[BlueNote]

Is straight spelled differently in Canada?

[Borve Baunehoj]

[Yourselfisntsteam]

[hairymarx1]

I think Yourselfisn'tsteam makes some very valid and important points. Originality and innovation are to my mind an integral aspect of my appreciation of music. It's not the only criteria but I would say it's the main one - it's my ultimate benchmark.

However, I accept music appreciation is largely subjective and we all have our different ideas as to what makes great art, which is a good and healthy thing. After all, it would be boring if we all thought along the same lines.

For me when I hear other artists blatantly plagarize and/or cynically utilize influences of other artists in a kind of 'painting by numbers fashion', I don't regard it as great art. The question is recognizing when this is done which is often a value judgement.

In my opinion, Psychocandy and Screamedelica are albums that immedietely come to mind, but of course there are many others. This is not to say that these factors are not my only criteria. I mean just because something is original in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean it's any good. On the contrary its often crap.

However, when something comes together in a way that's original, innovative and simultaneously brilliant (eg, Yourself Is Steam), its often an epiphenal experience and long may it continue. Y's was probably the most recent album to fall into this category but I would say that this also applies to the vast majority of albums in my 100 list.

I'm finding that as I'm getting older I'm becoming more critical and less tolerant of the material artists produce than I would of done a decade ago. I think my tastes more generally have shifted over time and I think this happens with most people.

Nowadays I seem to be increasingly less inclined to be pleasantly surprised by the quality of what I hear by new and upcoming artists. To my ears, most of the new stuff I hear is banal and derivative at best and incompetent or plain awful at worst.

If I've heard something I've already heard a million times before I have no intention of listening to it again. But that comes with increasing knowledge as well as many years of experience of hearing thousands of artists.

Nothing can compare to the first time I heard Captain Beefheart in about 1975 or 1976. I was 13 or 14 years of age. I immedietly realized that my hitherto musical universe had been shaken to its foundations and nothing would ever be quite the same again.

Will I ever get a similar feeling about an artist again? I'd love to think so. Indeed, I live in hope for that moment. It's the reason why I love rock music so much - that possible next surprise potentially waiting on the horizon.