The days the music dies
Feb 7th, 2009 by handolio
I don’t think I’m putting it too strongly when I say that I fucking loves music. I listen to it all the time – mostly for pure enjoyment, but sometimes it goes beyond that.
I’m not sure what it is, but it’s a joy. Like smells, old songs can evoke the strongest memories. I can tell you exactly where I was the first time I heard Nick Drake’s Cello Song, or Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You (sung by my brother), or Japan’s Visions of China, for example.
Music evokes emotions, or conjures up vivid imaginings in me: listen to Anouar Brahem’s Le Voyage de Sahar and try not to be bouncing along a sun-bleached, dusty desert road. Play Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name without getting angry. Don’t even think about listening to Guillemot’s Redwings after a break up – but stick on Florence and the Machine’s Dog Days are Over and find yourself lifted.
I like music when I travel and when I unwind, and often while I work – although I’m normally forced into listening anyway to drown out all the noise in the office.
Which is why it sucks that, every few months, it stops working.
I’ve got boxes full of CDs and hard drives full of songs, and I don’t want to listen to them. I can’t be bothered with the albums I like, and hearing an album I love is like so much lift music. The lyrics go over my head, the tune doesn’t get under my skin, the orchestration won’t lift – or sink – my heart. It’s like I’ve suddenly lost my capacity to understand a passionate language: I hear the sounds, but not their meaning.
So that’s where I am. It shouldn’t last more than a few days. On Monday, perhaps an album will come out that snaps me out of it. Perhaps I’ll watch and enjoy more of these (thanks Jason).
Perhaps, good residents of Hove permitting, I’ll just enjoy some quiet for a bit while I tap away at some freelance.
Have a look at Vampire Weekends debut album, The Shins with a little more balls
Cheers, you already tipped me off to them – if you used Last.fm you’d have seen me listening to them, probably.
Not as much as The Shins, mind.
The Shins are going to take a lot of beating, surely? I rediscover Wincing the Night Away every fortnight or so, and get all teary during Phantom Limb. My last.fm profile too attests to the shintense listening.
Are they big on Oz, Nick?
Ah see my soft brain….
The shins are known down here, but not that well. There are some good Aussie bands about but a lot are soft rock.
The new Kings of Leon is amazing though, his voice is unreal
Oh, forgot to reply to Nick’s second comment: You’re wrong, and you’re a grotesquely ugly freak.
His voice is great, but the album’s a weak excercise in stadium rock that lacks the originality or conviction of the first three. They’ve jumped the shark.