Comments on The Cure for Bedbugs: 2001: A Taste Odyssey

Trivia comes with the territory, true -- and there...

2010-01-10T23:53:20.898-08:00

Trivia comes with the territory, true -- and there's nothing wrong with it. But the elephant in the room here re: this period of my life was that I wasn't really *talking* to anyone about music yet, wasn't really sharing my experiences with friends or groups or message boards. I was just amassing knowledge with no real outlet for it, hence had no way to really test what it was I thought I was learning.

Just because I started having more (and better) conversations doesn't mean I stopped amassing knowledge (actually I've probably listened to more music this year than any other year of my life, including 2001 in which I was actively obsessed and had the entire pop universe at my fingertips to explore) but it meant that I wasn't just compiling my encyclopedia like a monk; I was able to shape ideas and opinions outside of the vacuum of dutiful study. (So basically I still advocate dutiful study, but I abhor a vacuum.)

"I was a bright kid, but I excelled in sancti...

2010-01-10T23:53:09.604-08:00

"I was a bright kid, but I excelled in sanctioned activities -- classical piano and English classes, say -- and was generally a teacher's pet. Rock music, far from offering rebellion, merely offered me a sanctioned way to excel in slightly edgier activities. Getting into music the way I did was safe; it was a school subject I loved. But I wasn't really challenging myself, was learning trivia but wasn't thinking critically."

Word word word word word. But to some extent I don't think this is a particularly uncommon experience among those who think/write about music. The question is to what extent (if ever) you move past it and if you ever stop faking it. I perpetually fear/think/know that I'm full of shit and someone is eventually going to point this fact out. But maps and appreciation and encyclopaedic knowledge of music aren't awful ways to listen so long as they aren't one's only way to listen. I think.

Yeah, I don't mean to sound quite as sour as I...

2010-01-10T23:52:59.795-08:00

Yeah, I don't mean to sound quite as sour as I might (I can't tell tbh) here, since as I say me being a good critic, which I think I can comfortably call myself as of, say, three years ago, would have been completely impossible without a long phase of desperate catch-up and bullshit.

I understand now, I think, that there's another side to this -- that is, you could be an excellent critic with an extremely limited range, and the range itself doesn't mean fuck-all if you don't have the critical chops to back up what you're listening to with engaging analysis. But that was a really, really hard concept to understand when I was a teenager (to about age 20, I'd guess), and it didn't hurt to do so much homework, just made the transition away from relying primarily on bullshitting to get by more difficult. (I'll always rely a lot on bullshitting to get by, of course...)

I had a similar quest in my first year at universi...

2010-01-10T23:52:49.871-08:00

I had a similar quest in my first year at university when I decided that I needed to 'catch up' on 70s punk/post-punk - sparked off by i) meeting my soon-to-be boyfriend (who seemed to own half of Music & Video Exchange's bargain basement in his record collection and couldn't believe that I had never heard any David Bowie albums) ii) having access to a vast hoard of canonical CDs/vinyl that I inherited for our IndieSoc clubnight (it was only once I got a proper broadband connection that I realised how un-vast it really was - at the time it seemed I'd never work my way through it all). I'd been 'into' music for ages but didn't really know very much beyond my own limited spectrum (ie Britpop) and whatever got playlisted on Xfm (not much in the way of 'classics', by then).

I bullshitted my way through so many conversations and desperately tried to catch up when no-one was looking - I think it paid off in the end. Also it helped that said boyfriend had a very poptimist approach, equally loving PJ & Duncan and the KLF as much as he did the Sex Pistols and My Bloody Valentine. I owe him an awful lot, not just the crate-digging mentality (we finally called it a day whilst browsing the racks of the old Tower Records in Camden together) but how to avoid totally becoming a Nick Hornby character.