The scary sound-world
Thurston Moore | Off! | Henry Rollins
This begins with an appropriately scary story. In fact it’s a Hallowe’en tale to put the frighteners onto all but the most hardened music fan.
“There’s no good music anymore.”
That’s it.
A casual comment made by a sales manager at a magazine I used to work at, who then made it even worse by adding: “Except Coldplay.”
The erstwhile indie band had then just entered the mainstream with A Rush of Blood to the Head, which just goes to show how long I’ve been haunted by his awful words.
Even before the embarrassment of riches that streaming provides, before the mp3 blogs hipped you some of the cool sounds way before they hit the radio, there has always been great new music.
Sometimes you’d stick, doggedly to a genre too long and then wonder where all the good new shoegaze/grunge/alt rock/Brit pop/whatever had gone, but then you’d realise that music changes, sounds evolve, new genres emerge, and the idea of great music stays the same.
Continuing to live rent free inside my head, I thought of the ‘no good music’ comment twice last week, but more about the second time later.
The first was when reading an interview with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.
You might just have noticed one of these recently as his book, Sonic Life*, is now out.
Here’s what he told The Guardian:
“There’s always incredible music being made, from avant-garde jazz and rock to punk. Everybody’s in the pool, swimming around. That’s always going to be happening. Nothing is dying.”
The purity of this is the perfect rebuttal to anyone who’s under the misapprehension of ‘no good music’.
At this point I should probably share some great music from this year. But I’ve not finished mulling over my favourite records of 2023 for a longer issue of Fire Red Sky in a couple of months.
Instead, here’s some great music that came up last year.
First up, my top five records as they appeared in the December issue of Vive Le Rock:
OFF! – Free LSD
Linda Lindas – Growing Up
Frank Turner – FTHC
Big Joanie – Back Home
Snuff - Crepuscolo dorato…
And, now that I’m not confined to picking just five, here’s five more great albums from last year:
Riverby – Absolution
Cancer Bats – Psychic Jailbreak
Suede – Autofiction
Ultrabomb – Time to Burn
Loop - Sonancy
But even narrowing the list down to just 10 albums from 2022 isn’t easy and my long list for this year’s looking just as close.
I’m reading Henry Rollins’ Smile, You're Travelling at the moment and happened on the following passage that just about sums things up for me (if not for the ignorant sales manager):
"I have to raise the amount of new music I listen to every day. There's so much good stuff out there, I want to at least put a dent in it before I die."
Words to live by.
* Thurston Moore on hanging out with Kurt and Courtney – and a wild night at Chateau Marmont