Music is a shortcut to joy. Here's my specific method for expanding your horizons
over 5 years in The guardian
Finally hearing the 11,000 songs I’d downloaded but ignored was life-affirming – and in lockdown I’ve started working my way through whole albums
I have just listened to an album all the way through – twice. It was awful both times, but I am glad I did it. These things are important. It’s not good enough just to listen to music you like; you have to suffer for your art. No pain, no gain.
About 10 years ago, I realised I was in danger of living my musical life without much moving on from where I was in my teens. There is nothing wrong with Prefab Sprout, Led Zeppelin, John Martyn, Van Morrison and Nena – far from it – but there was a lot more out there to discover. Worse than that, there was an awful lot I already owned but hadn’t listened to. I had nearly 15,000 songs on my iPod, and according to iTunes I had only listened to 4,000 of them. This was partly because I had loaded a lot of my brother’s stuff on there, which included more Bob Dylan and Tangerine Dream albums than either Bob or Tangerine Dream knew they’d made. Continue reading...
Who is popular today?
