Music!

I guess I have Twitter to thank for this in a weird way. Around the beginning of the year, I tried to write reviews for whatever music I was getting into at the time. I'd say I enjoyed it, even if it was a big time commitment. Well, with me being so busy being unemployed and all there was sure to be a conflict of interest with, say, looking for a job or sleeping all day. Also, the setup I have is rather uncomfortable for extended sessions of typing, so it's rather easier to not do it most of the time.

Sometime in January I noticed another person on twitter putting his playlist up on twitter. It was a track a day, often sprawling jazzy electronica which appeared to be his genre of choice. It was a cool idea, and I thought I could put my own spin on it. I could use my twitter account to let people hear some of my favorites, but at the same time use it to explore new stuff and introduce it to my friends, blah blah blah. It's been a bit more cathartic than I expected. It's strange- I dont have any way of knowing who listens to my playlist (if anyone at all) but I've become more introspective and self aware of my listening patterns.

Also, it forces me to listen to music more. For a long while I was one of the people you might hear disparaging new music. You could probably blame it on the re-branding of punk rock. Why, I thought, should I listen to (to pick a band at random) New Found Glory when there are decades of excellent music I haven't explored? I should be listening to The Dead Kennedys or Agnostic Front. I could be exploring the classics from The Clash, Cream, Nine Inch Nails, The Who. For that matter I could go back to the days before rock, discover Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

It was last year that I realized my taste in music had expanded to the point that I could find music out there that I liked, and happened to come from the last decade. Ten years ago, I never would have listened to Neutral Milk Hotel. Even The Decemberists were well beyond my tolerance so long ago.

I've gotten a little distracted. The point of this post is, the playlist experiment is working. Search for #ctfs on twitter and you'll find brand new music alongside groups like Archie Bell and the Drells and John Coltrane. I think, now that the honeymoon with this idea is over, I may post here on occasion when I feel I have more than a sentence or two to spout off on a particular song.