Alright, valid points...centurymantra wrote:The one thing that always gets me when I read through threads like this is the multitude of "I can't think of five good albums that were released this year" types of responses.
I've been a lifelong hardcore music geek that is always actively digging into what's happening. In spite of the fact that I can feel this waning a bit as I get a bit older with some changing tastes, I still am overwhelmed by the amount of music that is out there. Folks that don't find music they like are simply not looking or bogged down in apathy as far as I'm concerned. Or, given we're on a recording forum, perhaps they're simply too abosrbed with making their own music...which is cool. You skip past the commercial stuff and the higher profile semi-indie stuff (Wilco, Spoon, Decemberists, etc.) and there's massive amounts of musical activity. It doesn't even take that much effort to dig into what's out there with the land of the world wide web at hand. Just go to some sites like Aquarius Records, Forced Exposure, Dusty Groove, maybe even Parasol for indy stuff and browse through their new release archives. The fact is there's thousands of interesting recordings being released. Yeah, not everything is going to be to one's taste, but still...
So...I'm just going to say that I can't put together a list cuz there's simply too MUCH...Shit, I've found five great records of 2007 in the last few weeks!
From my point of view, I'm basically sick of being constantly inundated with music (and noise trying to pass as music) every second of every day in everything I do. So I deliberately go out of my way to avoid hearing music to try to gain an objective contrast to the constant stream of musical crap that fills everything from movies to TV news to shopping malls to FEMA disaster announcements.
The other thing I do is to only listen to specific sources of music, which generally do not include labels.... (Sorry, old time rock heros that are still out there, if you want my ear, sell your CDs direct through the internet, it's the only way it'll ever reach me. I'm all done feeding the leeches at your label...)
So, you are absolutely right, I am NOT looking; there IS a huge amount of great music out there, far more than I'll ever live to hear (approx. 100 albums per day were being released 3 years ago; I'd be willing to bet the number is MUCH higher now.... I'd also bet that of the 100 each day, 2 or 3 are maybe worth hearing.)
Like anything, in general the good stuff will rise to the top. Why should I be out dumpster diving for diamonds when I can just wait for the good stuff to surface? Well, there are actually good reasons for not doing that - - the most important being that it allows other people to decide what you get to hear.
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OUTDOOR VOYEUR