2008: The Year I Officially Lost My Edge!

i went through all the lists on that best of the end of the year list thread and i think i had heard 3 or maybe 4 of the CDs listed. Out of ALL the lists. And I don't think I even listened to those 3 or 4 all the way through either! It's official. I'm a has-been. I feel okay about it. I turned 40 this year. I stopped writing record reviews for the first time in nine years. I no longer listen to the radio or watch videos on t.v. i used to at least ATTEMPT to keep my finger on the pulse, but this year i didn't even fake it. and, yet, this year i probably listened to more music than any other year in my life. and that's saying something. so, go figure. There are societal factors involved. I live somewhere fairly remote. Not a lot of live music to catch. Not a lot of great radio (other than maria's cool low power fm station and it's freeform and wacky and not really concerned with current stuff so much). only one record store here. plus, we are living on one computer now, and maria is usually using it for work, so i'm not on it a lot. i haven't gone to last fm or an equivalent in months. i almost NEVER listen to CDs. occasionally. and mostly old stuff. 99% of what i buy is vinyl. and most of the new vinyl i buy is old stuff in shiny new packaging. any "new" new vinyl i buy is usually stuff that i feel like i've already heard before anyway. (but in a good way. siltbreeze stuff, metal, noize, folkfreektronica, etc.) if you had told me 5 or 6 years ago that i would eventually go a year or more without buying a rap album or single i would have said you were mad. but, like i said, i'm fairly happy listening to what i listen to. do you have any idea how many great old jazz records there are? like, 5 million! and i only own, like, 500 of them. i even find myself willing to part with stuff from the 90's and 80's on vinyl that i never thought i'd get rid of. i am the very picture of the aging ex-hipster. i guess i'll be at the back of the bus. knitting. (i'm still good at giving gifts though. for maria's birthday i bought her that hercules and the johnsons thing, the new brightblack morningblack thing, the lindstrom cd, and two messthetics volumes. i still haven't heard any of them. i just knew they were the things to get.)

i would think the opposite - if most of what i'd heard and/or liked had received a lot of critical attention, i'd be feeling like i'd dropped the ball somehow

Well at least you took the high road and didn't blame your indie cred crunch on the recession or anything.

And with a month to go in the year you can always use your free time to catch up on what happened.

Age, isolation, listening to old shit instead of new music loved by college students, zzz. When ILMers find themselves buying shit like artist-compiled Starbucks mixes or Il Divo, THEN its newsworthy.

"The only album I bought this year was AC/DC, cuz I was at Wal-Mart"=NEWS.

i'm always up for suggestions. and, in fact, i do wanna hear that lindstrom album i got maria, cuz i keep hearing how good it is.

(i did listen to some cool recent rap mixtapes on the web this year. not that i remember half of what i heard, but they were cool.)

there is no walmart here!

i like walmart.

I do miss your reviews in Decibel. They really gave the section a much-needed jolt of energy.

yes, your (potential) list is more likely what most of us ilm-ers would be into anyhow. i think a lot of people on that thread were lamenting those end-of-year lists, and there were only a couple in so far anyhow

"bought vinyl" in 2008 means you officially still have some edge left.

yeah, but i started buying vinyl in 1973 and never stopped.

and i know that this isn't an ilm shocker. i just wanted to make my decrepitude official. you never think it will happen to you. all those old ex-fall fan jug band freaks over the years who couldn't believe that i still listened to, like, madonna or whoever. now i am them. um, except i still listen to madonna. just not new madonna. old jugband madonna.

i downloaded the first scott seward mixtape the first day it was posted
i was there

http://reubencox.us/record-shack/record_shack47.jpg

i've got a good example for you. i got an e-mail today from some promo place and it said DON'T FORGET THESE GREAT ALBUMS IN YOUR BEST OF 2008 LISTS!!!! and it listed albums by these bands:

alias
lesser gonzalez alvarez
au
beach house
karl blau
crystal stilts
the dead science
deer tick
dosh
excepter
fight bite
fredrik
grampall jookabox
headlights
ida
indian jewelry
lake
lucky dragons
max tundra
no kids
parenthetical girls
pop levi
stars like fleas
talkdemonic
these united states
tickley feather
tobacco
why?
willoughby
vivian girls

BUT THEN THEY SHOW A PICTURE OF THIS:

http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs071/1102000774575/img/161.jpg?a=1102340319825

and i go: ooh, that looks good, and i forget about all the other stuff. hahahaha!

headlights album is good, but it's just indiepop. ida was a disappointment.

