poptimists | Better late than never

Better late than never

This was my latest Pitchfork column, which was of great relevance to some things we were discussing 3 weeks ago but which also got published the day I went on holiday! The column was written in a pinch and is kind of a request-filler for something

byebyepride wanted me to write a while ago.

It inspired an interesting discussion here by someone I don't know, and ALSO my first proper SLATING here. Sniping at P4k on my blog was how I got my gig in the first place so I can hardly begrudge them their venom!

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I know it's who need to get out from my life.

You are making my life miserable.
You are really sick person. I will sue you, Lewis Pinault.
Have a nice life in jail!

FLY ALL IS KNOWN!

^^^ !!!!!

I don't know how to follow that really. Um, I feel you re: familiarity, which is why I make a point of mostly only listening to music released in the past year or so - this enhances the older stuff too.

But I like my music taste! It has taken me a long time and several dead ends to finally "come home" to it, and I don't intend to give it up, especially not for rainy drones or humpy Europop.

Well this is why, as the article says, I ended up chickening out - and I was a good few years younger than you are now so my taste was less 'formed'.

I'm not sure I need a conscious decision to completely change my music listening habits - I seem to be quite capable of swapping polarity every other year or so. Five years ago I was almost exclusively listening to Radiohead and QOTSA. Three years ago I was exclusively listening to ska and dub. And for the last 18 months it's been techno, house and youtubed pop all the way. I think the next phase has already started, not with a new genre but with my recent purchase of an mp3 player - I'm unable to sit at my desk and listen to CDs as often these days, and instead I'm listening to bosh as I meander around London. It's a totally different experience, and one I am enjoying immensely.

Yeah once I'd gone through the conscious purge I found it much easier to swing about wildly - I felt like I'd broken off from the idea that my taste was some kind of indelible part of me and something to be protective of. This was liberating in some senses but I guess also leads to a greater feeling of rootlessness as there's nothing (not even dear old indie) which feels fully "mine".

" I felt like I'd broken off from the idea that my taste was some kind of indelible part of me and something to be protective of."

that was how i was going to precis the whole thing. there's an identity confusion that sorts itself out over time (and with will), and leads you away from the passionate-argument "music head" to the dilettante position that has given you gyp from others in the past.

actually no. let me rephrase - confusion is an invidious way of putting it. it's not an identity confusion. it's easily as part of your identity as anything else. but you can move on.

That's a curious thing to say. I mean, I too don't feel much allegiance to any particular kind of music (eh, well, there are some exceptions -- like country -- that ironically I don't tend to listen to much) yet I feel strongly rooted in my favorite songs, some of which are feel so peculiarly ME it's almost embarrassing when I proclaim my love for them, they feel so typically and predictably Michael Daddino-ish and all.

Well I do get that sometimes - I suppose I was talking about the "scenes" or "communities" around music: I think there was a brief period when I felt really allied to something, or an idea of something, and my scratching of the particular self-erasing itch I'm talking about in the article completed the process of cutting myself off from that.

Which probably explains partly why my 'work' as a critic has been so much about community-building! (Also the something I felt allied to was so much experienced through the music press that I idealised the press community as much as the music community)

I had an unconscious purge like the one referred to in your first link - I had my entire CD collection stolen when I was 25 (except it was a lot more than 200 CDs, closer to 600). My first response was to go back and try and buy them back, but I'd lost so many favourites I didn't know where to start (as I couldn't afford to buy that many at the time). So instead I resolved not to buy any of them back and start from scratch. It wasn't a conscious decision to broaden my taste, but I started browsing more widely, reading more widely, listening to the radio more in an attempt to find new music (rather than just defaulting to buying new releases from artists I already liked, as I'd settled into by then), and found to my surprise that my tastes were much wider.

Eventually, after 3 or 4 years (thanks to downloading & having more cash for old CDs) I got most of my old favourites back, but since then my tastes have stayed much broader than they were before the break. I think the problem in my case was that university had ossified my tastes in one specific area, and I needed the break to get back to the broader listening patterns I'd had when I first got into music in my early teens.

that SLATING is pretty mild i guess, seems to have missed several points by a fair margin to me...

...yes, i am trying desparatly hard NOT to just call him a rockist, but y'know...

hahaha, also he's only been on blogger (i'm assuming it's a he here) 6 weeks, BLESS...

Yes I think he has missed some points. Weirdly I kind of AGREE that what I wrote was rly obvious (I was half expecting Sc0tt to email and say NO to it) but obviously it was not obvious enough for them!!

I am content with calling him/her/herm philistine and leave it at that.

for example, before pubic hair, i was into r & b (tony, toni, toné; TLC; etc.) and commercial hip-hop (craig mac's "brand new flava in ya ear" is more or less always stuck in my head). if i were to hear that music now, it would strike me as corporate, uninspired, lacking ingenuity. clearly, my tastes have changed.

What? Are you implying you've actually got pubic hair NOW? Ho ho ho, snickers.

clearly my tastes have changed

and now i only like things with integrity like RHCP and GREEN DAY

The site was so busy having a go at P4K that I have no idea what they actually like. MC Paul Barman probably.

http://musicwritemare.blogspot.com/2007/07/welcome-to-fun-vague-mission-statement.html

doesn't rly help either...

Based on the J. Temperance nick, the Fall. MERE PSEUD BLOG ED.

Hmm. It is k-punk's attempt at fan-fiction?

I spent most of my (too brief) writing time on holiday thinking about VAMPIRE for I Was A Goblin so obviously I'm brooding on my late adolescence a bit at the moment.

Funnily just last weekend I sold 20 CDs and plan to sell quite a lot more. I explained this away to the guy in the record shop I sold them to as 'thinning it out'. That's partly true, I've only bought about 5 CDs this year - but this coupled with a need to change, strip away the identity tied to these, maybe - all leading to beginning to listen to something else on CD. The again, its also to do with the fact that music has become much more about the physicality you might get from a live concert.

Otoh I've been d/l bits, its stuff I normally listen to, but 'something' is beginning.

The most effective way to expand (or at least change) one's musical tastes is to fall in love ~~w/ Ashlee Simpson~~; even if you believe that the person you fall in love with has identical tastes to yours, this will turn out not to be the case.

If falling in love with someone new seems not to be in the cards, one can always have children.

...that you don't know. Your Pitchfork article has been a rather profound inspiration to me & my circle of friends, both those who have commented on my blog & those who haven't. I'm personally setting November 1st as my day to give my hard drive away & start all over with my music taste. Most likely, I'll be collecting up every possible genre & time period my friends & I can dream up, tossing them all into a hat, and then picking what we'll each be listening to for the next 3 months. After that, we'll switch it ALL up.

All of that to say this -- thanks for the article. I quite enjoyed it.

APN (http://dryvetymeonlyne.theliquidcell.com)

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Better late than never

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Me At 19

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Ever fallen in love

I am that someone...