Syn: dilettantish, dilettanteish, sciolistic

“When I had a dozen CDs I loved them all and that was enough until the next one arrived. When I had a thousand… I wanted more. I am now 26 and I have had enough. Almost.

Part of it, I’m sure, comes down to wanting to recapture that moment when I first listened to In Sides or Paul’s Boutique and sat with my eyes and mouth wide open in surprise, or that time when I dozed off during “Don’t Stop” and woke up during “I Am The Resurrection” and felt in another place, or when I first heard “Retread” or “Eye Know” or when I danced to “That Lady” in Brixton at 1am, but how did trying to recapture a moment of magic end up as such a greedy, frenetic hunter-gatherer rush to acquire? Why did I end up wanting to have listened to things rather than actually be listening to them? It’s not even like I relate favourite songs back to events in my life when they were significant, because I’ve never used music as an emotional battery like that; I’ve always loved it in and of itself primarily, a song or an album as a beautiful thing on its own that is perfect and that I can love and immerse myself in or use to paint my daily life with colour. It’s about the point of contact. I’ve said that before, I’m sure. I don’t want to know everything about 50s rock n roll or the key movers in postpunk, I can’t relate to grime when I live with the moors behind me and the sea in front, I don’t want to write articles on Miami bass or crunk or nu-folk or whatever the hell is being revived or invented this week. As nice as it would be, the practicalities of owning and knowing intimately, as LCD Soundsystem put it, every good record, ever, make it a ridiculous ambition.”

Nick Southall, “Soulseeking” from Stylus back in 2005.  I’d never read this before, and I can thank rockcritics.com (currently counting down the best stuff written this decade) for remedying this situation.  I too frequently find myself acquiring and storing, waiting for the proper moment to explore.  And when it happens, listening often feels like an assignment, or something to check off a list.

I feel like this sort of self-analysis would be a great theme for a big Turkel-esque oral history of music fans’ changing listening habits in the digital era.  The comments thread on that post seems like a tiny start.

Filed under: downloading  Nick Southall  Stylus