Race: Out

So, that’s it.  It’s all over.  After three pretty flippin’ difficult weeks, I’m once again able to listen to music of my own accord.

What surprises me is that I am actually glad I did this experiment.  I was hoping that by giving up listening to music in the background I’d be more inclined to listen to music in the foreground, and I really do think that I’ve achieved my goal.  But I’ve found out other things along the way, about myself as well as the society we live in.  By forcing myself to change my lifestyle in order to avoid music, I realised just how surrounded we are by it.  Every television programme, every advert, in shops, in pubs, in the barber’s - it’s EVERYWHERE.  Before I did this, I labelled myself a music-lover, but I wasn’t.  With my constant immersion in music and my surrounding myself with background noise, I was part of the problem.  In fact, I’m not sure if I valued music any more than all those ad agencies that use certain songs just to sell their products.

But not anymore.  Now, I’ve realised what it means to really love music, to really appreciate your favourite bands and the music that’s given me so many memories.  So I’ll leave you with one of my favourite songs of all time, and one that I’ve heard in my head probably a thousand times since I started doing this - Used  for Glue by Rival Schools.

It’s only natural

Between this post and my last, I walked from home into university.  And, for the first time in three weeks, that journey was made with earphones in.  And oddly, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was expecting.  Seeing as I’ve lived for nearly a month without my mp3 player, I’d got used to hearing the sounds of my surroundings, wherever I was.  The other day, for example, I was outside in my garden, reading all about the life of probably the best known guitar player of the last 25 years - Slash.  Normally, I would never just read.  I’d always be listening to music, in the background - in this case, probably a bit of Guns N Roses - just so I wasn’t surrounded by silence.

This time, though, I did sit in what I thought would be silence.  But it wasn’t.  Even though I live in a very quiet part of what is already a very quiet town, I was still surrounded by noise - although it wasn’t at all intrusive.  The odd car going past, the sound of my next door neighbours occasionally popping outside for a cigarette, and even - at the risk of sounding a bit of a hippy - the noise of the birds flying around weren’t at all irritating.  In fact, it was actually quite enjoyable to sit there and “soak up” my surroundings.  Not only that; it was also nice to get away from always being able to hear music in the background, and it has made me more appreciative not only of the environment I live in but also the music that once I would have listened to just for the sake of it.

Deep impact

The biggest question facing me when I woke up this morning - what to listen to first?  ¡Forward, Russia! ran out winners in a lucky dip between the four new CDs I’d bought this week, so on the stereo they went.  Initially, I’d planned on posting while I was listening, but then decided against it.  After all, one of the things I was trying to achieve with this experiment was my rediscovery of the joys of simply sitting down and putting some music on.  So that’s what I did.  And, to be honest, I don’t think my original plan would have worked anyway, for one simple reason - Life Processes is bloody brilliant.

I really cannot remember the last time I enjoyed an album this much on first listen - in fact, I’d probably have to go back to the first time I heard either Morning View by Incubus or Metallica’s Master of Puppets way back in (I think) 2003.  Maybe, since then, I’ve listened to so much music and given so many albums no more than a second listen that a lot of it has rolled into one, and perhaps that’s dampened the impact of a lot of what I’ve listened to over the last five years.

Now, I’m not saying that Life Processes is going to have the same kind of impact as those two albums did all those years ago, but you never know.  After all, it’s the first album I’ve willingly listened to in three weeks, and that, in terms of my music listening, is a very long time.  One thing’s pretty certain, though - I think I’ve found a new favourite album of 2008.

They think it’s all over…

As of about 3 hours ago, I was (officially?) allowed to listen to music again.  How did I celebrate?  Well, like any good student, I went down to my stident union, where there were different DJs in each of the two rooms.  And to be honest, if what they were playing was music, I don’t know what I thought I was missing.  Tomorrow (well, later on today) however, I will be properly listening to music again.  That’s my music, out of my CD collection, that I choose to listen to.  Stay tuned for the results…

The home straight

So, tomorrow spells the end of this experiment and, to be honest, it’s getting more than a bit unbearable.  So, I’ve started to make a list of all the music I want to listen to when all this is over.  As well as the two new releases from ¡Forward, Russia! and Nine Inch Nails I mentioned yesterday, new (to me) CDs by Rival Schools and These Arms Are Snakes were on the doormat when I got up this morning, torturing me with their presence.  Add all these new CDs to all the songs that spring to mind as soon as the sun comes out, as it has now good and proper, and I’ve got a hell of a lot to catch up on tomorrow.  And you know what?  I can’t bloody wait.

