Of new music, I now listen to more songs in non-English than English. There’s just more good music in Spanish, French, German and other languages than there is in English.
The signs of decline are exhibiting everywhere.
Music
Lay You Low
Country music can capture a set of feelings that no other genre can: that of abject existential regret and soul-deep anguish. That’s when it’s at its very best and why I love it.
Sonorous
This morning I listened to all or part of 296 new (to me) songs. Of those, I liked 10.
This took about an hour and a half. And this is how you find all that good new music that many people claim does not exist.
Witchy One
Why do nearly all songs recorded in the 1970s sound so much worse than many songs recorded in the 1960s? I can’t understand it. Did recording tech go backwards? I can’t find any evidence of that (and I know quite a lot about that) but otherwise it’s difficult to explain.
It must be just stylistic, then, but why? Why was it important to people that their music sound murky and the drums be so far back in the mix they sounded like a chipmunk banging on some styrofoam cups with a toilet brush? I find most 1970s songs intolerable not just because they are vapid but because the recording is so atrocious and unlistenable.
Even though I grew up with a lot of those 1970s songs I am not at all nostalgic for any of them as they all sound so horrible.
Play Liszt
People react oddly to how I consume music. One reason is because I have no set playlists. Every single playlist I make is unique and ephemeral. I never save them. I also don’t use Spotify, which seems de rigeur now in people’s minds. I also don’t listen to albums (generally hate them) and rarely listen to much that is beyond 10 years old.
A friend wanted me to share my playlists with her and was incredulous when I said I didn’t have any. But I do not.
This works for me but as with many areas of life, I recognize that I am puzzlingly unusual.
Time Lorde
I read this but have no real opinion on it because I do not listen to nor care about albums. But I did read it all because I love music.
This bit made me laugh:
Britney Spears’ 1998 debut album, … Baby One More Time, is a journey through the mind of a heartbroken teenage girl as imagined by a small team of male songwriters and producers, hailing largely from Sweden
That’s the whole problem, too, with Lorde’s albums after her first one. Stupid-ass Jack Antonoff and company took over songwriting and she lost her authorial voice. Lorde went from sounding like a tetchy, bratty but intelligent young woman to what an unimaginative and unexceptional 36-year-old man’s idealized version of what such a person would sound like.
And that worked about as well as you’d expect.
Haw Wah
I broke every browser on my system tonight but also found a load of good new music.
Yeehaw.
Notable
I can recognize if it’s Blu DeTiger playing bass after like 3-4 notes.
And that’s something.
352
I listened to all or part of 352 new (to me) songs this morning.
Of those, I liked 17. This took about two hours. And to those who says there is no good new music: Of course there is. You just have to make the effort to hear it.
Saccharine
Tonight, I listened to all or part of 213 new (to me) songs.
Of those, I liked 11. This took about 1.25 hours.
Song Swim
I listened to all or part of 392 new (to me) songs tonight/this morning.
Of those, I liked 16. This took approximately two hours.
What’s the Dyl?
Try as I might, I never have and still do not see what’s so special about Bob Dylan. His appeal is completely lost on me, both musically and as a celebrity apart from that.
I feel like Dylan about some people do about Taylor Swift, I guess.
Appealing Pealing
I listened to all or part of 409 new (to me) songs this morning.
Of those, I liked 20.
Music Curbed
TIFU by calling my girlfriend’s music taste ”basic.”
Playing music out loud in a pricy restaurant on a phone is a huge red flag. It’s good she kicked him to the curb — for his sake.
That said, never insult anyone’s taste in music. It can only go wrong…and just, why? It’s pointless. Everyone has to start somewhere. And not everyone is going to be the kind of listener you are or care about music at all. I’ve known several people who just didn’t listen to music at all. Any kind. Ever.
Hell, all y’all can see how broad my tastes are and because I don’t listen to full albums “true” music aficionados have called me basic and unrefined in the past.
Referring to anything by Taylor Swift as “underground,” though, is pure crazy. That part made me laugh.
New Tuneage
I listened to part or all of 262 new (to me) songs tonight/this morning.
Of those, I liked 16.