Expect a Best Music Of The Decade post in December
The first pop song I remember is Moscow by Dschinghis Khan. I watched Countdown from 1981. I’ve followed the charts onward. I’ve excavated back to the 50s, first through my father’s record collection, and then my own explorations. I’m a believer.
I believe there is good music and there is bad music. I believe that the charts provide both a competitive field (sometimes a battleground) for musicians, and a means of discovery for listeners. I believe it’s where high art and mass production intersect.
I still believe all this, but I don’t believe in the charts any more. Because we have moved from mass production to mass consumption, where musicians compete not for chart prominence but a market niche, and listeners listen in packs around an iPod. I remain committed to eclecticism, but don’t have enough time to forage for the good—nor to disseminate it to others, and my investigations into classical music have taught me that music can only really be heard when it is heard by others. I am left with a decade that seems anaemic compared to the previous five. The charts have been a lousy guide as record companies try to find the grey medium between new product and nostalgia.
In the next decade I must learn how to listen anew. For the next six months, I must find the 2000s. I must write how I will remember them. I must say goodbye.