Music In The Noughties

Okay, so I lied. This is a new blog only two days after the last but not my epic Japan post. It's coming, I promise! I did find the notebook so that is a start. No, I wantedto talk a little bit about music.

So, since we are nearing the end of the Noughties, we can expect a lot of magazines/television shows/blogs to attempt to give an overview of one aspect of life during the decade (politics in the Noughties, film in the Noughties, bread in the Noughties etc.). The first one I have come across was in The Observer Music Monthly talking about music (obviously).

Now, I'm not going to complain about their Top 50 Albums list, however different mine would have looked, but do want to talk a little bit about Miranda Sawyer's piece about how music of the last decade can be described as dislocated.

It's not difficult to see what she means - for the first time since the inception of rock 'n' roll, there is no one overarching theme to describe the decade - no hippies, no punks, no new romantics. Instead, we've all split off into our own little factions and music is selling less (not only because of the Internet and piracy) but also because the appeal is much diluted. In the past, you were either making mainstream music or you weren't. Now, you only have to go on iTunes to see just how many genres exist in our new modern world.

This has created a new culture, too, of the rejection of labels. No one would ever say 'I'm a punk.' or even 'I like RnB.' In fact, if you ask most people about their music taste you will get an answer somewhere in the region of 'I like everything' or 'a little bit of everything'. And often this is true - music is no longer judged by how close it is to the music you normally like but by it's own merits. I think this is a good thing.

I cannot profess to understand how it felt to be a music fan in earlier decades, but now I can honestly say that I love being a music fan right now. Not only are there new ways of experiencing this music but also less reliance on alternative press and the radio to dictact the music I like or even get to hear. I get my music from the Internet, from recommendations from friends, from articles I read in a variety of sources. The freedom this gives us allows us to discard those old, restrictive terms to define our musical taste and lets us explore more music than has ever been availible to us.

Not only new music, but old music has opened up to us. We are the first generation with a rich history of music behind us, which no one is afraid or ashamed to dip into. We also are the first generation whose parents have instilled musical tastes onto us. Our parents were the rebels, the punks who listened to something different and that gives us a different cultural relationship with them than they ever had with their post-war parents. We can share their tastes, enjoy it as much as they do and appreciate music not just from our time. Again, this gives us a wider spectrum of music to dip into and enjoy, and I think also makes us better and more accepting people.

But here, again, music can divide us as it unites us. We all have a seperate music tastes, built up of completely different bands and singers, and plug into it alone. We wander around with iPods in our ears, living in our own little music-induced world. But thisdoes not mean music does not still have the power to bring us together - #musicmonday, sharing Spotify playlists, YouTube genres (like Trock or Wrock) and the power of blogs, to name a few, are just a few ways music can unite us as much as it divides us. Not only that, but technology will never diminish the power live music has over our opinions and tastes.

So even if music is disolated this decade, I would take that any day over being forcedto conform to tight genres, to be limited in musical history, to have to let go of the new ways technology makes music availible. Maybe we are disolated in everything but music will always be the strongest, uniting force known to humanity.

Record Store Day, April 18th

Hello

So, I promised you more issue posts and here is the first of (hopefully) many.

After a (lovely) late-night at Alex's yesterday (and possibly a whole two weeks of late-nights catching up with me), I spent too long in bed today to go to Rough Trade to celebrate Record Store Day.

Here's the thing: Record Store Day is a commendable idea; one day in the year where people are encouraged to support the few local record stores we have left in the UK. The sad thing is that we need to create a whole day for this purpose.

Now, people who know me know I am a big fan of record stores and a big fan of CD's over music downloads. It runs in my blood - my father used to own a record shop and has instilled a passion not only for music but for music shopping into me. Nothing for me is more fun than spending a day trekking across London on my usual musical pilgrimage - Rough Trade in Portobello (my local) to Fopp in Tottenham Court Road and then Rough Trade East (on Brick Lane) before home.

But now, independent music stores are few and far between. I, personally, prefer physical CD's. I like the way they feel in your hand, flicking through the sleeve notes the band have designed for you, looking at the cover art and putting it in a rack surrounded by other different CD's. It's like books - for me, I will always rather have a real book than a e-book: I just like the feel. I also want to buy LP's - so much thought has gone into the songs production and order, that to listen to everything in single tracks does no justice to that effort or the music itself. But I understand that everything evolves - and that, at some point, my love for CD's will be a niche market and I will have to seek them out.

But there is the one thing that annoys me about Record Store Day: that people who will partake in it will feel like they've done a good deed shopping in an independent record shop for a day. If you love them so much, if you don't want to see them disappear, you have to use them!

I don't begrudge music stores Record Store Day - it's good PR and, unfortunately, they need to do it. I just wish they didn't!

It kind of brings me onto to illegal downloads: something else which annoys me. Now, it is not to say all of my music comes from CD's I have bought. Me and my dad are huge believers in 'sharing' music; not in a 'Pirate Bay' way, but in a 'I buy a CD I think you'll like so I burn it for you' way. Since popular music began, there has been copying and sharing. But now, the music that is being shared has come from illegal means and the musicians make nothing.

I love music, and I love music stores, and I want to give them as much money as I possibly can so they can keep providing me with something which has and will bring me endless enjoyment. Why are people so awful about giving money to things they enjoy?

It's the same way I feel about people complaining about YouTube re-designs, or Twitter advertising. If you want something, you have to accept that they have to make money to produce it. And, somewhere along the line, you have to compromise.

In one way, it's a shame I missed out on Record Store Day. But in another, everyday is Record Store Day for me. And it won't be a year before I end up in one again.

(Again, this is just a rant. It's not that I have NO illegally downloaded music, but that it is a tiny percentage. And that I don't want to see Record Stores die out when they have such a rich history and so much to give to the industry that the Internet will never be able to provide)