Mel, who you can and should read, posted a piece earlier today which you can read here. Mel has a load of posts, and I would recommend reading all about Charlie in particular. Most enjoyable indeed.
Anyway, it got me to thinking about my own relationship with music. I say relationship, but to be honest it is more a series of dirty one night stands than something more meaningful and long term. I doubt very much that music and I will be slipping off for a romantic weekend to a little cabin somewhere to celebrate a lifetime of loyal partnership though there may well be the chance of a dirty romp in the back of the car.
Ask me who I love and I will tell you that I adore Prince and would happily let him touch me inappropriately (were he not dead – something that still upsets me terribly). I would also insist that I love all things eighties, that I have a thing for rather loud and nasty metal and own most of Bob Dylan’s early works on Vinyl. I also had an awkward jazz phase (and have the Dave Brubeck red vinyls to prove it), a pop stage and a particularly filthy long weekend where I was into rap music but that just made me a bit sweary and it turns out that there is no appropriate time for a fat middle aged programmer to be using the ‘N’ word. No matter how fly or dope his tunes.
There isn’t much I haven’t tried but mostly I seem to resort back to the music I loved when I was in my teens in the eighties. And Volbeat. I heard Volbeat for the first time about 5 years ago and since then have fallen very much in love with their rockabilly metal. I’ve even seen them in concert a couple of times and took my kids to see them. Our Tom loves them especially, and he is only 9.
I then realised that technology has played a big part in my on off romance with music, particularly in recent years. The music varies slightly but how and when I listen to it has been hugely influenced by the way I access it. For many years I had the same old stack of CD’s and cassettes and things did not vary much at all. Perhaps that was to do with having a young family and trying to work on my career. Probably. But as the years have progressed and I have found more time I have dipped in and out of music and most often as I have discovered new technology.
I dabbled with peer-to-peer sharing for a while and found myself stealing all manner of music I had never really listened to but that did not last long as I also stole some pirated films and a particular copy of the Lord of the Rings ended up being a virus so I packed that in pretty quickly.
iTunes then made me super horny for all the music I had forgotten from the eighties and nineties (and sometimes later), and for a long time I amassed a ton of stuff that I hadn’t really appreciated at the time and enjoyed it a lot more as I got older. I ended up with everything Hootie and the Blowfish had done which when I look back was just a bit weird. They were okay but I’m not sure I needed their entire collection.
Spotify and Deezer followed and that was quite fabulous and I had a nifty little speaker I would plug my phone into as I browsed endlessly but I would always end up coming back to the things from my youth. I will admit to having a real thing for Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Band which I picked up from my dad.
Sonos speakers followed and I put them through out the house and again these gave me a new lease of life and it was not long before I was treating my neighbours to hours and hours of Erasure and the Pet ship boys.
Recently my listening time has increased again on the back of picking up a couple of Amazon Alexas which I have hooked into my Sonos speakers and Spotify and Amazon music accounts and between me and the boys there is often sometime playing in multiple rooms throughout the house.
Funny how it goes though because the kids are mostly into eighties music and volbeat…I do wonder what will be next.
100 word Wednesday – The Chase