It's officially the unofficial end of summer. As lousy as my summer of 2022 was, I am still sorry to see it fly by so quickly. It didn't give me enough time to right the wrong.
I did a lot of thinking this holiday weekend, in lieu of the usual, long summer weekend fare.
One thing that has been on my mind was something our friend Stephen said in a comment:
"I get a bigger thrill from discovering music made by new artists, than listening to new stuff from vintage artists. I don't want to live in the past music-wise. I want to experience new music."
This isn't some revelatory statement. Many feel the way Stephen feels. I do not. I enjoy living in the past music-wise, because there is still so much I haven't heard and for me, that is the better bet to experience good new music.
If you haven't heard it, then it is new to you!
This is why I get such a thrill doing deep dives into the catalogues of artists I love, or even better, artists I have missed. The possibilities are endless. Two of my favorite reggae records are by U-Roy. But somehow, I had never heard a note of music from I-Roy. Now, two of I-Roy's records are currently winding me up in the very best way.
Many friends often wonder how I could watch a classic film a second and third time, and have little interest in anything new. The reason applies to music, as well.
As long as the art keeps giving, I keep taking. I haven't felt that way about new music in over 20 years.
I've often read this statement when some new artist releases a record that is universally beloved, "I'm tired of people saying there isn't any good new music out there. You just have to look for it."
From the moment I figured out how to use my grandfather's Norelco radio and tune in to a Top 40 station, I listened to amazing new music that found me. I never thought I'd have to don a miner's helmet and pack a trail mix to discover something new that is worth listening to.
I am obsessed with the weekly feature on Brooklyn Vegan, "New Songs Out Today." This past week there were 19---songs by Yeat, Cam-Ron, A-Trak, Dying Fetus, Lil Baby, Kali Uchis, Merlyn Wood, The Upfux, Cold Cave, Pure Bathing Culture and Est Gee to name a few. Every week, I go in, hoping I can pull something to share with you. Every week, I give up before finishing the list. I find most of it offensive. And if anyone decides to independently take that challenge and come back to me with "You know, the Yeat track ain't bad," you are missing the point completely.
Yes, I know it's subjective. I could listen to reggae for hours and some of you can't listen to reggae at all. I get it. But I don't want a menu of 100 mediocre choices. The best restaurants have small menus that diners remember and that is why they keep coming back.
When someone like Elvis Costello or Tears For Fears or Mavis Staples or Tommy McLain can release some of the best music of their careers 40 or in the case of Mavis and Tommy, 60 years after the fact, that is a thrill for me.
Wet Leg and Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard are the only two records I thought were worthy of being on my 2022 "best of" list. Every one else is 60 and older. But I was also thinking, maybe the reason I love Wet Leg as much as I do is because I just can't believe I love it as much as I do!
Summer is over. Probably should watch "Jaws" again and get lost in Quint's speech about the Indianapolis, or marvel at the quick, slide show cuts of Brody on the beach when the Kintner boy gets eaten. I'll take that over the 3 hour Elvis movie, just like I'll take a nice, guaranteed spin with "Rubber Soul" over the very samey Sharon Van Etten album. Talk about Labor Day.
15 comments:
I'm nearing fifty and trying my hardest not to be that "get off my lawn!" guy. I look and seek; I'm open to suggestions and half of my music listening consists of giving a recommended new group a shot. I'm finding that I'd rather deep-dive eras and styles I only hit on the surface. Bands with retro-influenced sounds I'm always open to. That said, I'm agreeing with you, Sal, on running out of energy. We shouldn't have to work so hard. Maybe I'm an old fogey. Or, maybe we are in an era where popular music is in a lull creatively. Maybe both.
paulinca
paulinca,
I'm not a fan of the phrase "get off my lawn" when it comes to music. Never have been. The phrase implies that we are old and are chasing the young away just for being kids. Or that we are not allowing the kids to play near us.
That Wet Leg and Buzzardx3 both strongly appeal to me, or that I still listen to the Bad Brains and Judas Priest with the same enthusiasm I had 40 years ago, shows I have not aged to the point of just listening to my Beatles or Elvis records.
I agree wholly that there is a lull creatively, and "lull" is being way too kind. That popular music is popular because people like it, to paraphrase Irving Berlin, doesn't say much about the product itself. Billions eat McDonalds every day and we all know its crap.