I think I got the same mail.

great thread, well-written

Scott, yr recharging, prolly. I turned 40 this year too, and The Bug's "London Zoo" is the first hippty-hoppity music in more than a decade that I've really, deeply loved. Never thought it would come back to me, but I didn't want to force it either. I spent 95-2000 just listening to old vinyl of jazz and c&w and oddball stuff. I can't tell if how much was due to my circumstances (very little income while living 300 feet from Jerry's Records in Pittsburgh, where the whole world of vinyl was being sold at $3 a slab), or the fact that I was getting nothing from the new music of the time (still don't get much from the music of that time). I'd worry more about what thereminimum mentions, sudden adoration of Radiohead or Wilco or TV on the Radio and nothing else. (and I don't hate those guys!)

I started buying 78s this year.

I thought that would be the beginning of the end, but then the turntable with the 78 setting got broke by the movers.

I can't afford movers. If i ever move, I have to move all the records myself :(

You kids with your jazz and your jugbands are sellouts. Gregorian chants 4EVA!!!!

i'm listening to more bach than ever before also e_e

i've sold most of my punk records.

old-timey has been hip for years, esp 78s

i only listen to field recordings of street buskers

Did the buskers have shoes?

I listen to digital creations via digital means digitally. (Except when I do not.)

buskers with shoes have their own genre

cause i mean when you start talking shoes you start talking royalties

Shoes = The Man

Furthermore, if a record wasn't recorded within 50 miles of a coal mine, I don't want to hear it.

I'm 27 and am therefore way too old to be into pop music. I only listen to ambient.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89148959

now THAT's a tune

http://itp.nyu.edu/%7Erpp227/digitalkitchen/imgs/music_box_open_b.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61wUEBBZ1lL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

the final frontier

fwiw i looked at the blender list this year and it was all stuff i knew by name but had no interest whatsoever in hearing

i mostly listen to other people's cassette mixes these days and i am only 22!

this year's a little bit of a letdown from last year too maybe. rule of 7s -- 1967, 1977, 1987, 1997, 2007. all very big years (though i guess some would dispute 87 and 07). so do not give up hope just yet. i predict here and now that you will enjoy 2017 thoroughly

scott, ditto. that is all

http://reubencox.us/record-shack/record_shack47.jpg

the record to the right of his hand is the Spirit record i was looking for for years and finally bought for a dollar on ebay last month

which spirit record?

that doesn't look like dr. sardonicus...

do you have any idea how many great old jazz records there are? like, 5 million! and i only own, like, 500 of them

If it makes you feel better, I'm 25 and I feel the same way, not just about jazz but about everything else as well. The amount of music that is worthwhile is incredible.

it's Son of Spirit

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/2643/cover_5111311102006.jpg

oooh intriguing

original potato land is pretty great too

i hope you aren't implying that randy california doesn't have edge...

http://home.san.rr.com/sgc/deadpics/Randy_California.jpg

my best friend's father used to manage spirit or something like that. i'm not into pysch like they are but they're alright

The above remember-these-albums thing is from ForcefieldPR, and a lot of 'em (reviews, streams, some downloads) are still on PaperThinWalls.com (ghost-host of ilx, o newbie reader). For crate-digger buzz, check the Deer Tick album (orig. 07, already a reissue). A folkie/folk-rocker, but his voice is squealy-squeezey-never-queasy (also very expressive), kind of Roky but not always as cranked. This is is the mellowest song on the album, good combination with that voicehttp://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=974

uh-oh, no PTW, at least at the moment, sorry. Try Mr. Tick's MySpace etc, he's worth checking out.

