@Baron-Harkonnen posted an interesting list of new and old that he he had been listening to this year.
We both share an obsession for buying new music – cant speak for him but my habits are quite possibly an addiction.
I thought about his post and was wondering if we really need all this new.
In the last 24 hours I have played these old ones:
Drive by Truckers – Go Go Boots
Grandaddy – Last place
Nick Lowe – Quiet please The best of Nick Lowe (both discs)
I enjoyed listening to all of them very much. But then I thought:
Drive by Truckers have released my favourite album this year and have another new one in December.
Grandaddy are releasing a reworking of their best album The Sophtware slump and an expanded reissue of that album.
Nick Lowe is doing great stuff with Los Straitjackets and I hope to see an album soon.
So yes enjoy the old stuff but welcome the new would be my motto.
The short answer is ‘YES”
The slightly longer answer is, I don’t mind if it’s old or new, so long as it’s new to me. 80% of what I listen to is ‘New to me’ and 65% of that is ‘New’, new and that’s just how I like it.
I agree. I’m forever (though not so much this year) discovering music by artists/bands who had their career peaks before I was even born, or whose songs passed me by at the time. I’ve bought two albums this year – The Big Moon and Bob Dylan. I’ll probably look at the Best of the Year Lists to see if anything piques my interest – last year it was Weyes Blood and Lana Del Rey.
Yes, we will always need New. If only to be able to say “it’s not as good as the old stuff”.
Without New your record collection is just UK Gold and Dave in aural form.
And what of the endless storage difficulties – IKEA would go out of business
What’s the equivalent of Fifty Foot Hose, “Monster Movie,” Perrey and Kingsley and “Electronic Sound” on Dave?
Grandaddy? Drive By Truckers? Nick Lowe? Those are all new artists. What are you on about?
As someone who has happily taken delivery of the ‘new old’ Focus: 50 Anniversary 9CD/2DVD box set today, I’m inclined to say ‘no’. Then again, a few of my friends are professional music artistes making ongoing music (or trying to, whatever the world throws at them…), so…
I would turn it around and say we need less ‘old’ – there are so many SDE’s and other reissues it must have an effect on airtime for new artists – not maybe at the very top but mid range artists trying to build a career.
Or to be a bit more nuanced – is the market not splintering between the streaming market in which new is still very much king – I’ve seen it remarked in several places that the pressure on artists to feed fans with regular new stuff has never been greater. Conversely in the traditional ‘albums’ market of physical stuff the reissues do seem to take an ever greater slice.
I’m really a ‘live’ man rather than ‘new’ or ‘old’.
I buy lots to listen to at home, but mostly as a filter to determine who I want to see live.
And then there’s old in new clothing – I don’t think Sink Ya Teeth would exist unless A Certain Ratio had cleared the way for them first. And I saw them both twice last year.
I’ll go for ‘new’ new and ‘new to me’ new, alongside old.
The problem is that new to me is often really obscure and no longer exist so I can’t go and see them live…and that’s the beauty of new new… you can go and see an exciting up and coming artist live… well, you used to be able to!
I find this difficult in that I just don’t find myself being exposed to that much “new.” I can’t abide listening to most music radio, whatever station, so am unlikely to hear anything that even has the potential for a purchase.
I’m one of those fiftysomethings who, if I don’t occasionally make an effort to check out stuff I read reviews of, tend to stick to stuff they know and feel comfortable with, although some of the things my 17 year old son has played me over the last few years I have quite enjoyed (Jamie T I particularly liked, The Vaccines and Two-Door Cinema Club were OK.)
Occasionally I might see something live that makes me want to investigate further but obviously that hasn’t happened in quite a while now.
After a day spent painting I’m now sat sitting drinking a cup of tea and listening to Salute To The Sun by Matthew Halsall. It was released today. It is beautiful. The world can never have too much beauty.
There’s a sentiment I can get behind..
I may not fully dig all of your recommendations, Pencil, but I’ve liked enough of them to pay attention. I must concur with your assessment, it really is beautiful.
Glad you’re enjoying it.
I fully recognise that my taste is somewhat idiosyncratic. I tend to be attracted to music that stimulates my own creative impulses and that can lead me down some odd rabbit holes. I guess I’m drawn to music that surprises me. That makes me think differently. That jogs me out of complacency. Not exclusively though sometimes I just want music that’s easy to like and completely unchallenging. I am in my musical taste pretty much as I am in regard to much else in life a bloody difficult bugger to get along with.
The album is, indeed, gorgeous. However, the cover art is pants. If ever a musical artist needed a Pencilsqueezer uplifting riot of colour, it’s Mr Halsall.
🙏
“The world can never have too much beauty.”
“I am in regard to much else in life a bloody difficult bugger to get along with.”
Two lines that I will never argue with!!!
How are you Peter, doing well I hope.