Out and about while my guitar gently weeps…

I’ve just got home from an open mic night.  Don’t worry, there wasn’t a lot of music being played, and what music there was was barely louder than a whisper, thanks to the combination of quiet musicians, a large room and a crowd of noisy drunk people.   But even though there was very, very little in the way of musical inspiration, just seeing people with guitars up on stage made me want to grab mine as soon as I got home.  Unfortunately, that would be breaking the rules, so my guitar remains untouched, and will continue to be so until Friday.  Come Friday, however, I might well strum a few chords before I even think about putting a CD on.  It’s one thing being a music listener going without music, but a musician going without music is another kettle of fish entirely.

CDs sell, and everyone’s buying

Saturday night’s Amazon binge is beginning to show results. First through the letterbox this morning - the new ¡Forward, Russia! album, Life Processes. A record I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I like what I’ve heard from ¡Forward, Russia! in the past, and secondly, because it was recorded with Matt Bayles handling the production, the man who has produced some of the best heavy metal albums of all time by the likes of Botch, Isis and Mastodon. Exciting stuff.

Seeing as this is the first CD I’ve bought during the experiment, I was interested to see how I’d react when it came to seeing it but not being able to listen to it. And even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it on, I still went through the usual routine of ripping open the cellophane and looking at all the packaging, almost as if I was looking for clues as to what to expect when I do finally get to hear it.

By contrast, the other day I downloaded the latest free Nine Inch Nails album, The Slip, again, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to listen to it. But even though the download came with all the usual trimmings, admittedly in digital form, I felt absolutely no desire to look at the artwork in the same way as I did when Life Processes came through the post. I’d heard it said before, usually by friends, that this is the very reason that people still by CDs - you get the whole physical package, to do with as you please. It’s almost as if buying a CD is a “proper” experience, and for some reason downloading music, even legally, still doesn’t have the same magic.

I guess the music buying experience was just another one of those things I was taking for granted, having been buying CDs for as long as I can remember, and I just didn’t realise how ritualistic the whole process is, or how much the process of listening to music is as much a physical thing as it is psyochological.

A hollow victory

Earlier on today I finished all my radio work for the year.  Hooray!  Time for some celebratory music… I wish.  There are so many songs I could listen to at the moment, and I even feel like I could sit out in the garden, pint in hand, doing nothing but listening to some good ol’ summery music.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t have given it any thought, so maybe I was wrong - maybe there were times before when I did just sit down and put a CD on and I just didn’t realise it?  It makes me wonder if I really was taking music for granted, or whether I was in fact just unaware of how much I got out of it and how much I actually did listen properly.  Either way, I certainly won’t be taking anything for granted come Friday.

Broken

So, I gave in.  I can’t say why exactly, and I don’t think there was any one reason, just a build-up of something caused by not listening to music.  The strange thing is, even though I was only listening to one song, it somehow felt wrong, like I was doing something that I should be punished for.  It almost felt like I was one of the guys at the beginning of Equilibrium, like I was breaking the law just by doing something I enjoy (for those who are unaware or too lazy to click the link, Equilibrium is a film set in a world where art has been outlawed - no music, no films and, funnily enough, no visual art either).

Despite falling off the wagon, as it were, I am fully convinced that it was a one-off and that these last few days will remain music free for me.  And after allowing myself that one, 3-minute indulgence, I’m looking forward to the end of this experiment even more, because listening to that song reminded me that I really, really do love music, and I honestly think I’ve learnt to fully appreciate what I was in danger of taking for granted.

Oh dear…

After posting last night, I had a moment of madness.  I don’t know why, but I decided to torture myself by looking at CDs on Amazon.  And then buying some.  And then realising that I won’t be able to listen to them for another week.

Bollocks.