How to Tell When You Have a Serious Problem
Something strange happened to me this morning. Driving around listening to the radio, not once, but twice within a couple of hours, I found myself saying, "Wow, this song is awesome…Who sings this?…I should check this out…Wait, wait, I've heard this before…Oh yeah, I already have this album…"* Now this means one of two things. Either:
A) I'm an idiot. I try to avoid coming to this conclusion whenever possible, so I prefer…
2) My music "habit"** is out of control.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a self-acknowledged "consumer" as my friend Joel will gladly tell you. Hi, my name is Jim and I like to buy shit. Among the things I am most wont to consume is music. I am overly proud of my cd collection (I broke the 400 mark a couple weeks ago. Some of you may be impressed, some of you may yawn, whatever.) This in and of itself isn't so much the problem, but when you claim to be as into music as I do it really shouldn't take two minutes of listening to a song on the radio to realize that not only do you know it, but that it's a part of your permanent collection.
This wasn't always the case. I used to buy a cd, listen to it until anyone within earshot wanted to vomit/cram the cd in question up my ass and around the corner…sideways (ouch!). By the end of a week, I'd have a pretty good handle on it. Needless to say, I'd be able to recognize it instantly on the radio and "sing" along.
A couple of years ago two things happened that changed all that. I A) started having a consistent income and B) joined BMG (I'll give that a legitimate endorsement some other time, it's well worth its own post). This meant that I was buying cds in bulk, two, three, four or more at a time. This meant that I wasn't able to focus the attention on one cd solid and they would end up on the shelf before I got a chance to intimately acquaint myself with them. (It's also a rough way to operate now that I'm sans income. Old habits die hard.) Also contributing to the problem is my love affair with the Shuffle Songs feature on my iPod and obsession with singing along whenever possible, causing me to skip songs I don't know in favor of ones to which I can wail along. At any rate, that's how I end up not recognizing songs I should really be familiar with.
That or I'm an idiot, your choice.
*The songs in question: Chicago off Sufjan Steven's Illinois album, subtitled-brilliantly-as Come on and Feel the Illinoise and Shine off the album with the same name by Trey Anastasio. Both excellent, consider them "JM Endorsed".
**By habit I mean habit as in "coke habit" rather than say a monk's garment or cracking your knuckles.
Post script: On another, vaguely related note, I can't recognize songs off cds I own, but somehow this also happened this morning. I walked in the door and Romancing the Stone was on the tv. I have never seen this movie. I'm not talking, oh, I've never watched it all the way through or, I've only seen bits and pieces or, I saw a couple minutes, but it was lame so I switched. I mean I have never seen this movie. I couldn't tell you a single plot point. Yet somehow, within ten seconds I was able to identify it. I think my brain needs a defrag or something.
Andy said,
March 31, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Sufjan Stevens is everyone’s friend. I prefer the Michigan Album, of course, but that’s just me. I also haven’t heard the Illinoise on yet. And I did the same thing once with the movie Beaches, although your example is probably much more hetero.
Dawn said,
April 14, 2006 at 9:23 pm
“My brain needs a defrag.”
I feel like I should give you large amounts of crap for publicly saying something so severly nerdy… except… that’s totally something I would say. If I haven’t already.