“People used to make records…

June 16th, 2024

…
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It’s about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns or drugs
You choose”

Ani DiFranco — Fuel

I don't recall the last time I listened to a music album in full. From the first song to the last without skipping any song. Popular music albums to be exact — rock, pop, country, folk, or any other genre of that kind. I still listen to albums in full, but those are classical music albums — mostly baroque era, chants of various kinds, modern choral works by David Lang and Ēriks Ešenvalds, or modern classics like Philip Glass and Max Richter. That is what I do when I read. I want to have something in the background that fills the air and mutes any unwelcome sounds from the outside, and yet it doesn't overwhelm my mind when I am concentrating (and enjoying) reading. But for widely understood pop music, I stopped listening to albums in full even though I still listen to a lot of that music — but only to particular songs.

I hadn't even realized that had happened. I used to listen to albums without skipping any song to form an informed opinion of that album and only then would I select favorite songs to listen to on repeat. Thinking really hard, I think I listened to a few popular music albums in full last year — “Blood on the Tracks” by Bob Dylan, “Harvest” by Neil Young, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” by Black Sabbath and “Tapestry” by Carole King. That is all. Looking at that list, I realize now that I was wrong in thinking that my musical taste was more refined, but it seems like such a middle-class, middle-aged white man's music. I used to be all about cutting-edge, constant discovery and experimentation and appreciation of unlikely and unusual music. Or maybe I am still like that and now appreciate music that withstands the challenge of passing time and changing popular tastes. Surprisingly — all the albums above were recorded between 1971 and 1974. That must mean something. That must mean something about the quality of the music of that era and my musical taste — and the fact that I was born in 1974. It cannot be just a coincidence.