Quaking? Hardly.
No probs if you dinnae do it, no skin off my nose and all that. Just a bit of fun! ;-)
Lia passed me the baton and I greeted it with pretty much the same enthusiasm as her. I even IMed her to tell her that I don't do memes. Essentially, there are three reasons: 1) I really, simply can't be arsed; 2) see previous; 3) whatever.
Sadly, this hardline stance has done absolutely nothing to dispel the Scrooge-like feeling of outward pride in my self-imposed isolation from the rest of the human race (i.e. the nice ones) masking a deeper urge to be One Of The Gang. After several weeks of trying to ignore the nagging voice at the back of my mind, I now feel compelled to participate, in the joyous knowledge that small children will smile at me in the street, old ladies will help me cross the road and my hay fever will miraculously dissipate.
Total Volume Of Music On My Computer
I can't be bothered to be definitively accurate, because it's in two or three places on my hard disc, for various reasons. Historically I stored music alongside other textual information about artists whose work I like, until Windows Media Player and (legal) Napster came along, with their insistence on storing things in a totally music-based folder structure. It's 24.9 GB in my two big music folders, plus probably another gigabyte or so in other areas.
But this is a stupid question. How important is volume of music on the PC? To me, it's not that important at all. I have a big CD collection and I still buy CDs prodigiously, because my primary place for listening to music is the car. Sure, digital media is achievable in the car these days, but it's not mainstream. Also, I am one of those picky people who does notice the difference between CD-quality sound and MP3 compression.
I have about two thousand CDs, probably of which ten per cent is digitised. Is that any more impressive? Whoever created this question needs to understand that there's more than one way to stream, in a digital pissing contest.
... and breathe.
The Last CD I Bought
I bought The Magic Numbers' eponymous debut in the supermarket on Monday evening. This is where I'm going to make up for my crabby response to the previous question, by telling you that this beautiful, gentle, strong, sad, wistful album is utterly gorgeous.
I've only played it three times all the way through, but it's one of those multilayered collections of songs that is going to keep me going for several weeks, if not months. Its most impressive attribute is its deceptive mix of complex vocal and musical harmony with its sparse simplicity of melody and lyric. It breaks your heart in nearly every song and then immediately kisses it better.
Song Playing Right Now
I wasn't playing anything, so I've cheated and stuck on my favourite track from The Magic Numbers' album: Love Me Like You. It's the one that best encapsulates their sound and I urge you to seek it out. Anyone IMing with me over the next few weeks is likely to have it thrust upon them by force, if necessary.
Five Songs I Listen To A Lot, Or That Mean A Lot To Me
Five? For fuck's sake, five? Of all the gorgeous music in the world, I have to narrow my choices down to... hmm, right. Meme. Brevity. Editing. Just a bit of fun.
... breathe.
Did I mention how hot it is in here and how INCREDIBLY crappy my hay fever is making me feel this evening?
New Order's Temptation (obviously the original 7" version from 1982, not the horrible remix of a few years later) recurs frequently in my playlists. I'm not sure why, but I think it has to do with its fine balance between jauntiness and existential angst. It's about dealing with turmoil and getting a little space to regroup your thoughts. It's also, apparently, sung to someone with at least six eyes.
Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive has become something of a cliché, but its vibe of unbridled positivity has always appealed. I think this was the first song that I ever knew all the words to, from start to finish. It's a song about recovery, the gaining of strength and the assertion of self, all of which strike me as particularly fine things to sing about.
Mary Margaret O'Hara's To Cry About is probably the closest thing that the Mrs and I have to Our Song. I had bought the album when it first came out in 1988 and we got together a few months later. We played each other a lot of music: she got me into Prince and INXS, I responded with The Pixies and... well, she didn't like a whole lot of my stuff. But we both loved MMO'H and still do. This was played in the car only a couple of weekends ago.
I like the Velvet Underground as well as the next music fan, but they've never been one of my big faves. However, whenever I hear Pale Blue Eyes it never fails to stop me in my tracks. In common with To Cry About, it's one of those Barely There songs whose quiet authority lends it a disproportionate amount of power. Song as memory capsule, song as aspiration, song as devastation.
Choosing four songs was relatively easy, but choosing the fifth and knowing that there isn't a sixth, seventh or four hundred and ninety third to follow, that's more challenging. And so, I'm going to cheat. I'm going to close my eyes, fumble around on the CD shelf, select a jewel case, think of a random number between one and twenty and write about what I feel about that particular song. Therefore, my final song is...
Sheila Chandra's Speaking In Tongues II, from her 1992 album Weaving My Ancestors' Voices. I saw her perform this on some late-night TV show in the early 1990s and was captivated. I remembered her as the lead singer of the short-lived, so-called Indipop group Monsoon in the 1980s, but this was entirely different. It's a "vocal percussion" track, described in the insert notes as something that started out as "a teaching device for drummers, but [that] has become an art form in its own right." It's great, I must listen to the rest of the album.
Five People To Whom I'm Passing The Baton
I'm not. Ha ha! This meme dies here.
Did I mention that I'm feeling crabby?
[Jo and Gordon separately passed me the film meme baton a few weeks ago too, without knowing my feelings on the subject. They were doubtless labouring under the illusion that I'm a nice guy. Both are probably quaking in their boots now, but I promise that I will do it and I will try to be a little more gracious about it too. And Paul, if you're still reading, I am still intending to write that post on music acquisition that I promised you. Yes, that was January. Yes, I am crap. Sorry. At least there's been some good TV to watch in the meantime.]
Posted by Hg on Thursday 23 June 2005 at 00:51.
Received 3 comments so far.
Comments
Still reading, and when I saw music in the title of this post, I was half hoping ... still, you are right, there was some good TV on recently, wasn't there?
Oh, and I was passed this baton/meme about a month ago (Aquarion, it was *you*!) and haven't done it for much the same reason.
Can I feel slightly superior now?
Gordon - please excuse the appalling grouchiness displayed in this post. Hay fever brings out the worst in me. I am actually quite looking forward to doing the film one, but you didn't hear me say that :-)
Paul - I envy your self-restraint :-)
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