A friend once saw my CD collection and told me I was insane. Crazy? If you mean crazy about music, fine then - I'll own it. At the time my collection had tons of stuff that wasn't for everyone - hell, some of it may not have been for anyone, including me. There was a lot of stuff that I read about in interviews with various & sundry musicians - most of them drummers. I happened upon a lot of this stuff in cut-out bins and used sections of independent record stores, so a lot of it was mine for pennies on the dollar, but Holy God did it take up space.
The herd has been thinned quite a bit since those days...but it's still a heard (see what I did there?) that is constantly growing, albeit in the hyper-convenient MP3 format. Honestly I can't remember the last time I was in a record store - which is a bit sad, but when you love music as much as I do, it's a bit like an alcoholic in a liquor store...might not be the best idea.
One way or another, I couldn't stop my addiction for music if I wanted to - and I don't want to. Do I like music too much? There's no such thing in my world. Too much? Pfffft. Ninja, please. Music is perfect. Perfect in its flaws. Perfect in its normality. Perfect in its perfection. Just fucking perfect period.
It's the air that a creative soul such as mine needs to breathe in. Air that needs to surround me, no matter what I may be doing, aside from sleeping - and then all bets are off. The very notion of liking music too much just doesn't seem possible to me. On any given day, indeed on every given day, it's any and all of the following: soothing, motivating, comforting, mood altering, life changing, inspiring, wonderful, necessary, mine to keep, mine to share - it's everything good.
It's interesting for numerous reasons: the arrangements, the lyrics, the individual instruments, the musicians (duh), the hooks, the flow, the message or maybe even a lack thereof...any of these things will lure me in, stop me in my tracks and keep me coming back for more. The longer the journey goes on, an altered Raymond Chandler quote fits perfectly:
There is no bad music. There is only some music that isn't as good as others.
Chandler's quote was actually about whiskey, but I don't wanna talk about booze - though music can be quite intoxicating - and with better side effects. Two other authors are the inspiration for this post - Nick Hornby and Chuck Klosterman. In his wonderful book, Songbook, Hornby makes mention that one's collection won't suffice just as it exists - it will need to grow at some point. Yes. Hell yes.
In Klosterman's Fargo Rock City, there's a chapter that I kind of take issue with - mind you that doesn't really matter. Klosterman writes about anything in ways so wonderfully interesting and funny...and brilliantly, that it's okay for me not to agree with him on some points. Doesn't make him any less of one of my favorite authors - not by a long shot. Klosterman makes points about rock writers liking music too much, to the point of idiocy, and the overwhelming majority of what they hear being wretched.
Again, he does so brilliantly - and I get what he's saying here, it's just that I can disagree with sentiments like this because the overwhelming majority of what I hear is fucking awesome. It's fucking wonderful each and every fucking time I'm in the mood for it, and this is fucking why I love music so much, maybe even too much - but that's if you ask someone other than me. Me, well...I just don't think it's possible for me to like music too much, and I love the overwhelming majority of what I choose to hear, which thankfully, is a large list that keeps getting things added to it rather than subtracted from it. Peace, good people.