I don't have to go back to the 60's or 70's to discuss amazing records. There have been plenty right up to the early 2000's. But those solid, side to side records are becoming extinct, as more and more artists just release DIY, GarageBand, Casio keyboard records just because they can. Subjective? Yeah probably. But not untrue.
"From the moment I figured out how to use my grandfather's Norelco radio and tune in to a Top 40 station, I listened to amazing new music that found me. I never thought I'd have to don a miner's helmet and pack a trail mix to discover something new that is worth listening to."
Absolutely brilliant.
Randy
I miss going to (or working in) a record store or listening to FM radio. I discovered so much music that I love through those sources and of course through friends. Top 40 only influenced me in my pre-teen years. After that, I had a stereo system and started buying albums. I worked part-time jobs from age 11-22 to support the purchase of music, concert tickets, stereo components, and bicycles. Once I was working full-time, I could afford more music. It was fun finding new (to me) music; it was often music that were released years earlier, but just as often, it was new releases. One purchase was U2 Boy and the first Pretenders. I still listen to and love those albums 42 years later. Did I love everything I listened to or bought? No. Is some of it hard to listen to now? Yes. But a lot of it is still wonderful. There was an enormous amount of music that I thought was crap then (90%/10% junk vs awesome).
There is much more music available now, but the 90/10 rule still applies, and I still don't listen to top 40. Out of the 10%, there is much to enjoy both as new releases and just new to me. it's just a bit harder to find without a good record store to go to and radio to enjoy. If I stopped trying new music in 2000, I'd not have heard Causa Sui, Yelena Eckemoff, Lettuce, Mop Mop, and many others. I'm still happy to search for music.
- Paul in DK
What it boils down to, for me, is I like my regulars -- and, having stuff from about 1920 to now, there're lots of regulars -- but I do delight in hearing something new to me. When rock music -- most of my fandom is spent on rock -- is in a creative era, I love hearing the new current stuff. When rock was on the ascent, there were always new creative things being released, so no problem. When mainstream rock was getting stale, there were new, exciting undercurrents (still rock) that meant that rock, over all, was still regularly producing interesting music. So, again, no problem. But, even as I was easily finding new contemporary music to get excited about, I was still searching the past, because, as I said at the top of this comment, I delight in hearing what's NEW TO ME -- regardless of when it came out. For the last couple decades, roughly, I'm hearing a lot of what seems to me novelty in rock music. An emphasis on sounds and quirkiness rather than cohesion and talent. I have no problem with that, as that appears to be where the music wants to go, and far be it for an anthropologist like me to try and direct culture. But those developments of the last couple decades aren't my cup o' meat, so I don't go out of my way to look around. Thus, my mode of searching the past takes precedence over my mode of searching the present. Maybe it's some kind of battleship curve, where I initially sought new (First album purchases were a T Rex record, ELP's debut, and Sabbath's Paranoid, the latter two being only a few years old at the time), moved into simultaneously seeking new and past, and now pretty much get 90% past stuff.
It wouldn't bother me if new stuff got interesting again to me, and there are nibbles here and there (The Chats' "Smoko" has been on constant rotation since I was introduced to it a month or so ago, but even it is five years old at this point; I got that Whiffs album you featured in 2020), but I'm totally a-ok with diving into the past like I used to in the present.
C in California
It's a tough road to be a current-music fan in many ways. The exceptions to that tend to be somebody like, say, Freedy Johnston coming out with a perfect-sounding record (it comes out 9/9) - but that's cheating because I've been a fan for like 25 years!
I will say that the few new artists I find to like, I dive deep into and really embrace them - so maybe for me it's more about a few good buckets of new quality - more so than trying to like the latest Lil Baby or Rabid Condors Of Abysmal Extinction single.
For me, those newer artists include:
Steve Gunn, The War On Drugs, The Tallest Man on Earth, Yumi Zouma (have y'all heard them? They are soooo good), Georgia Anne Muldrow, Curtis Harding, The Young Antiques, Immaterial Possession, Brittany Howard, Fruit Bats, Tame Impala, Anderson .Paak, Natalie Prass, The Nude Party, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, MGMT, The Oh Sees, Destroyer, Shovels & Rope, Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds.
That said, I agree it's harder to find brand new music to really love these days, and in addition, it's a search, because radio don't play it.
