posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 6:15 AM
by
Endie
Adventure Breeds Adventure
If you learn languages, it is easier to learn more languages. In fact, if you learn, it is easier to learn. People who become comfortable with what they know, with their surroundings, with their ritual de lo habitual find themselves in a self-reinforcing cycle of stultification and suffocation that I have feared for decades.
Anyway, the relevant, specific element that just struck me is to do with music. Not that long ago, I was terribly depressed at the thought that I might have heard all the songs I would ever truly love. Laughable, I know, but I had an iPod with thousands of tracks, and had spent dozens of hours finding tracks I knew I wanted. I seemed to possess an unimaginably large number of songs - far more than even in my 12" single-collecting days. And add to this that my friends all had their comfortable tastes and favourite genres, outside which they rarely stepped. Even the ostensibly adventurous ones did their exploring within lands that were distinctly of the past.
Now this sounds corny, but it took the death of John Peel to change that. There, I thought, was a man who didn't remain still or compromise. And I started buying albums by bands I'd never heard. I listened to more XFM and watched more of MTV2's 120 Minutes Taster. I tried out random playlists on yahoo messenger, and recommendations on services I bought music from.
And oh, but it worked. I think the last time that I was this into music, this experimental... the last time that I was this open to new listening experiences, to musical adventure was probably when I was 17 or 18, when I learned the first tranche of bands that influenced me (The Smiths, The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, The Fields of the Nephilim, Public Enemy and so on).
The Boards of Canada have given me Dayvan Cowboy: a beautiful piece of psychedelic trippiness that provokes a real, emotional response in me. French-Canadians Buck 65 offer Devil's Eyes, a mixture of hip-hop, jazz and rock. Sigur Ros give me the haunting, driving Glosoli. And the whole of Takk... if it comes to that. I could go on and on: The Secret Machines, Be Your Own Pet, Thrice, Panic! At The Disco, Serena Maneesh, White Rose Movement, The Futureheads, The Young Knives, Arcade Fire, The Killers, Colder, Plan B, Felix da Housecat, Hot Chip, The Ataris, Hoobastank...
This week the Raconteurs released their first album. Next week it is Tom Delonge's new band, Angels and Airwaves. I have the first already and I really cannot wait until the second. I am excited as once I was for Strangeways.
Even in this small, safe way, by choosing the riskier option, by trying something new, my life has become measurably better.
But I still hate Coldplay. May I never change in that. If I do, tears of bubbling pitch will stream down my face, and my dark work will begin. I will open one of my six mouths and sing the song that ends the Earth.