I must have been in a slightly apocalyptic mood the other day – and my brain came up with this one:
Assuming that your collection is organised neatly into three big sections – say, classical, jazz and rock/pop/other – and you could only save one section from the impending flood, fireball, earthquake, burglar, etc: which bit would you save?
Or, in slightly less prosaic form: if you could only listen to classical, jazz or rock/pop/other for the rest of your existence – which would you choose?
fitterstoke says
On reflection, it came as quite a surprise to me to find that I would save the classical music over the other two – probably not the answer I would have given in decades past. I think (these days) that there’s more exploration, variety and spiritual nourishment to be had in what is broadly called classical music than in the other big sections – for me, at least – and I appreciate that, by saying it, I would be consigning some of my favourite music to the conceptual, theoretical and “not real at all” bin.
Any thoughts?
hubert rawlinson says
I find myself listening more to classical these days, no cd player in the car it only links to a mobile which I don’t use.
Richard Thompson was saying last week that there’s too much music, he said he might in the morning put on an aria sung by Maria Callas and he’s ‘full’ for the day.
fitterstoke says
There are days when I know what he means.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Me too. Opera gives me gas.
fitterstoke says
“That’s okay, boys, I was young myself once!”
Arthur Cowslip says
This is like Sophie’s Choice! “Fitter’s Choice”, maybe?
Don’t do it to me. I can’t choose. If a gun was held to my head I’d probably ditch the Jazz first (sorry Miles), but I don’t know if I could choose between Classical and Rock/Pop.
fitterstoke says
Ah, yes: but if the gun-toting character MADE you choose?
Arthur Cowslip says
Rock, I’ll go for rock.
No wait!
Can I change my mind?
BANG
mikethep says
How would I feel if I could never again listen to:
a) Bach’s Goldberg Variations
b) Lush Life by John Coltrane
c) Abbey Road by the Fabs.
Gets easier then. The Fabs live rent-free in my head anyway, as does Coltrane, to a much lesser extent. There’s always something new in JSB. So got to be classical.
fitterstoke says
H’mmm – a good rationale, Mike.
retropath2 says
Easy, I’d keep R/P/O over the other two. I like jazz but not so much as to need it and, apart from classical cross-overs into chamber-folk, chamber-jazz (I know….) and modern minimalist fare that cuts into ambient and electronica, have little love or need for the “classics”. Even the use of the phrase, the “classics” curdles my ears.
Gimme folk, rock, country, blues and dance/electronica and I’m fine. (and I will just re-write the genre of any jazzy crossover into that of the cross-over.)
fitterstoke says
“The Classics” – me too, that’s why I never use that phrase. Anyway, Close to the Edge is a “classic”.
Diddley Farquar says
I think I would begin to think I was a bit up myself if it was only jazz or only classical. I would tire of myself. Not that it’s all so intense but still. I need rock and pop for the dumbness and triviality to lighten things and I would still have the more earnest stuff if needed. I need to sing and dance a bit too.
fitterstoke says
“Up yourself”? Why?
BTW, I completely get the rest of your post.
Diddley Farquar says
My parents gave me the sense that classical and jazz were liked by uptight, stuffy types (i.e. my parents). Also the way it was presented on TV and radio in those days. Posh, snobby. Put me off rather. I can’t shake that association entirely. Coltrane and Miles are excepted since they were ‘mine’ and therefore cool and untainted.
fitterstoke says
That’s a shame. I don’t think I’m an uptight and stuffy type and I suspect that the others on the site who listen to classical and jazz might feel the same – of course, we may be fooling ourselves!
Diddley Farquar says
No it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s just an association that make me lean toward the glorious world of pop.
Junglejim says
I think it would have to be Jazz if that was the only genre ‘permitted’ for the rest of my days.
Not really a problem, as it’s (cliché alert) such a broad church as to encompass almost everything I could require- from the most relaxing Bossa Nova to the rawest mental Skronk & everything in between.
I’m also incredibly lucky to have a top drawer tiny venue available, where I can access new (to me) music 2 days a week for a tenner a pop.
Fantastic!
