music for
waking up to or being half asleep to or dreaming to. Something along those
lines. Not the sort of rambunctious music I’d associate with Los Lobos- and so
much better for that.