The Edge rarely had edge.

i have heard less then 10 albums released in '08 in their entirety.

probably 7 or 8.

actually in my personal experience the younger folks I know are by and large not that into new music (which I find rather perplexing). A general survey of anecdotal evidence:
- a woman in her early 20s who, when we sat down to play some songs together, all she knew/wanted to play was Ani DiFranco and Bonnie Raitt. (Annie DiFranco was old and lame 15 years ago when *I* was in college!)
- another woman in her early 20s who's predominatly interested in old-timey bluegrass stuff, the Carter Family, etc.
- my 18 yo cousin who told me all new music sucks (particularly the Dave Matthews Band, which is what all his fellow college students are into) and spent most of his time while we were visiting ripping old funk/soul and 70s rock stuff off of my hard drive

hm thats weird, i met three people in their twenties recently who only listen to top 40 radio... maybe its a regional thing?

"the argument that there is a particular subset of music that anybody "should" be listening to (ie, "new" vs old or whatever) is total bullshit."

i agree. really what i was getting at at the top of this thread was along the lines of "i never thought it would happen to me!". cuz as much as i have always loved digging for old stuff and history lessons and the shock of the ancient, i have almost ALWAYS been interested in what was happening RIGHT NOW. whether it was pop music or dance music or rap or indie/undie or whatever. i've always been fairly mod. as in modern. but over the last however many years i've seen this interest in new music dwindle a fair bit. i just blamed it on getting older and a retreat of sorts into the stacks. but that's probably not the reason. i think there are many reasons. some of which i listed up above. i don't really think music being made today is worse or less worth my time. (and i think i've made a good case for the ever awesome fecundity and creativity of metal as a genre over the years.) i wish i could just say that i am simply becoming more of a snob and my standards are so high that nobody short of bud powell or ben webster or a renaissance lute ensemble can satisfy my craving for some sort of Masonic ideal of architectural brilliance in music. but that ain't the truth. truth is, i just get more of a kick buying 50 random old records at a buck a piece and diving in to them then i do clicking thru endless myspace pages and blogs in search of new kicks. but that's just me. and it could all change. all i know is, they never should have banned the cd single from record stores. or 12 inch singles for that matter. (also, american indie rock shouldn't have sucked so bad for, like, the last decade. that would have helped keep my enthusiasm up over the years.)

i just get more of a kick buying 50 random old records at a buck a piece and diving in to them

I really enjoy the equivalent with Amoeba's clearance sections in LA and, when I'm there, SF. Made some fun finds over the years, and it can help in getting one out of a rut, I've found.

I often find that a turkey dinner and braised pork will cure one of the music blues.

hm thats weird, i met three people in their twenties recently who only listen to top 40 radio... maybe its a regional thing?

I dunno, the first is from Humboldt via Texas, the second is from Michigan and went to school at Smith, and the third is from Chicago.

also, american indie rock shouldn't have sucked so bad for, like, the last decade. that would have helped keep my enthusiasm up over the years.)

so sad and true

lol shakey

I am kinda in the same boat as Scott except that at the moment my reasons for not seeking out more new music are primarily of a time/financial nature. I no longer have a disposable income to blow a bunch of money on new records or downloads (which are expensive compared to old cheap records and blog postings), and I don't have the free time to trawl endlessly through bittorrent sites or myspace pages or whatever and find stuff that will actually engage me. The radio is horrible. MTV doesn't play videos and VH1s selection is awful and hardly "cutting edge". I'll happily listen to new stuff people give me/send me but frankly as I grow older the number of people that do that continues to shrink. Apparently Lex and Marcello think I should feel guilty about this. Or that I should spend more time looking through endless reams of new crap instead of spending time with my daughter or making music of my own.

also, american indie rock shouldn't have sucked so bad for, like, the last decade. that would have helped keep my enthusiasm up over the years.

I'd like to add UK indie rock to this, too. I'd like to think that I haven't become "that guy" - the guy who dismisses new music and pines for the old days when people "really meant it, man." But by and large, I've been disenchanted by indie offerings for a good solid decade. There are always excpetions, but to put it in simple terms, I don't find myself subscribing to the Pitchfork/Blogsphere/NME idea of what is good indie.