Also , no bouncers or dress code , a guaranteed seat & a nice glass of wine & half the audience are passionate music students, who are wildly appreciative of great playing & are all about the music rather than projecting any kind of image. What is clear, is that the genre is very much alive & well & each gig is like an infusion of enthusiasm for me personally, as I’m learning new stuff all the time.
Sometimes it’s akin to getting into live music afresh after feeling jaded about going to gigs & a sense of getting poor value repeatedly.
Having waxed lyrical about Jazz, it’s only Reggae that I’d be heartbroken to be denied having spent last night almost tearful at the sheer joy generated by the Best Of Alton Ellis.
fitterstoke says
I think jazz fans have been known to “project an image” too!
Junglejim says
Absolutely!
Straight from the fridge, Dad!
fentonsteve says
Does anyone actually file their records by genre? Mine just start at ABBA and end at ZZ Top.
Beethoven between Beatles (The) and Belly, Davis (Miles) between Darkside (The) and Dawn Chorus (The).
fitterstoke says
Let’s face it: the whole situation is an artificial construct to stimulate some discussion. Which you neatly avoided.
But, as it happens, yes – I do that. Jazz all together, classical all together, and everything else. If something’s on the cusp, I take a view and make a decision.
fentonsteve says
I know what I’m here for.
I’d probably just take my Ace Southern Soul comps. As Mini said, there’s so much to learn in there.
Arthur Cowslip says
I do, to an extent. I’m not obsessive about it (not that I’m saying you are dull – perish the thought!) but my Classical tends to gravitate to one shelf and my Jazz and Folk flock together a little but not to the same degree. I have one Main Shelf on which my Most Listened tends to accumulate, and that’s roughly alphabetical by artist.
Rigid Digit says
The only sensible way … mine starts with A House, but the end point is the same
fitterstoke says
End point is also A House? Your shelf is circular?
fentonsteve says
This is something I worry about, but I’m prepared to share in this safe space.
Does ABBA come before or after A Certain Ratio?
fitterstoke says
After, shurely?
fentonsteve says
My vinyl is ABBA before A C R but my CDs are A C R before ABBA.
What can I say? I’m crazy fun!*
(*) I’m not.
fitterstoke says
That’s appalling! I’m appalled! Two alphabetical systems in use at the same time? Appalling!
fentonsteve says
Where do I hand in my AW membership card?
Rigid Digit says
Before … A (space) comes before AB
(I’m a filing nazi)
Twang says
I only split off classical, where I’m artist specific so Ian Anderson’s albums for a classical label are in non-classical.
Rufus T Firefly says
The one nearest the door (to answer part one of your conundrum).
fitterstoke says
Well, you win the white carnation…
jazzjet says
For me, obviously, it’s jazz although I would sorely miss Soul. While I love loads of pop and rock (and would be bereft without The Beatles in particular), jazz and classical has more complexity somehow and repays repeated listening.
Sewer Robot says
Well YOU would say that.
I’m afraid as a classical and most jazz agnostic I can only put this question in terms of soul, pop and hip hop. I know my head says soul but I do wonder, if the problem was real and immediate, whether I’d opt for pop..
deramdaze says
What the Golden Agers (The Beatles/The Rolling Stones/Zappa/Jimi/Dylan – born 1940-43) listened to as teenagers i.e. Rock ‘n’ Roll/Blues, and their own early records. That could also incorporate the Modern Jazz of the late 50s/early 60s.
salwarpe says
Assuming rock/pop/other includes that all inclusive genre ‘world’, that would be the one for me. The discoveries I’ve made in Colombian, Brazilian, Ukrainian and Arabic music, just for a start, make jazz and classical rather limiting categories.
On the question of how to categorise music, I do it alphabetically, by genre, and by year – that’s the beauty of storing music in the cloud – it’s accessible in so many ways.
el hombre malo says
Simple – Jazz. I can survive without ever hearing Raw Power again (much as I love it), and I’d miss Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and Etta James, but I need John Coltrane and Don Cherry and Miles Davis and Alice Coltrane and Thelonious Monk and Dorothy Ashby and Ella Fitzgerald and James Blood Ulmer and Sun Ra and Charles Mingus even more. And we can probably sneak Nina Simone in as “File Under Jazz”, too.
