Thank you to those who made suggestions last entry. I’ll probably say that in a note too. One of the problems of the information age is that there’s a shit ton of information. Sure you could type in a date, a school of art and a style and get a bunch of images and probably some you haven’t seen before and that you like. What you can’t do is punch in “shit I like”, well, I suppose you could, I’m guessing the first hundred hits would be scat sites. I could just go ahead and try, but that’s make the guess toothless. I like my guesses to have teeth.
It’s one out of many way you could type people; those who play for the challenge and those who play for the win. I always say I’d rather lose a good game of chess then win a bad one. Of course I also always say “I haven’t played (this game) much, but, let’s make it interesting …” a lot too. In general I play for the challenge but it’s wrong to leave true low hanging fruit on the branch.
Sorry, distracted. So you can’t type in shit I like unless you want shiot sites, and sure, you could substitute the word shit with art, music, stuff and avoid shit sites, assuming you want too, but you won’t get anywhere. Your search engine has been tracking your habits, but you’ll notice they keep trying to sell you the same thing you looked at, or similar things from the same site you were looking at, or, honestly, though they are getting better, random shit with some of the same letters in the name as shit you were looking at.
Yeah, there are some sophisticated sites that over time get a pretty good idea of your taste but even so the recommendations are limited to the sites library. For instance if I went to amazon and bought three Coltrane albums, seven led zeppelin albums, two Hank Williams junior albums, A fugazi, a Pere Ubu and a kronos Quartet album, they are going to recommend Sonny Stitt, the Who, Keith Chesney and the Sex Pistols. There is nothing in my buying history that would have suggested anything that people left in a note yesterday when I asked what are you listening to? Um, my buying history is a bit like “I don’t play this, but let’s make it interesting …” even so, my listening history probably wouldn’t suggest anything on, say, amazon, that isn’t predictable.
It’s been a really long time since I walked in somewhere, or flipped a dial, or anything and heard something for the first time and thought or said out loud “What is that? I want it.” And I can’t recall ever doing that with something predictable, I mean I’ve never done that with anything because it sounded like something I liked. Oh, when the song refugee came out I thought for sure it was a Dylan song, not a great Dylan song, but I liked it. I would not have demanded of the record store clerk or the DJ to give me the name of the artist though, not with refugee. No disrespect to Tom Petty intended, though you’ll never find tom petty in my buying history, even with cash receipts.
If someone were to ask me how important music is to me … I’d probably say something mean or laugh. C’mon, that’s a stupid question, it sounds like an intentionally bad pick up line from a B-movie where the screen writer doesn’t have time or imagination to paint the oaf with subtle strokes. I’d be shocked if most people didn’t think of “music” as being very important in their lives. Though that’s a bit of a slippery slope. Most people don’t think of music the same way you do. I don’t mean taste, though I’m willing to bet someone winced at something if not everything in my hypothetical amazon cart history. There is also the purpose. For instance, someone who uses music for exercise or dance is going to lean towards something with a beat that is impossible to miss as opposed to, say, a harp instrumental. Not saying you can’t dance to a harp instrumental, I’m saying I can’t.
The more eclectic a collection the more likely the owner is to have a chart in their head or heart what purpose the music is for. Somethings are to create a mood, some to bond the mood to an event. And the canopy that covers it all is cultural. You probably know or were a teenager in America and your taste was influenced by region, market, peers. It doesn’t have to be America, but I haven’t had much experience observing that in other country’s. American teens are and have been a very significant demographic for record sales for at least half a century. It’s why when Justin Beiber debuted, for the finger pointing and sniggling, he far outsold either of the Marsalis brothers last five albums. I would like to hear someone try to argue that objectively Justin Beiber is a more talented musician than Branford or Winton Marsalis (I might have just butchered those guys names, I refuse to look it up). It’s a cynical way of looking at “music” but it’s absolutely true.
Oh, yeah, so, if someone were to ask me and I gave a real answer to how important music is to me, my answer would be as far as the scale allowed towards very. Yet not so much so that I spend any time at all roaming through things I haven’t heard on YouTube or Pandora. Yeah, I passed my sitting-up-and-typing limit — I’m weaker than I pretend; tired of whining though.
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