There's plenty of new stuff I do, like. Lots of good electronic stuff this decade. I like a lot of small run avant garde stuff espoused by the likes of Volcanic Tongue. Some cool stuff coming out on Siltbreeze. And metal is getting a whole lot more vibrant these past few years.

i feel the same as shakey and brooker. i figure it has to do with recycled influences - i mean, i don't need to hear a band that sounds like the buzzcocks anymore, let alone one that sounds like china drum who sounded like buzzcocks. i still dig finding old postpunk band who were amalgamating influences - the lines reissues sound fresh to me.

this is the year i dipped into original 50s rockabilly though with the loud, fast and out of control rhino box. dig it!

Yeah! There's no end to great music from the past. I'm constantly filling in the gaps, and being amazed at what slips through the cracks. And depending how deep you're willing to dig, there's great music being made right now.

also, it should be mentioned, these have been boom years for reissues/archival/etc. and people are doing such a good job packaging and selling the stuff that i feel like the old IS a part of the new story these days. the past is, um, now. or something. just an overwhelming amount of high quality stuff coming out that practically no one has EVER heard. i mean, it's exciting at times. these aren't fourth generation tapes of just okay soul b-sides on a cheapo charly package (much love for the pioneers though! i am no charly hater. god bless and keep them). some of the stuff i buy now is friggin' museum quality.

Scott's right about that. Labels like Dust to Digital and 5-String are blowing my mind of late.

Of the stuff that makes magazines/blogs/P4K, this has probably been the worst year for music since 2000 (remember when Starsailor were the next big thing?) Of course, there are probably god knows how many excellent tunes/bands languishing in obscurity right now. In future years, will trawling band Myspace/last.fm pages that haven't been updated in ages be the new crate digging?

I dont see the point of dismissing stuff because it's new or old. I wanna hear great new music whether it's new or I just haven't heard it before. I know there's still thousands of jazz records I still want to hear despite having heard many. And I haven't even investigated blues yet. Maybe that day will come.

IT'S ALL NEW TO ME

towards the middle of this year i thought that the music i liked the most (techno and house) was in a major rut. the second half (and particularly the last quarter) of the year has pleasantly proved me wrong though. i have heard very few of the albums mentioned in the end-of-year list thread. tomato tomahto.

i agree with the sentiment that music appreciation should not be forced and that it doesn't really matter what you like as long as *you* like it. there's so much music out there that you are always going to miss something. i also like the idea of looking back in order to move forward. musicians do it so why can't music fans do it as well? you get the sense that there's a reciprocal effect going on there. also, the internet does strange things to the sphere of influence.

with dance music (and i am over-generalizing here) it is interesting because "the future" was the focus for so long that it pretty much exhausted itself, then the music became very contemporaneous (and radical and staid) at the end of the 90s and the beginning of this decade, and now we are selectively looking back with a weird kind of nostalgia/anxiety for the future as it was defined by the past with the contemporary stuff all mixed in. i like it.

I welcome all new members to the Music Has Sucked for Awhile League

i was there ... on ILM ... in 2002 ... when "losing my edge" was leaked to the internet

i was thereeeeeeeeeeeeeee

For old times sake:

LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

I was there on ILM posting the lyrics to "Losing My Edge" before anybody else and being corrected by somebody who may or may not have been James Murphy.

As the real time exposure to new music decreases, my personal interest and exposure decreases. The only current to the year music I follow is the music covered in Razorcake magazine, (and they have podcasts now), but when I read about these modern DIY punk bands, I feel a sense of regret that if they come to my town I won't be there. I may order a record now and again, but where and to whom will I discuss it or play it over and over again.

My conversation with the people here (one sided, because I'm a lurker), and the people elsewhere on the net, leads me to buy Graham Bonnet records just so I know someone else out there can share the experience with me.

that experience is me typing "I bought this record, it rocks." and then me reading something they wrote 8 years ago "You should buy this record, it rocks." I'm not talking about Alcatrazz or Rainbow, I'm talking about MSG. But I did buy it last month and I haven't listened to it yet.

Music is on the radio right now, I'm not sure about my town. Bands are playing right now down the street. I don't know. I hope someone is getting what I used to get out of it.

Seriously people this is getting like Saga Messageboard Time.

me personally i listen to a mixture of old music and new music.

sometimes i listen to the same cd for weeks on end.

i'll go months where all i listen to is talk radio in the car and the occasional steely dan or tupac song on youtube.