Junglejim says
A person after my own heart & perhaps at a stretch you could be permitted ‘Fun House’ for those times when you felt the need to scratch a Stooges itch – plenty of sax after all!
thecheshirecat says
As fitter puts it in the OP, your collection is divided into three parts ‘- say, classical, jazz, and rock/pop/other -‘.
That would never be my threeway split. I think I have four jazz CDs, all of them burnt by a mate who doesn’t realise that I only like them because they’re really prog.
It would be folk, classical, rock/pop and I’d save the rock/pop, but only cause I’d be left with far more CDs as a result. Not that interesting really.
Blue Boy says
My CDs are sorted classical, ‘world’ ( I know, I know, it’s a horrible, Western imperialist term) and everything else. I don’t have enough jazz to justify a separate category.
In response to the OP, @fitterstoke has answered his own question exactly as I would. If you’d asked me 20 years ago it would certainly have been rock/pop/other. Now it would be classical – there’s just so much depth there to explore and re-explore.
Locust says
Not even a dilemma, definitely rock/pop/other for me.
First of all: the diversity in that group of genres (especially “other”, where anything goes) is reason alone. I like jazz, but if that’s all I was allowed to listen to, I’d go slightly bonkers after a very short while, I suspect.
I grew up on classical music, and listened to it often until some time in my 30s IIRC. Then I more or less stopped, for no particular reason that I can articulate. I’ll hear something perhaps once or twice a year, but barely intentionally – it’s usually more of an accident. I still love it, I just don’t feel the need to seek it out anymore. Don’t tell my dad! 🙂
Mike_H says
Most Pop, R&B and Rock music that I like is now firmly situated in my head, so I wouldn’t really need it in my limited Desert Island collection.
Pretty much the same state of affairs goes for the very little Classical that I know.
I’ll take the Jazz with me and pine for the small amount of Electronica that I’d miss.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Rock/pop. I diskard uterly the hairy-nostrilled bores who’d choose jazz or classical. Especially classical.
Guys what dig th’ Classics fall into one of four scientific types:
1 Pale, bookish type guy digs th’ Classics because sensitive to lofty aspirations of human spirit (because can’t get laid).
2 Gay type guy digs th’ Classics because can flaunt stylish duds at fancy shows.
3 Regular guy type guy digs th’ Classics to get in pants of hot tomato who digs th’ Classics. In absence of curvy broad in fuck-me pumps, studies find regular guy shuns Classical Music because “it sounds like shit.”
4 Sad old bloke who’s forgotten how to Air Guitar attempting to find meaning and solace in the twilight years of a life bereft of both.
Classical Music sounds like shit because:
1 Back in the Dark Ages, when everyone dressed like th’ Three Musketeers, rich dudes (like Kings etc.) sought to out-dude each other with lavish shows to impress friends, courtiers, hot tomatoes.
2 The orchestra – a fancy name for marching band that sits on its ass – was invented to drown out conversation, coughs, farts, laughter of the audience. A hundred violins are louder, cost more, and look better, than one. Result: unholy mess of approximately-tuned and poorly-mic’d pawnshop instruments.
3 Classical-type lyrics are shit. It’s like listening to Horse With No Name for ever and ever, over and over. Lyrics are deliberately sung in foreign languages to make them sound deep and poetic.
4 Today’s Classical-type fan listens to modern electrical-type speakers that old-timey show-biz types such as Shakespeare couldn’t afford, and didn’t, unlike tech-savvy pop musicians, compose for.
Moose the Mooche says
If there’s not classical music, and specifically opera, what does a crazy-ass supervillain listen to in his mountain lair? Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera wouldn’t cut it in my humble opinion.
fitterstoke says
In a Silent Way, obviously…
H.P. Saucecraft says
This is a good point, Moosey, but only serves to strengthen my position re. classical music, shittiness of. Only a deranged megalomaniac in his Bunker of Solitude would listen to it. Hitler and Goebbels enjoyed classical gramophone evenings, strutting around the room admiring themselves in ceiling-height mirrors.