I’m ok my friend. Kicking back with Idiot Prayer by Nick Cave and an open sketchbook on my knee. Hope you and yours are hunky dory.
All`s well Peter. I`ll be giving `Idiot Prayer` a listen or 2 over the weekend.
Champion. Stay that way.
I emailed Godwana Records recommending your artwork but I notice Salute To The Sun’s is created by one Daniel Halsall. I wonder if he’s related in some way?
That’s kind of you thanks.
I’m happy to just make a sale now and again.
I’ve just been recommending him to a couple of mates of mine, having downloaded a few of his older albums. I particularly like Colour Yes.
As my mate The Blackcuntry Boy (@SteveT) almost implied I also have the addiction he suffers from: the compulsive purchase of music, both old and new.
I truly believe ever since the internet exploded into our homes that we have been in a Golden Age of music. I`m not going to provide a list of artists, that would be foolish because I would just be reflecting my tastes.
I don`t do streaming but I will sample new music (to me) and if I`m really interested I will buy the physical product. Often if I like the artwork of album I`ll buy it! You`d be surprised how often it works out. However most of the new music I discover or is discovered for me is from people on the AW and other places on`t net.
So, to answer Steve`s question “Do we really need new when there is so much old?” My answer is a resounding YES.
As much old as possible, unless it’s on fucking coloured vinly.
Thanks to the pants mastering of A Certain Ratio’s new CD and hearing a friend’s red record, I knowingly bought a (turquoise) coloured vinly copy a couple of weeks ago.
And then the HMV sale had most of the rest of 2018’s Mute reissues cheap. I doubled the number of coloured vinyl records I own in one order. I’ve only listened to Good Together (double, pressed on white) so far, but, so good.
So I’m downgrading my bias to ‘about half of my coloured vinyl sounds crap’.
I’d still prefer to have them all on proper black stuff, though.
I’d have to listen to them from another room so I couldn’t see them. I just find them repulsive.
It’s like when Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts played my birthday party.
Handily enough, Zero’s production on To Each… makes it sound like you’re listening from another room.
They should have got Gene Wilder to do it.
(sorry, I think I’m on the wrong thread)
What a wise chap you are, Pencilsqueezer!
“The world can never have too much beauty.”
That should be in every dictionary of quotations.
Matthew Halsall is fab and i am delighted to learn he has a new album out.
So a big YES to new, But a big YES to old too. I can really identify with Colin’s enthusiasm about his “new” Focus album. There is so much beauty from the past that awaits us.
We return to music that we were indifferent about before. And suddenly the penny drops with an almighty crash.
For example, I’ve been binge-listening to Gaelic and Celtic stuff for the past few days.
From Galicia, Luar na lubre….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EgpCh7j78g
I want the New (there’s only so much you can take from the 1000th play of even a hoary old classic like “Dark Side Of The Moon”), the problem is there’s such an unceasing stream of it and my attention span is now so limited that I never grow to fully assimilate any of it as much as the Old. I’ve added quite a lot of albums to my playlist this year, both New and ‘Old’ (but unfamiliar), but I feel like I’ve barely given most of it due notice because there’s always something Newer. I wonder if anniversary rereleases and box sets are so popular because you get to think “Ah yes, this is New but there’s no learning curve so I can just go with it”.
The problem is, increasingly, time. Having bought records for the thick end of 60 years, there is just so much stuff to listen to at home – most of it is, by definition, ‘old’ because it isn’t a new release (and when does new become old anyway..?), and I rarely fall out of love with old favourites. The wonderful thing about music is that you can listen over and over again and the experience gets deeper and different with repeated listens – there are very few movies or books about which you can say that.
My obsession with ‘new’ ended a while ago, but I vividly recall that in the 60’s we expected new all the time, and also expected it to be better than the old (and, by old, I mean their last record). The notion of a huge back catalogue obviously didn’t exist, and the pop radio stations certainly weren’t playing music from decades before. I always remember thinking….’this time next year I will be buying records by someone I haven’t heard of yet and will love it’.
Having said all that, I delight in finding, or probably stumbling across, a new act at a festival. Increasingly it is the live environment that gets me interested rather than anywhere like the radio, which is rarely on except in the car, and now I don’t commute that is very limited anyway.
Why does Old have to mean records we already know? You’d have to have had a pretty narrow taste in music to have bought every interesting record in existence up to now.
Crate-digging is where it’s at. These days you don’t need to get down on your hunkers. Well, not for that anyway.
Yep.
Similar tangent … re: Beatles … I’m listening to all the outliers, and I rather think I have been doing that since 1983.
My favourite, and most listened to, album then was Rarities; now it’ll be one of the Anthologies, BBC or Past Masters collections.
I’m a “new to me is the same as newly made” guy. Makes no odds. In fact I listen to far more new to me than really new but I suppose there’s more of it. Here’s a gem I discovered recently – released in 2012, never heard it, just suits my mood – it’s fun, passionate and what a voice. Video is fun too.