“No solutions built to last
Just your petty scores to settle fast
The N.M.E meant nothing to you
And the Maker, well the maker of who?
Your walkman generation
In search of sweet sedation
While forests choke under a ‘lever sky
And the Exxon birds will never fly”
From “100 Years of Solitude” by The Levellers.
I came across this quote in the book I am presently reading.
“Music carries immeasurable commercial clout and export potential, but for a more objective overview it’s clearer to treat it, as publishing houses do, as a special interest or hobby, no different from trout fishing, canary breeding or period homes. As such, the NME and its subsequent glossy spin-offs, Smash Hits, Q, Mojo, Word,et al., are specialist publications, there not to serve record buyers, but record enthusiasts.
The fact that pop music provides a culture that permeates every corner of our lives and lifestyles, defines generations and soundtracks revolutions, should not distract from the fact that reading about rock is a big step on from listening to it. You can like pop music; you can love pop music; and you can join the vast, paying consensus who send singles and albums up and down the charts every weekend, without once being moved to pick up and read a weekly music paper. Those who do, and do so like addicts after a regular fix, are the anal retentives, the list-makers, the trainspotters, the chart-memorisers, the vinyl junkies, the fanclub-joiners, the catalogue completists, the record collectors, the indie saddoes…a publisher’s dream. And there are an awful lot of them about. Some of them form bands and become famous. Some of them get jobs in record companies or at the publications themselves. Others grow out of it. But there is an elementary distinction that separates the Billys and the Wiggys from the rest of the population: you either listen to music, or else you read the sleeve while you’re listening to it”
Which are you?
Has it shaped your world view?
The State That I Am In 