Keeping Up With Music

This is absolutely the first year I can remember where not only did I struggle to keep up with music, but I totally forgot about albums I liked from bands that I love. For example, I totally forgot that X released a good record this year. Or, the Dua/Jessie/Roisin glossy nu-disco trio, for example, all albums I really enjoyed and enjoy listening to yet keep forgetting to play. Or Fiona Apple and Kathleen Edwards, two artists I love that released great new comebacks that I love that I just keep forgetting to play. Looking over year-end lists, there is just so much I haven't heard or even heard of, and of the stuff I have heard it's just downright impossible for me to keep straight in my brain, let alone fore of mind. So much music!

Weirdly, I wonder if this has been inadvertently pandemic related. My family is around all the time, but I'm a speaker guy, not a headphone guy, and just haven't been free to blast stuff on the stereo when the mood strikes. Hmm ...

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 December 2020 21:59 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel this post. I was reminded yesterday of the existence of the Eddie Chacon album, which I loved when I first heard it and then promptly forgot about. Dylan too!

I think this year I have listened to as much new music as ever, but in the same way that I struggle a bit to keep track of what happened in which month this year (like, all the jokes that currently it's the 247th of March or whatever), almost all experiences of music have felt more transient, and less amenable to ordering and recollection.

one of the reasons i think tiktok has struck such a nerve and created so many big hits this year is that it helps people create those associations with songs that they aren't having in IRL

Right!

Including that we can't dance to these songs at a club but we can perform/watch tiktok dances.

Dancing at bars, albeit in small numbers, is starting to be allowed again in Australia for the first time since mid-March, and it's amusing to see teh-gays in particular express this sense of pent-up release at finally being able to dance in public to the broadly-recognised gay anthems of 2020 ("Physical", "Rain on Me", "WAP"), almost as if the very existence of these songs and their impact was somehow quasi-spectral until it could be properly acknowledged in that way.

my real name rhymes with and has the exact same number of syllables as "a savage" and the fact I haven't been able to do a karaoke performance of Megan & Beyoncè with my personal spin on it is killing me

xp great post, Tim

this year, probably more than any other, i've listened to the same 10-12 new or new-to-me albums hundreds of times. they were all very good at giving me what i needed in particular moments, and i kept coming back to them. i just didn't feel the need to adopt more, though i did scan through a few new releases here and there. my music listening experience is more and more becoming this reader response thing where every time i listen to the same thing my experience is a little different but no less rich. but the thing has to have sort of passed a few tests for it to get there, lol.

Dancing at bars, albeit in small numbers, is starting to be allowed again in Australia for the first time since mid-March, and it's amusing to see teh-gays in particular express this sense of pent-up release at finally being able to dance in public to the broadly-recognised gay anthems of 2020 ("Physical", "Rain on Me", "WAP"), almost as if the very existence of these songs and their impact was somehow quasi-spectral until it could be properly acknowledged in that way.

very jealous, i miss hearing music in a room with friends. some music just needs to be embodied and shared in social, physical space.

one of the reasons i think tiktok has struck such a nerve and created so many big hits this year is that it helps people create those associations with songs that they aren't having in IRL

Possibly the first thing I've read that's helped me understand tik tok!