My dark secret!
I was talking about this with Dr T last week and I realised the awful truth….
I don’t really give a monkey’s about the latest round of the ‘rockism debate’. Or much else.
More power and total respect to those of you fighting the good fight, but count me out for the time being. In fact since quitting ILM in April I’ve been in a state of glorious near-isolation from ‘music discourse’ and it hasn’t missed me – I’ve made my humble contribution, long ago said what I had to say, I don’t have the curiosity or energy that make the good blogs worth reading any more. Records of the year? No idea. Doubt I’ve even heard ten albums! The records that have given me most pleasure this week are “Kung Fu Fighting” by Bus Stop and “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” by Elisa Peavey (sp?).
I honestly never thought I’d feel like this. Caring about music has been so much a part of my life for so long that it’s a bit odd admitting that I don’t at the moment (I’m assuming it’s a phase, of course). But I feel better admitting it, too – this is not a negative post! I still love listening to music, of course, I love downloading new stuff and I have a mad novelty habit but worrying about how it all fits together or trying to think about it – I’ve just lost that critical libido. Might be different if I had an MP3 blog, I really liked that and there’s a massive infectious energy in that scene – but I don’t have the space.
(Doing Popular, that’s different, it’s like pottering about in an allotment or playing with toy soldiers and I wish I had the time to do four entries every day.)
Hats off to the people – rockist, popist, hip-hopist, grimist et al. – who still have that commitment, that desire to right wrongs and get the good word out there and not just state the bleedin’ obvious, you know who you are and it’s you who make independent music writing worth reading. And yes I’ll update that sidebar soon. It’s not like I’m planning to stop writing here – and NYLPM is hardly a one-man band anyway – but I know a lot more of you come to this part of FT than any other and I’d hate to think you were after something I’m not equipped to give nowadays. Having a faithful readership has been a continuing delight and I’d send you all a Christmas card if I knew who you were (and wasn’t bone idle). Now off I go to listen to Bus Stop again.