With respect to your list, AWITW, I think I can create a similar list. My problem is, nothing ever sticks. These are all fine artists. Prior to 2000, there were fewer bands that I thought were simply "fine." I loved bands! I knew every record inside and out! That's because there were fewer artists and, dare I say it, better records were made.
I loved what I heard by the Nude Party and immediately bought two of their records. Played them back to back. Haven't played them since. Loved the Brittany Howard single so much, I bought the album and both Alabama Shakes records. That affair lasted two weeks. I couldn't tell you what any of those records sound like today. I guess some of that is on me, but I won't take all the blame.
I'd also like to add, I think too much is put on listening to as much as possible in the hopes of finding the diamonds in the rough and feeling like a discovery was made. How can a person possibly get the most out of a record when so much is at our disposal, all the time? I no longer feel the need to find the "next big thing."
I actually think it's never been easier to find new music that you may like. I have perhaps around 4 music blogs run by people whose taste is similar to mine, and they basically do the work for me. All I do is check their blogs regularly, see what releases they are recommending, listen to a few embedded links, and decide for myself if I like it.
This sounds like the classic "Paradox of Choice" theory that's been described. I'll admit to being somewhat guilty of that that ("This is good, but there has to be something out there even better..."). Dating apps are not-unlike new music releases, imo (hah)
More is not always better!
The 'Paradox of Choice' nails it, if you look at what people are listening to on Spotify etc, most choices are drawn from a surprisingly small number of titles, it's too much cognitive effort to find something new. Contrast that with my youth - I started buying records in the early 1980s, plenty of great shops for the latest releases, but you really had to search for more obscure / out of print titles. So when I did track down a copy of Fun House, I really did value it.
The other thing that strikes me is that there is so much more rock music then ever before, I'm bound to have missed some great stuff over the years, as Sal says, it's new to me. This blog gives me so many interesting / useful pointers - my most played album so far this year is Odessey and Oracle. Surely choosing new 'old' titles doesn't make us any less adventurous?
Most of the new music just isn't doing it for me like the old music does. Most of the "new" music I like are new releases by people I've been following for a while, or it's a new artist with a similar sound to the old music I like, but with some good songwriting and hooks that make it new. I don't hear that very often with most new music.
I have too many records and CDs that I haven't listened to in a while. I really enjoy hearing them again and getting reaquainted- hey, that's why I bought their albums, they're damn good! And it's an entire album of damn good music!
As a nearly 60yr old, I've spent the best part of that listening, or attempting, to music of all genres. My old man must have noticed my increasing obsession and decided to let me hear some big band music. He knew that what he was playing had fantastic drumming (Gene Krupa) and that i'd love it...I didn't know many kids that appreciated Black Sabbath and Gene Krupa.
I listened to Sabs Never Say Die album yesterday for the first time in over 40yrs and it was like listening to a new Sabs album but I knew that none of it would really sink in the way that Sabotage has.
Sometimes it seems lately that there's too much music available to grab and I always seem to be trying to find that album that's going to change my (musical) world....whilst I don't think that it's ever going to happen I'm enjoying the, ultimately fruitless, search. I've accepted that 'new to me' music whether brand new or old and undiscovered will never resonate on an emotional level in the way that what I was listening to 20, 30, 40yrs ago did.
I've been recently acquainting myself with Jazz from many decades and whilst none of it is 'new' it is to me....any music I hear that I haven't before is new whether it's a 2022 release or a 1952 release.
I accept that the days of loving a new album are over....but who cares I've got old Ralph McTell albums to listen to that I've never heard and don't get me started on Jake Thackray.
I am with you on deep dives, Caravan 2nd for instance. There is so much to keep exploring and so much available at your fingertips.
I def still enjoy finding new artists to love. But there's so much more in the past to catch up on! And if you get into a genre new to you like big band or jazz or bluegrass, well my god you've got a lot of classic albums to enjoy. And your hit vs miss ratio will invariably be much much higher because critics and the like have already filtered out a lot of crap. You won't love everything, but when you've got a list of the 100 Best Big Band Albums to go through, you're going to be wowed a lot more than if you spend the same amount of time listening to 19 New Tracks By New Artists. The same was true in 1980 (even if pop was flourishing creatively more at the time than now); it's just there's FORTY more years of music to catch up on. Rock is about 70 years old. You don't ever need to listen to new music because there's so much classic stuff already waiting for you. Now leave me alone while I check out a "new" album by the Stovall Sisters.
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