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August 12, 2003
music
I used to be heavily into music. Each week would see several albums (very occasionally into spending three figures), and 5-10 CD singles. Each night would see the radio on for 4 or 5 hours. Radio 1: Mark Goodier's Evening Session, John Peel. Mixing It on Radio 3. Headphones on. Walkman. Discman. Everywhere. Reading: Select, NME, Mixmag, The Wire, Jockey Slut, Future Music, Sound on Sound, DJ.
Music still holds an incredible viseral appeal. Good music makes me shake (I have never been able to listen to music under the influence of anything, it's just too much). Music listening has curtailed: music buying has decreased.
Time to listen has decreased. The easy thrills of the telly, of the Internet, and of alcohol, have replaced. I still love music, there just isn't that much that appeals any more. What does exist is hard to get hold of. Dance music has fallen through the floor - trance, the extraction of base metal beats, expanded, enveloped, and destroyed an industry, harvested by the carrion of traditional rock and roll. Techno, at least, refused to play the pop game, and has emerged stronger.
To be honest, I now have a fairly comprehensive back catalogue to keep me entertained.
iTunes has helped to reverse this. It's making me listen to old stuff through new ears, and given me time. It's always available, as is BBC Radio through DTT (my DAB experience was very short-lived).
Last night I spent three hours playing lots of old and new records. The reason: a pair of new Sony headphones - MDR-EX71. Whilst those on head-fi would dissaprove, these have made me giggle stupidly about music again. I am hearing stuff in music that I have not heard before - on all sorts of headphones and speaker systems. Music I thought I knew inside out. These really spread out the stereo sound stage, and if there's anything wrong with them is that stuff in the middle (for example, vocals) tend to get a bit lost. I also appreciate that they're a bit bass and treble heavy - but for 25 pounds I don't think I can really complain. I want to try the Shures, the Etymotics. But they'll have to fight hard for bang-for-buck against these Sonys.
I am not buying am iPod. I am not. I am not. Maybe an MP3 CD player. But the nice ones are 200 quid. Bah.
Not particularly representative, or cutting edge, last 5 purchases:
Underworld: Back to Mine
The Flaming Lips - Yoshime battles the pink robots
Sigur Ros - ( )
FC Kahuna: Another Fine Mess
Hexstatic - Listen & Learn
R.I.P. Musik magazine. You did pretty well at intelligent writing about dance music, but you took the Ibeefa bullet that eventually killed you and commercial dance music.
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