Hindustan Times
A Matter Of Taste
Jazz legend Duke Ellington, who’s credited with many interesting quotes on jazz, blues and music critics is believed to have once said: “There are two kinds of music. Good music and the other kind.” But what’s good and what’s the other kind is entirely a matter of individual taste. Mentioning Ellington’s quote, a recent article in Uncut magazine said perhaps The Beatles are one those rare bands on whom there is a consensus. Everybody thinks The Beatles made great music.
Come to think of it, when I used to blast music as a teenager living with my parents, the only band that my parents didn’t object to was The Beatles. Indeed, my mother, who turned 80 this year, once confessed to me back in the nineteen-seventies that she found Paul McCartney (as he looked on the covers of many of the band’s LPs) “cute”. I remember trying to get her to check out Mick Jagger, my then favourite rockstar but the response wasn’t encouraging.
It’s not easy to find people who like all the music that you like. I get quite a few responses to this column that border on the hostile. I’ve had one or two readers who have even said I write about “noise” and not “music”. But then, I’m sure even Ellington would have agreed that one man’s noise can be another’s music.
It may be rare to come across people whose tastes in music mirror yours but just think of it in another way: how boring would it be if you constantly encountered people whose playlists are exactly like yours? That’s one reason why I constantly experiment with other people’s music selections. It’s one of the best ways of discovering new music. I mentioned Uncut, the UK music magazine at the beginning of this column. With each month’s issue, Uncut gives out a complimentary CD of compiled music, which is like a treasure trove if you’re into discovering new bands.
Very often Uncut’s free CD is related to the magazine’s theme. Songs that inspired the Rolling Stones could be one; a famous musician’s picks could be another. Usually, the music on the CD has something to do with the cover story of the magazine. This month, which marked the 150th issue of the magazine, Uncut has a feature on the magazine’s list of the 150 best albums of the decade. And the accompanying CD has 15 tracks from Uncut’s 150 albums of the year. Fifteen tracks from 150 albums can’t be representative, unless Uncut decides to have sequels with forthcoming issues, but what struck me was how the CD helped me discover music that had slipped by me over the past several years.
I’d never heard the band Lift To Experience so the track from their album The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads was a real surprise. I learnt that the band are a trio (not sure whether they’re still around) from Texas. Their music reminded me a bit of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, who died from drowning when he was just 30. Lift To Experience’s song Just As Was Told reminded me of Buckley’s dark, emotional and bittersweet album, Grace, which came out in 1994.
The Uncut CD had a song from Ryan Adam’s Heartbreaker album (2000), which was not bad. I’m no great fan of the prolific Adams who seems to churn out albums at a frenetic pace. But there were tracks that really made the grade, such as Okkervil River’s excellent Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe from 2007’s The Stage Names; The Felice Brothers’ Don’t Wake The Scarecrow from their eponymous album that came out last year; The Hold Steady’s brilliant First Night off their 2006 album Boys And Girls In America; and Drive-By Truckers’ lovely jam-heavy Lookout Mountain from The Dirty South (2004).
As well as these, there were tracks from others—bands such as Wilco, Calexico and the Willard Grant Conspiracy and singer-songwriters like Richard Thompson and Robert Wyatt. The last two I’d not really heard much—a track here and there. Thompson, a British singer-songwriter, is a former member of the legendary folk-rock band, Fairport Convention, and has a body of music that spans nearly five decades. And Wyatt, a founder member of the influential Soft Machine, is also British and one of the pioneers of progressive and fusion genres in rock. Thompson is 60 and Wyatt 64 (and confined to a wheelchair); both are still active, recording and releasing new music. I have Wyatt’s Comicopera, released in 2007, which demonstrates that you don’t have to be a spring chicken to be hip and edgy. It’s not often that you get a playlist that’s so engaging that you’d be hard put trying to re-organise it. Uncut’s free CD this time is like that.
Download PDF
Listen to ‘virtual’ tracks:
- Duke Ellington - ‘Satin Doll’
- Mick Jagger - ‘Evening Gown’
- The Rolling Stones- ‘Sympathy For The Devil’
- Lift To Experience - ‘Falling from cloud 9′
(5 votes, average: 3.2 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Sanjoy Narayan on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Filed under Download Central · Tagged bittersweet, Boys And Girls In America, Buckley’s dark, CD, complimentary CD, Download Central, Duke Ellington, Ellington, Fairport Convention, favourite rockstar, Good music, Grace, Jazz legend, Jeff Buckley, McCartney, Mick Jagger, new music, Rolling Stones, Ryan Adam, Soft Machine, The Beatles, The Dirty South, The Texas-Jerusalem, Uncut magazine, Wyatt
I seem to recall the Rolling Stones and Beatles churning out albums at a frenetic pace too, and not all of them were masterpieces but nobody muttered oh if only they weren’t so prolific. Heartbreaker is for some reason the Ryan Adams album that critics decided to promote but it’s not his best. Love Is Hell and Cold Roses are both masterpieces, and all of his albums have something worthwhile on them.
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Sanjoy Narayan Reply:
October 25th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Sure they do. I have both– Love is Hell and Cold Roses. Nice. But great? Perhaps not.
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Great post. You’re so right, it’s all a matter of taste at the end of it. But what really ticks me off is when people say things like “how can you listen to that ****!” Get a life is what I tell them. If you don’t like it then, just say so. No need to rubbish the music or the person who listens to it. And these are usually the people who think ‘Pappu can’t dance saala’ is the best song of the year. Enough said.
Have been introduced to some interesting bands and music via your blog. Enjoyed some and did not enjoy some (maybe a few more listens will help). Keep it coming.
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Sanjoy Narayan Reply:
October 25th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Thank you for your comment. Yes, it is indeed a matter of taste. I get flak all the time for the music I rave about.
Don’t really care. Let people get their jollies from whatever does it for them.
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Awesome post! I love checking out the new music you keep unearthing.. Again, dont find all of it to my taste, but like you said, life would be really boring if we all liked the same stuff!
I didnt know about Jeff Buckley before and now, I’m gonna start looking for his music.
Keep up the good work. I’m glad I have one more thing to look forward to on Sundays now.
Thank you for that. 
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Buckley’s music certainly needs more discovery, for the sheer inspiration he’s had on modern day bands. Radiohead may have been his peers but I can hear shades of Buckley in them. Others would include Coldplay, Starsailor, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright, maybe Badly Drawn Boy. His other CD, Sketches from My Sweetheart The Drunk ( a collection of outtakes from the unreleased album) was just super. His death was music’s loss
I really like the sound of ‘Lift To Experience’…thanks for sharing that.
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Sanjoy Narayan Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Thank you for your mail. Agree with you about Buckley. Big loss.
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You had it coming, man. I told you long ago, you were playing with fire. Diddling the real music world to the general public.
I stumbled upon Uncut some years ago. Quite high on that year end list were Belle & Sebastian’s Boy with the Arab Strap and Air’s Moon Safari. I still can’t understand their obsession with Ryan Adams though. That apart, their lists throw up very interesting new bands. Usually before other people have caught on. Somewhat like John Peel.
These lists usually have a selector’s bias but I almost always find a few quirky ‘exceptions’. There’s also the racial prejudice bit. Chuck D’s list had no white band on it. Lists usually map the lister’s mind more than anything else.
There’s an interesting list brought out by Wire magazine many years ago, called the 100 Albums that ’set the world on fire’, when no one was listening.
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Sanjoy Narayan Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Hey. thanks for the mail. I’d love to check out the old Wire mag’s list of 100. Is it online?
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