It’s Wednesday, and we all know what that means.
Yup, for want of anything better to say, its time for some introspective navel-gazing. And today it’s about music – specifically the weird things that happen to your taste in music as you get older. See, my taste in music has always been a bit odd, with Richard Wagner happily sharing shelf space with Metallica or Turisas or something. So I’d stick a mix on my ipod and happily listen to a playlist of something like the last act of Die Walküre, followed by a bit of DragonForce, then a couple of tracks from Murder Ballads (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds), and then a bit of brass band music, maybe some Paul Simon – just random stuff. And I enjoy it equally.
I’ve always been a little worried about what would happen to my tastes as I begin to advance in years – a very good friend of mine, a bona-fide survivor of the sixties, developed a scary penchant for Country Music (The Music Of Pain). Strangely, though, my tastes seem to be getting a bit louder and a bit stranger with every passing year.
Sure, I’ve always liked less obvious (i.e. more challenging) music – I prefer Schöenberg to Mozart, for example. I like Nick Cave’s lyricism and discordances more than the easier-listening clash inspired Kaiser Chiefs, as another example. Lately, though, it’s just gone a bit nuts. Because I’ll play stuff by all four of those artists, frequently back to back and enjoy the juxtapose just as much as the individual pieces.
Now here’s the REALLY wierd thing – as most of the stuff I listen to gets punted to last.fm, imagine my horror to discover that I’m not special after all! There’s LOADS of people whose taste in music is just as mental as mine! So what is it? Am I a pretentious art-wank who only likes stuff nobody else does? Do I just have no definable taste in music? Or does everyone just like what they like and to hell with trying to pigeon hole it?
I don’t know – what are you looking at me for? I think the best thing to do is to get on with listening to my music and not think about it any more.
Which leads neatly into:
ACE Lyric #4
All the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me.
Marillion – Freaks.
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