Better late than never

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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!

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

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.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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".

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

" 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.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

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.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

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.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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)

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

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.