Paul Weller, Listening Habits & The Thing!

 

 

My friend Bobby and I experience something we call "The Thing" more often than not. Actually, I bet all of you experience "The Thing." This is an otherworldly phenonemon that makes that weird iPod algorithm, when it plays something you are thinking about, look like child's play. "The Thing" is bigger than all of us.

One of my favorite examples of "The Thing" happened a couple of years ago. I bought a record from a dealer friend who owns Clockwork Records. When it arrived in the mail, I opened the box to find a note, "Thanks Sal! Go Yankees! Mike." 

Ah, forgot Mike was a Yankees fan. But what the hell is Mike's last name? I knew it was an Italian name, so I started rattling off possibilities in my head. Vitale? Russo? Gennaro? Nothing was satisfying me.

Later that night, "The Producers" was on TCM, so I watched it. About halfway in, Dick Shawn makes his first appearance auditioning for "Springtime For Hitler." He states his name, "Lorenzo Saint Dubois, but you can call me L.S.D."

LORENZO! MIKE LORENZO!

That is "The Thing." How the hell does that happen?

Well, it happened again.

I have been listening to some Paul Weller, anticipating the new record "66" coming in May. But rather than play some old faves, I decided to try again with some records that I didn't particularly care for the first few times around. One of those is "Fat Pop Vol. 1." It's not as if I didn't like the record. It's that nothing really jumped out at me. Yet I'd keep playing it. Something kept calling me back. The same could be said for "Saturns Pattern." I wanted to love these records, but I couldn't nail down anything to love...until yesterday, when for some strange reason, both hit me hard. I was loving everything about these records and decided to write about them.

Then I woke up to an email from my friend cmealha:

"It's funny how the manner in which you listen to something affects how you feel about it. I was kind of so-so on the new Brittany Howard album. I liked about half of it based on my listening on my iPhone with earbuds. So I listened to the copy that I bought from you today on the new system and it was just so powerful that I wound up changing my mind completely on the whole album. It really is good. Loved it."

THE THING!

I imagine coincidences happen all the time, especially in the age of iPhones and social media where you can think about something and minutes later, see an ad for the very thing you were thinking about. But occasionally, like discovering the last name of a friend by watching a movie six hours later, or writing a post about listening habits and then waking up to an email from a friend who was thinking the same thing, it is more than a coincidence. It freaks me out!

 

That said, yes cmealha, that Brittany Howard record is solid. It works as a whole, I think. And yes, I completely agree, records can sound and feel different based on when and where you are listening. Both Weller's "Fat Pop" and "Saturns Pattern" decided to show themselves to me this week . Or did I allow them to show themselves to me? Either way, it feels like I just got two new Paul Weller records a few months before another gets released.

This is why I never give up on artists I love. One pass is never enough. Of course, it could backfire. I could love a record on the first two passes and then realize on the third pass that it wasn't all that. But that's okay, too, as long as we keep listening.