101

I'm full of coffee and, having just watched Room 101, felt inspired to make a wee list of things that boil my piss, as a form of catharthis. This is designed, in the words of the great Peter Cook, "to get some things off my chest, and on to other peoples'."

Obviously this is a heavily redacted inventory, but I had to write this quickly as I've got some laundry to sort out:

1. Band competitions. Music is not a competition and musical opinion is always, *always* entirely subjective. Who is the best band in Cambridge? Who cares?
   
   
2. The Conservative Party. Do I really have to explain this one?
   
   
3. Ill-mannered people. Just how do you think that being obnoxious, rude or ignorant makes you a better person or the world a better place?
   
   
4. Celebrities. Hate the word, hate the concept, hate the magazines, hate the TV shows. The concept of celebrity demeans real achievement and needlessly elevates the perceived status of preening self-important performing chimps.
   
   
5. The recorded works of Stereophonics. Although I will grudgingly admit that it's quite an achievement making "beige" a musical genre.
   
   
6. Consumerism. Yes, I buy things, of course I do, but I'm increasingly noticing that people are becoming defined by what they own, not by who or what they are. This makes me twitchy.
   
   
7. Masterchef. Cooking doesn't get any tougher than this. Apparently.
   
   
8. Patriotism. You do realise that your country of birth is an accident and an irrelevance, don't you? You don't? Oh.
   
   
9. Writing “should of” instead of “should have”. Were you forcibly removed from school at the age of six?
   
   
10. Playing on people's fears and insecurities to either make money or exercise control over them. Applies to governments, advertisers, organised religions and psychics/mediums. Well done, all of you. No, really.

Plethora

Greetings

As I write, I'm listening to an Elvis Costello album. Brutal Youth, to be specific.  The thing is, I'm not really listening to it, am I? A significant proportion of my pathetically low attention capacity is currently devoted to writing these words on this here blog thing, meaning that I am not devoting myself to Mr Costello's lyrics (which I'm led to believe are quite good) nor his keen ear for a melody. In fact you could say that I'm doing Elvis a disservice by not focussing on an album which I'm sure took him longer to make than it's going to take me to write this.

And this is the problem (well, one of them, anyway).

When I was just a snot-nosed, scabby-kneed chavvy, music was not as easily accessible as it is now. Now it's everywhere, like swearing, or Stephen Fry. The most obscure (and quite often unlistenable) music is mine to hear, simply via a mechanical manipulation of my digits. The internet has presented a seemingly limitless aural vista for my delectation. Meanwhile, at the age of 7, I had three records that I listened to obsessively, at every opportunity that presented itself. Three. Not significantly less than the average digit count of a Portsmouth native (and I'm not including thumbs in this equation - there are places even evolution fears to tread).

These records were: Rubber Soul by The Beatles, Elvis Is Back! By Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly's 20 Golden Greats. Played again and again and again and again, fish fingers for tea, and again and again. I knew every note, every beat, every second of these records and if I listened to them now I would be mentally transported directly back to the front room of 5 Marie Road, Southampton SO19 0EJ.

The reason I used the word if in the last sentence is that I am struggling to recall the last time I actually sat down and listened to an album (or cd or whatever) in it's entirety, devoting all my attention to it.

Like many of us, I have embraced (to a limited extent) the opportunities provided by digital media and now have more music than I know what to do with. On my hard drive, on spools and spools of CDRs, on the racks of CDs and vinyl that I can see from here. And now, when I listen to music, it is usually on my iPod, on shuffle. Or in the kitchen when cooking dinner. Or in the car, another home-made compilation cd in the stereo. In short, I've stopped listening. Stopped listening properly, anyway.

I can often be heard extolling the virtues of such and such an artist, asking folks if they've heard this album or that album by so-and-so and the wotchamacallits. Luckily, I am rarely asked to go into too much detail about what makes the latest release from Fred Skillbuggy & The Crazed Shitrings quite so exciting, and a good thing too. Because the chances are I've barely played it through once.

We all know that New Year Resolutions are the province of the simple-minded (that's a fact and you can go and look it up if you can be arsed) which is why I don't make them.

However if I did make them (which I don't) then I would pick one album per week and just listen to it, as often as possible, from start to finish, with no other distractions. That way I could get through 52 albums in a year, and then maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to listen to all the music in my possession before I die. That is, as long as I don't ever add any more music to my collection, or die tomorrow.