Just recently I’ve decided to ply through my music library and develop a master playlist. I took about four and a half thousand songs, and turned them into a 300 song playlist of tunes I am never dissapointed to hear. This is a big move for me because I’ve never been an avid playlist craftsman. I blame the hipster in me, (or the old-timer, who’s to say?) but I’ve always preferred to admire music an album at a time. I’ve taken a couple shots at playlists, but mostly out of necessity— for a while now I’ve had a bedtime playlist, and I used to shuffle jazz and house music when I studied. For the longest time, if I wanted to hear the Killers I had better be prepared to hear all of Hot Fuss.
I spend a lot of time listening to music with my close friend Weston. Like a number of other friends, he always seems to be up-to-minute with his music and it astounds me; where do these people find the time to listen to all this new music? Putting that mystery on the backburner, he’s always managed to keep a good grasp of his older tunes as well. Having known the kid for so long, we’ve developed similar tastes in music. Seeing each other through the tumults of highschool, naturally our ipods are stuffed with songs that would inspire a drunken chorus in any sordid kitchen these two are getting along in. This summer we spent a lot of time being young out at his apartment, and I learned the merits of shuffle. What fun to have a robot DJ spinning all the old discs I know and love!
In this spirit, I got to shuffling through my own music this winter. While the novelty remained, I hit a couple snags in my endeavor for shuffle magic. First, and most embarassingly, I discovered a lot of chill tracks I didn’t know I had; my library is plagued with whole albums that are lucky to have one full play-through. This is to blame of course on my habit for the art form of the album, but I also have it where a friend suggests a band to me and I go ahead and download a whole discography with bittorrent. I love getting my music for free, and I’m all about having every track and b-side that Franz Ferdinand has ever put out, but to this day I’ve still got 9 hours of ICP just chillin’ on my harddrive— When did I decide I was down with the clown? And why on earth did I need SO MUCH OF IT? ‘:/ At any rate, the point manifests: while I have a lot of good music, the task is upon me to quest my way through my tunes, album by mysterious album. That’s what I’ve been doing too, hacking away at these indie groups that I’m supposed to have heard of. It’s slow going, and almost frustrating.
After gleaning through the whole lot of it over the course of a couple days, I’ve finally arrived at my golden chalice of beloved white-boy-bangers. What an impression it’s made already; I’m getting a lot of writing done with a steady, comfortable shuffled stream of familiar music. Not to mention that I’ve been listening to a lot of radio lately— singles get lost in a sea of records, but now they just crop up in between The Vines and The Strokes. What got me thinking to write about all this though were the selections I made from Bob Dylan. This year my poetry professor inspired me to dive into Bob Dylan, and I went sprinting headlong only to realize that the guy wrote a lot of songs… and they’re pretty long, dammit! I set after the quest anyway, like any good minnesotan poet would. Slowly but surely I made my way, except it was a battle. I don’t want dylan to be something I loathe because I tried to study him. With my playlist however, it’s been neat to discover the gems that creep up on me. Listening through the Basement Tapes, the screeching harmonica starts getting old a few tracks in, and the art bleeds together.
Just a moment ago, I do believe I heard Highway 61 Revisited for the first time. The epiphany was significant enough to try my hand at public prose.
