I am cursed with an almost stupidly wide-ranging love of music. I adore music by artists as diverse as "Fluff, fluff, fluff and Cuddlyness" to "Napalm Death". And I seriously like the music. It's not an affectation. My taste in music effects and is affected by my mood.
I have had this view since I was in my late teens when I was particularly interested in independent music, but also had a love of folk, classical, blues, jazz, heavy metal, rock, prog-rock, electronic and (some) pop music. There was a time, about 10 years ago, when I thought I knew all the music I was ever likely to need to know. I also had bought most of these recordings so my musical world seemed complete (and just a little dull). I was wrong.
As I get older my taste has changed slightly: I don't like as much pop music as I used to and I like more jazz and funk (I also believe that the vast majority of modern music is intrinsically inferior). Over the past few years I have begun to appreciate progressive rock much more and have recently opened a treasure-trove of music I had previously never heard of. Music from bands like Magma, Klaus Doldinger's Passport and very recently (yesterday) Fela Kuti.
Early-70s Afro-Beat and Jazz-Funk is something I have not listened to very much, but I find now that it's something I have definitely been missing. Some of the Afro-Beat stuff like Fela Kuti, Santana etc is mind-blowing! Even modern groups like The Budos Band are producing electrifying jazzy, funky, Afro-Beat-type music.
So I realised that there is a whole new world of music I have never heard before and that I enjoy immensely.
Not only have I found this new seam in the coalface of media, but the way that all media are transmitted and stored has been revolutionised in the last few years. I am slowly digitising all my music onto a home computer which acts like a media storage device and allows me to play music through any other computer connected to the home network (including my PS3!) (don't get me started on the licensing issues!!). I also download several albums a month from the Internet at little cost.
There are social implications of this proliferation of media which Max will experience. When I was younger I had restricted access to the music that I liked. Not only did it have to be bought from a real shop (!), but it was expensive and required specialist equipment (vinyl record player etc). When I wanted to watch a video of my favourite bands playing their music it either simply didn't exist or was unavailable or was broadcast on one of the four TV channels at 2.30am!
One particular time I remember trying to record the music from a live ACDC video that my dad had videotaped from the TV by sellotaping a microphone in front of the (mono) TV speaker and pressing play and record on the crappy tape recorder I had. This barbaric methodology is in stark contrast to the way Max will undoubtedly find media.
Youtube is something that has revolutionised the process and I absolutely adore what Youtube have done, but I wonder whether something has been lost by having so much information available so readily.
In any event I'm going to need new headphones soon (and probably new ears!!).
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