People who don't like music fascinate and scare me in equal measure.
I've got a very vague guideline that anyone who owns fewer than 20 CDs/LPs/cassettes (a vintage one there, nostalgia fans)/downloads - the medium is unimportant - can't and shouldn't be trusted.
As far as I'm concerned, someone who claims to have no interest in music has no interest in life. For every occasion, for every mood, for every type of weather and for every time of day, there is a song, an album or a melody.
Take late at night, when you're alone and preparing for bed - that's the time for Massive Attack, Spiritualized or Mogwai's more gentle moments.
First thing in the morning is time for something with a beat - whether that's Kings of Leon, Dodgy, Girls Aloud or Chesney Hawks is a matter of personal preference.
And as the 3,000-song party playlist on my Magic Tune Box shows, there's an almost limitless supply of good-time tunes.
I once worked with a guy roughly the same age as myself who had broadly similar interests to mine - we both liked playing and watching football, a good movie and the occasional drink and game of pool.
But we differed in one key respect - he had absolutely no interest in music. He was always astonished that I would spend money on tickets and that I would travel from Edinburgh to Glasgow for gigs.
Perhaps the most tragic aspect was that this young fellow owned only a single CD.
I can barely bring myself to type any more, so sorry is the tale.
If anything shows that my erstwhile colleague had no interest in music, it is the title of that CD.
It was the seminal Magnum Opus that is....
....Texas' White on Blonde.
There but for the grace of a non-existant God go I.
7 comments:
My currently iTunes library has over 65gb of music in it.
Go on, recommend someone to me that you think I might not have heard of. Or give me a song.
"....Texas' White on Blonde."
So he's got a coffee table then?
Only kidding. Your post made me think of this recent BBC News article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7816095.stm
Yes, music is important. If I'm not listening to it, I'm making it (or trying to). Failing that, I'm building instruments upon which to make music.
To be fair, your man in question is kinda listening to music through the media of films. I'm with him on the gig front. I'm getting less and less enamoured with going to gigs and stuff - most sound engineers don't have a bloody clue, it's all faders at 11 and distorting all over the place. Neds throwing cups of beer (or *shudder* whatever else) all over the place. That general sense of unease I get squished up in a crowd of total randoms. I find that I can only give 50% of my brain to the music at gigs, the rest is devoted to personal safety. I'd rather switch off the lights, close my eyes, lie back on the sofa and give circa 100% of my brain to listening.
Oops, that turned into an anti-gig rant. Sorry!
This is a total shame for the individual concerned. My heart bleeds for him.
He falls into the category of people who buy their music in petrol stations. Its bland easy listening stuff for people to listen to on long car journeys - Phil Collins, Lighthouse Family, M People, etc (Showing my age a bit with that list but you know what I mean...)
Music is more than just aural wallpaper. It has the power to move me in strange and mysterious ways and I bless the gods that this is so...
I can't even begin to estimate how much music I have; I have dozens of old vinyl disks, a lot of tapes, and countless cds.
Neepheid has a point about gigs.
I love and detest music in equal measure and there seems to be no logic to what brings out the respective responses.
Here's something though, I very rarely watch films and wouldn't care if I never saw another one.
Rob: Without knowing what you like and what you have already, I'll suggest "The Devil Walks In The Sand" by The Cooper Temple Clause.
Neepheid: Sometimes I feel the same about gigs, I suppose it depends on the band. Oasis gigs especially can be a wee bit on the lairy side.
TK: Yep, I don't know what I'd be without music (aside from about forty grand better off).
Bob: My CD collection is definitely in the thousands, plus I've got a lot of stuff downloaded. Most of my tapes have long been binned, but I do still have a lot of vinyl I acquired from relatives over the years. No record player though!
I thought everyone in the world had Teenage Kicks in their collection. The Undertones version that is...
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