This is a bit of a shock as once upon a time I was legendary known amongst friends and colleagues as someone who'd disappear every Monday lunchtime and an hour later reappear with the latest new releases, a person who'd know what the latest musical trend was, a guy with his finger on the pulse of the musical zeitgeist (if you will). No longer it seems. When did this change happen?
Many factors really. There comes a time when you've bought enough records, especially when you can't face getting rid of most of them. So pure logistical space factors come into play. Downloading has also been a factor - I spent the best part of 13 years supporting the record industry so felt it was time to take a bit back, mostly via illegal downloading. If I liked the tune that much I'd actually buy the physical item, but there was none of this "buying blind" as in the 90s. I stopped listening to the likes of Radio One, mainly as I hated the DJ's that were on during the times I could listen. "Top Of The Pops" got shunted around the schedules until it's eventual demise, and this show wasn't a weekly fixture in my viewing habits. Same goes for the unlamented CD:UK. And of course, during the last 5 years, gigs have become so expensive that whereas once I'd do about 12 gigs a year plus a festival, it dwindled to about two. I stopped buying the NME as it had become a pale shadow of it's former self, becoming quite unreadable.
But I'm not going to go off on a grumpy old man-esque rant about today's music being rubbish, because whilst it might be true (ooh challenging) I'm no longer in a position to chase fashion - there's simply not enough time. If I'm perfectly honest I'm quite happy to follow the artists I've liked over the last 30 or so years on this planet. and if something comes along that sounds okay, I'll give it a go. It's not about getting old really, it's finding the time.
Nowadays, I'll get my music info from blogs, and the NME news pages. I may stumble across some video that I like on the SKY music channels every now and again, and I'll always give time to listen to new stuff by established artists. And if I'm going to spend £30 plus on a ticket for a gig I want to make sure that I'm going to enjoy it. The gigs that tickets have been purchased for this year are a veritable nostalgia-fest when you look at them listed:
Saint Etienne
Pet Shop Boys
Blur
Kraftwerk
U2
Orbital
Simple Minds & OMD.
Most of these have new material to perform or have recently reformed. The key link though throughout is that I'm guaranteed to be entertained. Not much risk, but hey, I'll leave that to ver kids.
This doesn't mean I'm oblivious to new stuff. I'm quite partial to the latest Bat For Lashes single, Lily Allen's album is quite good, and I'm probably going to buy the Little Boots album, as it's a) got Phil Oakey of the Human League on it, and b) Victoria Hesketh's a Blackpool girl so you've got to show local support. and c) it sounds good.
And that's what counts at the end of the day.
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