‘I didn’t stop buying new music, I just stopped listening to it…’
Gordon Burn writes a slightly rambling piece in the Friday Review, on the problem with nostalgia.
In which he admits to continuously buying new music, but only actually listening to his old favourites. Technology, however, has changed this
“I didn’t stop buying new records; I just stopped listening to them. If it came down to a choice between Boards of Canada and Dylan, or the Be Good Tanyas and Joni Mitchell, Dylan and Joni (and Neil Young and the Beach Boys and Keith Jarrett) would always win out.
At a stroke, though, Apple iTunes, the jukebox software that allows you to build a selection of tunes for your iPod, has changed all that.The random shuffle option short-circuits the tendency to listen only to what you already know. In this way I suddenly discovered the Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs after owning the three-album box set for years. Also Bonnie “Prince” Billy. The Smiths (!). Smog. Yo La Tengo. Ms Dynamite. Four Tet. Jim O’Rourke. Each one a reminder that the past is not dead, as William Faulkner once put it; it is not even past.”
Whether or not he’s typical is a matter for debate - but he’s describing something quite significant that’s currently happening to us. CDs changed the way we bought music: we all went out and bought back catalogue etc. But the digital music ‘revolution’ seems to be changing the way we actually listen to it, which is culturally something much more profound.
Commercially, as well, it could be fantastic news for the music industry when the scares over downloading calm down.
Look at the evidence
- there is a generation of men and women who grew up loving pop/rock/dance etc and don’t want to give up the habit
- for a long time they have had the cash to buy whatever CD they want, but they have lacked the time to find out what’s new, or the inclination to play it instead of listening to an old fave.
- now we have Amazon recommendations etc to make trying new things a much safer process
- we also have all sorts of software and hardware to serve up music to you without you having to make any effort..
What’s not to like?