Dear Music: It's not you, it's me...
Shocking admission: I don't want any new music right now.
Okay, fine. It's not that I don't want new albums. There are albums released in the last month that make my musical heart ache for the wanting of them -- the new Greg Laswell, the new Storyhill and the new Josh Ritter are out there right now calling my name, peeking into my wallet for a glimpse at my credit card number, offering to jump into padded mailers and come into my home and my car and my iPod.
But for the first time in years, I don't want to discover any new music. I need to listen to the music I own. I have a musical backlog. I have albums I like that I never listen to; I have albums I don't even know if I like or not because I haven't had the time to listen to them.
I will always look back at my time as a copy editor as one of the pinnacles of my involvement with music and artists, as I spent my entire night plugged into some CD or another that had been lovingly burned and shipped westward by Julia and Marta (Howie Day, Damien Rice, Cities Samplers, Fountains of Wayne, Indigo Girls and others). Despite the work I had to do while I was listening (and anyone who has hung around here for a while will remember my depictions of the work I did while I was listening), I had never before had seven hours a night to listen to music with relatively short interruptions. I miss this about working at a desk.
Even when I was in grad school, I had the opportunity to listen to music while I studied or wrote papers. And true, I leaned more toward what I called my Quiet Music (Josh Rouse, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird, Sun Kil Moon) while I read simply because it faded behind the museum theory well, and toward albums I knew intimately while I wrote (Barenaked Ladies, Matchbox Twenty, Storyhill, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers). I needed music without surprises.
And now that I should, in theory, have the time to listen to all the albums I downloaded over the past four years that I put aside to listen to "when I have time," I don't. I listen to NPR in the car, not music (and when I do listen to music in the car, it's more often than not The Avett Brothers, simply because that's what there). I turn on the radio while I cook. I don't set aside time for music, and until I do, I don't have the time for anyone new. I can't even find the time for my favorites. Painful example No. 1: the fact that So Runs the World Away by the incomparable Josh Ritter has been out for three weeks and it has not yet found its way to me.
It pains me to admit it. But give me some time to get through the Alexi Murdoch and the Brandi Carlile and everything else I've downloaded recently, and I'll be back to "new" new music. The idea of stopping my music collection right where it stands is not only heartrending and completely counter to my character, it's ridiculous.
Now I'm off to revel in the Away We Go soundtrack and sort through iTunes. And if you have suggestions for musical discovery I can file away for when I get off my new music hiatus, let me know.
Okay, fine. It's not that I don't want new albums. There are albums released in the last month that make my musical heart ache for the wanting of them -- the new Greg Laswell, the new Storyhill and the new Josh Ritter are out there right now calling my name, peeking into my wallet for a glimpse at my credit card number, offering to jump into padded mailers and come into my home and my car and my iPod.
But for the first time in years, I don't want to discover any new music. I need to listen to the music I own. I have a musical backlog. I have albums I like that I never listen to; I have albums I don't even know if I like or not because I haven't had the time to listen to them.
I will always look back at my time as a copy editor as one of the pinnacles of my involvement with music and artists, as I spent my entire night plugged into some CD or another that had been lovingly burned and shipped westward by Julia and Marta (Howie Day, Damien Rice, Cities Samplers, Fountains of Wayne, Indigo Girls and others). Despite the work I had to do while I was listening (and anyone who has hung around here for a while will remember my depictions of the work I did while I was listening), I had never before had seven hours a night to listen to music with relatively short interruptions. I miss this about working at a desk.
Even when I was in grad school, I had the opportunity to listen to music while I studied or wrote papers. And true, I leaned more toward what I called my Quiet Music (Josh Rouse, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird, Sun Kil Moon) while I read simply because it faded behind the museum theory well, and toward albums I knew intimately while I wrote (Barenaked Ladies, Matchbox Twenty, Storyhill, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers). I needed music without surprises.
And now that I should, in theory, have the time to listen to all the albums I downloaded over the past four years that I put aside to listen to "when I have time," I don't. I listen to NPR in the car, not music (and when I do listen to music in the car, it's more often than not The Avett Brothers, simply because that's what there). I turn on the radio while I cook. I don't set aside time for music, and until I do, I don't have the time for anyone new. I can't even find the time for my favorites. Painful example No. 1: the fact that So Runs the World Away by the incomparable Josh Ritter has been out for three weeks and it has not yet found its way to me.
It pains me to admit it. But give me some time to get through the Alexi Murdoch and the Brandi Carlile and everything else I've downloaded recently, and I'll be back to "new" new music. The idea of stopping my music collection right where it stands is not only heartrending and completely counter to my character, it's ridiculous.
Now I'm off to revel in the Away We Go soundtrack and sort through iTunes. And if you have suggestions for musical discovery I can file away for when I get off my new music hiatus, let me know.