Beating The Music Blues

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I'm assuming it's not just me who gets this - every now and then you look at your record collection / piles of CDs / MP3 playlist, and you just think "blah". Nothing you want to hear. What do you do - is it as simple as buying more records (!), or do you go for the sound of silence and waiti it out....how do you get your spark back?

― Tom, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeh, i do get this from time to time. often part of a wider malaise. i find best thing to do is not play anything (read a book, go for a walk etc). otherwise i sometimes think playing music while going somewhere (eg. on a bus) makes things sound better (although this tends to work better in london i think)

― gareth, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I go for 'The Sounds Of Silence'.

― Nick, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

For whatever reason, I can only listen to Madredeus when I'm in a state like that. I'm in one right now. Been listening to Madredeus for a week.

― Melissa W, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Shift perspective. Stick on Thomas Koner for an hour, or similar micro-texture music, fade the volume till it's deafeningly quiet and check out the new level of perception (wow, noisy sunlight), then again this can draw attention to your system's deficiencies. So do what I did yesterday and knock out a couple of hundred words on Why the Llama is Post-modernism in animal form. Erm.. it just is, OK

― K-reg, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah this happens sometimes, last year had some dismal spells like that...buying more doesn't help in these situations, not even that Can/Miles double live cd/obscure dub record helps anymore. I agree with Gareth, what helps is listening to music while on the move (train/bike/car). I must admit that ILM has helped too, I've been digging out a lot of records these past few months, with much succes and new insights as a result. Shhjeet, I might even put on a Doors cd one of these days thanks to that C&D.

― Omar, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have an MP3 play list called eccletic that has 283 tracks I spent twenty minutes skipping through it and couldnt find a track. I flipped thru my CDs and records, nothing struck my fancy . I finally gave up and put on the the college radio. I have to have music on 24/7. I am 23, i grew up with a remote control and constant info overload. I dont think i have been w/o music for more then 15 minutes for teh past year.

― Radio, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1. I do often get the feeling that Tom E describes.

2. Many other contributors probably think: well, *I*'d* go 'blah' every time if I had the pinefox's record collection.

3. I adored Nick D's answer.

4. Maybe the answer is to go for something you don't want to hear that much - force yourself through it - and later the things that you prefer will sound better for the contrast. Not sure about this.

5. Write a song.

― the pinefox, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I put on MTV2.

― JM, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I head back to Robert Zimmerman's stuff - something about the way the guitar sounds on the albert hall bootleg that makes me wake up I guess.

― Geoff, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Happens to me all the time. I have all these CDs and I just look around and think, "What, WHAT to play." It can be very frustrating -- my usual out is Young Marble Giants' _Colossal Youth_.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I always take these opportunities to dissect a piece of music. Pull out something complicated that I haven't spent much time with, try it and see how it works. Like maybe "He Loved Him Madly."

― Mark, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Watch some terrible television -- if you're really lucky there will some reruns of some 80's drama like Hunter or Father Dowling Mysteries. Follow it up with some sitcom action, particulary family themed fare with "adorable" children or wisecracking grandparents. At that point, anything in your collection will be a welcome respite, a glittering oasis.

― proton, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There is something dead about all recorded media. When Edison invented the record player it was dead people in mind. He envisioned a "sound museum", in whose halls would hang oil portraits of famous orators and thinkers who had passed away, each with an Edison Phonograph set up beneath, playing back some famous speech.

It was an attempt to tear the live sound of speech into a book, or album, for all posterity.

No suprise that every now and again, looking at that stack of cardboard coffins, you shudder.

1. Go see a band.

2. Take up an instrument. If you already play something, write a new song about how you hate music.

3. Turn on the radio (may/may not work)...

4. Drum on your knees impatiently.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think the problem with the 'go see a band' advice is that I want to stay at home and relax when the musical bug hits, rather than searching for a local dive with at least reasonable cover charge and a band that isn't addicted to stupid jokes and bad remakes. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I went out to see a band, the only options available to me would be some Tim McGraw wannabe or the local band that does No Doubt and Weezer covers. Wouldn't exactly inspire about the livelihood of music.

― proton, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, god yes...I get this feeling quite often. I used to think that it was just because I listened to so much music that I just get jaded...nothing strikes me as original or interesting any more. When it sinks in, I just start turning the stereo off for a while. I still buy albums when I see things that look interesting, but it's really a question of riding it out. Something always snaps me back.

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Or: put on

1. the Gories or 2. Octagon (Basic Channel)

Works every time for me. Like the ginger in a box of sushi - a strong blast to clear out the head and get you ready for what's next.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And I didn't mean just any old band, sillies. It really helps if your friends are in it tho, regardless of whether or not you'd buy their CD. Seeing people whose quirks you know playing music they love is almost always revelatory.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't listen to music. Best solution to the problem for me. After a day I can't stand the silence anymore.

― Stevie Nixed, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It tends to be a sort of "overload" feeling for me -- and then I just know that I can't listen to music anymore. So I go and either read a book or engage a friend in a three hour rambling conversation. I mean, where's the law that you have to listen to music 24-7? I sometimes get this while driving too, where no radio station will satisfy. That' when the news channels come in handy.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I sometimes listen to a track form every album I have, selected at random, so rather than trying to listen to what is in your head you make fate decide. I often forget I have things that are good, hidden on side 2 of a tape or something.

― Mike Hanley, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I feel this way from time to time. I just read, think, listen to a speech radio station and fantasise about Boris Johnson and Oliver Letwin meeting each other on the ledge of Conservative Central Office. Usually all four at once. Then I, inevitably, feel like listening to something again, and it's wonderful.

Gareth, why do you think that playing music while going somewhere makes things sound better more effectively in London than elsewhere?

