Is it me or the music?

There’s piles of it on my bedroom floor next to box after box in brightly coloured sleeves, a fair bit filed away on my hard drive and a nominal amount taking up memory on my iPhone.

 

So why do I feel so disconnected to music?

My love affair with music was going strong until six or so years ago. I was brought up on trad jazz, country, gospel and blues. As a teenager I saved up to buy the latest albums and singles. I learned the lyrics of my favourite pop songs from teen magazines. Listening to Radio 1’s chart show every Sunday night was only interrupted to press record on the cassette player. I DJed disco, house and electro for over 10 years - paying £8 a pop for 12-inch vinyl. My job in a record shop was one of the most rewarding I’ve ever had. I went clubbing religiously, made it to one or two festivals every year and all the gigs my meagre wages would allow. Until recently I also wrote a music review column syndicated to regional newspapers.

These days I’m selling one of my precious Technics decks, trading bags of obsolete CDs and managing to download a track or two on iTunes every few months.

At the same time music stores are shutting up shop, less and less column space is given over to reviews and artist profiles and the industry is dying on its arse.

It really doesn't feel like there's much I'm missing out on such is the downturn. It's as if the industry is on pause while it decides if it's worth it.

Still, a handful of big names and classic acts are keeping what’s left of it afloat. Most kids are doing the download thing creating Internet sensations overnight, via social networks. Headphones are permanently attached to their heads as they plough through their playlists.

Maybe it’s my thirty something self who doesn’t go clubbing anymore or maybe, on the whole, we just don’t care for music the way we used to. Music seems to have lost its mojo and the result is I hardly listen to any from my collection. I do tune in to BBC Radio 6 Music, namely Huey Morgan's legendary Sunday show, but there's not much else I can rely on to float my boat.

The medium is so accessible and easy to consume we value it so much less. There’s no need to really own music and if you don’t own it follows you’re less selective in your choices.

Streaming has made tunes instantly available, for free, on YouTube and spotify. Quick fix bursts are all over ads and who needs albums when you can buy one-off tracks at the touch of a button and play them on shuffle? The practise of listening to a whole body of work, collated in the form of an album could soon be a thing of the past.

The value placed on music has certainly dropped. In order for me to part with my pennies and buy an album, at least seven out of the ten tracks had to be winners. I was seriously selective when buying vinyl singles averaging £4 per track. At least with CDs, LPs and even singles, I felt like I was buying a degree of artwork too. The design added that extra layer of connection with what the musician was trying to convey.

Right now I’m in limbo. It's not that my favourite music no longer moves me. I only have to hear something that's so me in a bar and I'm right back in the zone. It's more that I don't have the desire to surround myself with music in the formats of the moment. This is where I worry I'm losing the connection.

I find iTunes a faff so I rarely get around to updating the playlist for my iPhone and quite frankly it’s just not sexy! I miss the buzz of visiting a record shop, hurrying home to play my new tunes, listening to an album in the order the artist intended...

All in all my consumption of music has come full circle. I now listen to trad jazz, swing and blues while out lindy hop dancing. If it wasn’t for this regular flexing of my music muscle I fear I might forget how to do it altogether.