I found this article incredibly refreshing as it speaks to the positives of being into new and unfamiliar music. I say that because so often what I encounter online (as well as in person) is that so many strongly adhere to the notion that nothing will ever surpass music from the past. Of course, I also see this applied to other forms of media as well, especially from people of my generation (I was born in 1962).
On Facebook I will often post albums I’m listening to for the first time, old and new. The old ones almost always raise eyebrows because so many find it hard to believe that I’ve never heard them. As a kid I didn’t have an unlimited budget or access to anything like the streaming platforms we have at our fingertips today. Whether anyone wants to acknowledge it or not, we all have musical blind spots. I love music and have listened to it voraciously since I was a kid. Despite this, I will go to my grave never having heard tons of music I long to listen to.
Me neither, as a kid I used to sit in my dad’s car with the radio on & tape songs onto a cassette player, until I was able to buy records. I was born in1959. I’m sure there is a lot of great records from the past I haven’t discovered yet, and also great new music still to be heard.
Believe it or not, I never made a mixtape of songs off the radio as I seldom recorded single songs. What I did instead was record entire programs such as concerts or specials. A while back, I posted that I was listening to a Johnny Winter album (Saints & SInners) for the first time, or at least the first time in a long time (several decades) and someone that was friends with my oldest brother said I’d lived “a sheltered musical life.” There’s a lot of things I’ve done (and not done) but one of them is not leading a sheltered musical life. All that told me is that person doesn’t know me very well or at all.
Despite seeing Pet Sounds top many Greatest Albums of all Time lists, I never listened to it until I joined the alt.country-centric and locally based Guitartown email list in 1999. I listened to it multiple times before I feel like I really got it. Even then, it’s not an album I’d put in my Top 10 favorites of all time or 50 or 100. I don’t dislike it and recognize why it’s so well thought of but it’s not an album i’ve lived with in the same way others that would make that list. And Pet Sounds is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many more I’ve never heard and likely, never will. Not because I don’t want to but because there are only so many hours in the days. Also, as much as I love music I don’t spend every waking hour listening to it. I’m also a pretty big fan of silence. I also don’t look at music listening as a task. When it starts to feel like a homework assignment, that takes the joy out of it for me.
Well I’ve never listened to “Pet Sounds” in its entirety, I’m only familiar with a couple of songs from the album.