Do you think Britain has gone to the so-called dogs?

i dont really think about brittain much.

me personally i listen to a mixture of old music and new music.

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, November 28, 2008 3:49 AM Bookmark

Yeah, I do this, too. It's really incredible! Today I listened to Shiela E. and The Bug.

at the same time?

sounds like a dope collabo. someone should set them up

This is a great thread. I've been trying to find a thread that mark s started about "what would be the consequences if no noew music was produced for an entire year" but he probably named it something like "encyclopedia of perverted moratoria"

this isn't it: Who needs new music?

this was a good thread too:

If you had to choose between listening to all new music/music to be made in the future and NO music made in the past or music from the past but NO new/future music what would you choose?

It will be a dark day indeed when I lose the urge to seek out new music. I take the points about signal-to-noise - but it's still mostly signal (especially in years as fruitful as this one), and I can still glean background knowledge from the chaff. For me, "keeping up" is all tied up with experiencing the now-ness of now, and that's a feeling to which I still ascribe a high value.

Also, I've found that my tastes have broadened rather than narrowed with age; I'd never have predicted developing a taste for English folk music, for instance. The only area where I've had to admit defeat is hip-hop: my hip-hop gene has slipped down the back of my critical sofa, and I can't find it anywhere, where have you hidden it?

Mike - keep an eye on the BiA EoY list round about Christmas time; it might help you relocate it!

I have retired from pursuing music. I'm into taking photographs and cooking now, I think.

Why send out music poll forms then?

That's a joint venture.

Where was that "recommend albums for Nick" thread?

See, after "Odessey", I'd pick The Kinks' "Arthur" as being of that ilk.

I did find Billy Nicholls' "Would you realise" and it's mmm.... dunno.

"Would you believe", that is.

Title suggested by Jimmy Savile?

I have retired from pursuing music. I'm into taking photographs and cooking now, I think.

You cloning me or something? (That said I haven't stopped, merely supplemented.)

This thread seems to have tried to be a variant of the threads Tracer linked to Would trade your music collection for every album Robert Christgau declared a "Must To Avoid"?.

I'm 37, I haven't kept up with new music since probably 2002. I go through heavy downloading periods for a couple of weeks, I get busy, it starts to seem like a chore, then I stop. I've had a few periods where I listened to nothing but hair metal, or nothing but acoustic instrumental music, these generally last about six months, or until I get tired of it. Probably the last 'new' group that I really loved was Sigur Ros back at the turn of the century. No new music has affected me in the same way since, I'm starting to think that really falling in love with a band is something that only young people do.

I'm married with a baby now, so I don't have all day to seek out new music on blogs, but that's not really an excuse, as RSS and sites like hypemachine basically exist for this purpose. I also sort of resent a lot of the music review sites telling me what the hip new thing is, I've bought stuff blind on their recommendation so many times and have been burned so much that I've started to become very cynical. I don't listen to the radio, and my iPod plays news podcasts and audiobooks about 50 percent of the time. I also started to really get into playing piano and guitar, so a lot of the music I hear in my spare time is made by my own hands. I'd really like to start following music again this year - not even new music necessarily, it can be old music I've never heard that's new to me.

Yeah, I do this, too. It's really incredible! Today I listened to Shiela E. and The Bug.

― The Saving Grace of Gospel House (The Reverend), Friday, November 28, 2008 4:04 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

at the same time?

― GSOHSHIT (blueski), Friday, November 28, 2008 4:13 AM Bookmark

No, but I have listened to The Bug & Chrome at the same time! It is awesome! See here:

Recommend me something with a lot of electronic beeps

oooh actually we should hook up chrome with sheila e

I'm having some serious issues with all this stuff too. I've heard a ton of new-to-me music that I've loved this year... very little of which was first released this year. Most of the newly-recorded stuff I've heard recently has the same effect on me as eighth-tier college rock from 1990--I can practically see the "When You Play It, Say It!" stickers on it.

me personally i listen to a mixture of old music and new music.

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, November 28, 2008 3:49 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sometimes i listen to the same cd for weeks on end.

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, November 28, 2008 3:49 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'll go months where all i listen to is talk radio in the car and the occasional steely dan or tupac song on youtube.

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, November 28, 2008 3:50 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink