I've probably mentioned it before, but I find it tough to buy CDs. I'm usually pretty short for cash, and I tend to buy everything second hand on ebay, but I still have to be really selective in what I pick up. I hate to feel like I'm wasting any money on non-essential things like music or games or whatever, because money isn't exactly abundant...
I get frustrated trying to pick CDs, because it's so hard to find anything that really grabs me - something really outstandingly different or inspired or inspiring or even just really impressively talented. I listen to the radio most days, and while I love the variety of music, there's just so little that I'd ever actually buy and listen to again once I got bored of hearing it on the radio. Sure, the Kaiser Chiefs are pretty good, and the lyrics are quite smart, but is the music really any more impressive than anything I've heard before? Yes, Flourescent Adolescent by the Arctic Monkeys is a great single now that you mention it, but I don't care about the rest of their work because it all just sounds deliberately grimy and underproduced, and apart from the drumming they don't sound wonderfully talented - more like they were just in the right place at the right time. Hey There Delilah by the Plain White Tees is a beautiful acoustic number, but wouldn't I be better just buying a Simon & Garfunkel best of? Hell, even that Kate Nash single is pretty catchy, but I hate Lily Allen so that probably wouldn't work out too well. There's even the odd dance track here and there that's good, but I can't listen to an album of that, God help me.
The only band that's really grabbed me of late are The White Stripes, and that's probably only because it's the first time I've been exposed to any blues music. Even then, though, I'll probably just buy up their back catalogue and won't venture further than that.
So, in a bid to widen my horizons, I turned to... Amazon. Perhaps their recommendations would be able to inspire me? So I sat and browsed the list, let it know I already owned a few things it was suggesting, and then had a look at what remained...
Well, as I like Electric Light Orchestra, I'm apparently supposed to want to buy something by Wizzard or Prefab Sprout. Hmm. This is not off to a flying start...
Ooh, here we go, something that got recommended because I like Belle & Sebastian, that might work. Oh, it's Isobel Campbell's solo album after she quit the band due to breaking up with the lead singer. Sorry, no sale, I don't think that's going to work. There's a slew of other bands from Glasgow, but again I'm not sure that's the best criteria on which to suggest CDs.
Ugh... Oasis albums, recommended because I like Blur. As someone who was around at the time, this seems quite ironic.
Pantera, because I like Rage Against The Machine; Keane and Kasabian because I like Muse; endless Ben Folds records; Enya records because I bought my dad one of her albums as a present years ago... It's probably just a mercy that Amazon doesn't know I like Green Day and Blink 182 or I'd be wading through NOFX albums and other "real" punk that I'm really not into. This isn't working for me.
Sure, a couple of albums turn up that I might look into, but there's far more that I definitely am not interested in.
It all seems to be borne out of people buying 3 albums that happened to be released in the same week, and people like me buying up a bands entire back catalogue such that everyone else is expected to own all their records on the basis that they bought one 10 years ago.
In the end I got fed up and bought a Kanye West album. Rap music. Not exactly home territory - certainly something different. And sure, the albums got some good singles and a couple of other good bits on there, and he's very talented in his field, but it's just not something I can access terribly easily. The swearing that I can handle on a Green Day record bugs me here, and every other word seems to be nigger, which will probably always be a bit weird for my white ears to listen to.
Time to crawl back to another damn guitar band...
