Last year I paid almost no attention to new releases. The only album I listened to multiple times was Low's "Hey What".
This year I haven't heard a single new album. Only two have caught my radar: Tears For Fears' "The Tipping Point" (a remarkable comeback story) and Beach House's "Once Twice Melody" (new double album by my favourite band of the past decade).
Between two small kids at home who tend to wake up early, catching up on work in the evenings, and general exhaustion, I haven't made a new mix in over a year. The mixes and podcasts will eventually return, because this thing called life is a long haul process, and this is the so-called diary that documents it. I am hopelessly out of touch with all things techno, having long since given up my BPM Supreme membership and not finding the time to search new tracks and EP's from sites like Beatport.
However, I'm more than happy to continue buying classical music on iTunes and scrolling through dusty CD bins. Classical music is still where I find 90% of my musical inspiration these days. Classical blogs and forums make up the bulk of my exposure to music crit. There is a parallel universe of great albums that I'm decades late in discovering -- who has time for new releases (even classical ones)? I have no idea how fans find the time to hear 70 CD boxes of material (everything is boxed up relatively cheap it seems), although right now I am finding the time to sort through about 20 hours of live Stereolab recordings (stay tuned!) so perhaps the answer is staring me in the face.
Music categories on Jeopardy usually center on 80's and 90's material, roughly coinciding with the age and knowledge expertise of most contestants, and I typically ace them. Contemporary music clues pose a greater challenge. I didn't know the Grammys had been postponed because of Omicron until I had to look it up while writing this post. So this is my role these days. Expert on easy music trivia on an otherwise very challenging trivia show. In that world, I can still get away with looking like a music savant.
I wish I had more to write about this days (and/or mixes to post) but freeing myself from any and all trends and buzz-worthy topics means I'm even more unencumbered and can deep dive into thirty years of Stereolab recordings (coming soon!) or Mahler cycles (yep!) without being concerned about its immediate (or long-term) relevance. As always, I do it for me.