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Anyone interested may like to know that what I used to beat the music blues was going for a walk and playing a tape of old soul classics I found in the bottom of a box. Freaky Trigger uses and endorses the O'Jays. I felt just like Nick Kamen or someone.

― Tom, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No mean way out of it, Tom. I often play Motown songs (esp. the Supremes' "I'm Living In Shame") when in such a mood.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I convince myself that all music sucks and I don't need it anymore until I hate it so much I need it again. Sort of like with girls. If only I met a girl as reliable as Gluecifer...

― Kris, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just put on something I know that I really liked in my not-blaah mood. Or I do something else than listen to music ... usually there's a long list of such things to do.

Apropos to nothing and re the O'Jays comment upthread ... recently found out where in Philly the old Philadelphia International HQ's is located (where all the great Gamble and Huff records were cut). Used to pass that building all the time when I visited friends and family in Philadelphia and didn't think anything of it, but now I know ... well, sort of an epiphany.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I felt just like Nick Kamen
Let me know when you have that feeling again, Tom. I'll gladly tag along when you go wash yer jeans. wink wink

― Stevie Nixed, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

robin...

its because there's always somewhere i haven't seen thats in easy reach whereas, having grown up in west yorkshire, somewhere new would be further away and more difficult to get to.

also. fan of urban landscape

― gareth, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"When Edison invented the record player it was dead people in mind."

Tracer, this is just NOT SO: Edison had LIVE people in mind, busy people needing to take dictation. The lost 19th century word "phonographer" means someone who scribbles down a speech as it's being delivered. He used tin-foil at first, which barely even survives the first replay.

Edison was the world's first office-equipment salesman, basically. He hated the fact that the phonograph became frivolously involved with music (he was deaf in one ear), and he primarily encouraged celebrity-recordings (of which there are actually surprisingly FEW) because it would help publicise and domesticiate his device... Museum recordings were well down his line of priorities (there just weren't enough museums: shifting units mattered a lot to Edison...)

Later on, however, he did announce that he would soon invent an improvement to the telephone which would cut out all this "medium" nonsense and put every home directly in touch with those who had passed beyond...

― mark s, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Telecoms equivalent of Mojo magazine?

― Dr. C, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dr C, you just made me laugh out loud.

Gareth, I too am a fan of urban landscapes. As long as I know I won't have to stay there. Amazingly there are places three miles from here which are completely new to me when I walk there, and it's been nearly seven years now ... ah well, keeps up the surprise, I guess.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't listen to anything for a while, or play stuff but don't take it in. Wait for a sunny day or a change in the weather, and my mood usually changes.

― james e l, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I tried Mike Hanley's idea of one-random-track-from-each-CD last night, and it works great ! I had never noticed how good Air's "Suicide Underground" (that spooky voice could be reciting its shopping list and it would still scare me) and Belle & Sebastian's "Dirty Dream Number Two" (a Motown beat ! fun horns !) were before. Thanks Mike !

― Patrick, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah - of COURSE Edison would have an angle; so he knew enough rich eccentrics who needed new ways to record the majesty of their meeting notes to at least pay for the development of the idea...

So the typewriter and the phonograph exist for the same reason - to take living speech and freeze it for all time. But it must have become quickly apparent to Menlo Park NJ that there was an extra dimension to this new technique. For instance Edison made little dolls with "speech rolls" inside them singing "ring around the rosy". The spooky effect of disembodied voices was already being put to morbid use as a "spiritual" novelty. And to this day you can call a whole host of telephone numbers that claim to put you in touch with dead relatives....

But "soul classics" would probably work too.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

timely question - having recently finished off a few songs - tooo near to me to be objective - didn't want to actively listen to my music for a while - so i spent the weekend roaming the border , bought albums - don't know if i can appreciate stuff without comparison to mine at the mo though. went to Amsterdam last night - this morning i stuffed myself in a dutch pancake cafe while talking complete bollocks to some students who deserved better, by the time i was back in tha UK and shoppin in ASDA I felt the urge to scribble a certain phrase overheard on the return flight.

i have to physically and mentally dislocate myself to get my spark back - wring out the sponge

― Le Grand Meaulnes, Wednesday, 23 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

robin/gareth - i will second that the landscape of west yorkshire is less than gripping. last time this happened i was so bored i wenbt to sheffield at about 7pm on a sunday. I spent 3 hours train listening to music. in london it's very different, you can wonder down any street you've not been down before, buy some cheap stupid crap whih fascinates for hours. centrallondon is so dense, the crap industrial landscape of west yorkshire is one big homogen.

― matthew james, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no, matthew, you misunderstand.

i like the crap industrial landscape of west yorks. bradford and halifax occupy a special place for me, the steep streets and chimneys and the rest are beautiful i think, but in a rather melancholy way - esp bradford, which is a poor place (esp when compared to its economically revitalised neighbour, Leeds)

but i was bought up there, i feel like i've seen everywhere. with london there's always somewhere new, somewhere i haven't seen. i love london, i think its exciting, thats why i think playing music while travelling around london is good, in a way that it wouldn't be, for me, back in w.yorks

― gareth, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The fact that I hate "cheap stupid crap" is the main reason for my dislike of London, Matthew. You're welcome to both.

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

This is funny, I think: no matter how bad I'm bombing, with myself or any crowd, I play something off Elliott Murphy's AQUASHOW. Makes me feel better (among the first songs I ever learned, they're deeply heartfelt, sound mad modern, and I know them on a molecular level), and works for others (nobody seems to have ever heard them, and they're magnificent songs). It always centers me and lets me get back on track.

― matt riedl (veal), Monday, 6 January 2003 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

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