‘Tis the season of exam-like anxiety then frayed tempers, and finally a combination of barely concealed list envy and/or shameless snobbery. That is if you are not just a mere music fan but a certifiable music obsessive.
From around mid-November you start looking out for the first music year-end lists. Up until mid-December, the bulk of them stream in — featuring the bland played-on-Highveld commercial to the way out, spoken-about-in-whispers obscure, and everything in between.
This is when the anxiety sets in — especially if you want to draw up your own list to impress your friends with your superior music taste and knowledge. Have you heard it all?
Did you listen to Tom Waits’ new album enough to make a proper judgment? Why is Drake included on more hipsters’ lists than the new Kanye West and can you therefore admit you like it in a non-ironic way? What happened in dancehall, world music and jazz (remembering that the more eclectic you are, the further below zero cool you are)? And how about sub-genres like hypnagogic pop, micro-house, post-dubstep, Chicago juke, kuduro, sludge metal and reissues of Nigerian funk, cumbia, raw gospel, Krautrock, Ethiopian jazz, leftfield soul and so on? Oh, and local music? You certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of being unpatriotic or not “street” enough!
So it is exactly like an exam — if you were a good and cutting edge student/connoisseur of popular music you would be able to favourably compare your own list with other authoritative year-end lists and decide if you’ve passed.
You can of course play catch-up to fill glaring and potentially embarrassing gaps to avoid exposing that — horror! — you haven’t been paying enough attention over the past year.
Last Saturday I realised I NEEDED the Miles Davis Quintet’s “Live In Europe 1967 — The Bootleg Series Vol 1” box set after some lists trawling. While it was recorded 44 years ago, it still qualifies for a best of list of new records because it was released for the first time in 2011. I’ve been buying most of my music online for the past five years, but I make exceptions when it comes to deities like Miles where I want the CD (as back-up I knew the seriously good Look & Listen website had it). In this case the album features the truly iconic quintet of Miles, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams.
So onto the music retailers because I had to have it then — music obsessives are big on instant gratification so online wasn’t an option.
The guy who answered the phone at Look & Listen in Hyde Park, Jo’burg was friendly and informed. They didn’t have it in stock and he offered to check if their other branches had it — unfortunately also out of stock.
I then called Musica’s “Megastore” in Rosebank. This is where the anxiety became a big guy music obsessive’s tantrum.
I had to spell “Miles Davis” for the person who answered — she sounded all of 10 years old, maybe 11. “No, we don’t have Niles Davids,” she said.
I was feeling the blood pressure increasing. I spelt it again.
She didn’t bother putting her hand over the receiver as she yelled to a colleague: “Have you heard of someone called Miles Davis?”
I held. And held. “No, we don’t can you spell that again?”
The fact that I didn’t swear was a miracle. This was Miles, one of the 20th century’s greats, not an obscure artist like CM Von Hausswolff, Oneohtrix Point Never or Open Mike Eagle (who incidentally, all released excellent albums this year). I am not surprised that CD stores like theirs are in trouble — the sheer ignorance, incompetence and complete lack of knowledge was staggering.
It made me long for proper record stores like Street Records in Braamfontein and Hillbrow Records, where the shop assistants had as much passion and more knowledge than you, unlike these latter-day slack-jawed specials who will be as “effective” in the KFC down the road.
There is a lovely little shop in the Killarney Mall in Jo’burg called High Fidelity. I then went in there and, importantly, the guys looked the part: like music store geeks, with black faded music T-shirts, appropriate facial hair, and neon light tans … Secondly they immediately knew about the album, but sadly didn’t have it in store. Problem they said lies squarely with the record company Sony — not bothering to get it into their store, where the guys actually knew and wanted it. They’re also not bothering to get the latest ECM (the famous 42-year-old European jazz and art music label) stuff in anymore, the High Fidelity boys told me.
At least first step of the yearend musical madness has become a lot easier — a website called http://yearendlists.com has now compiled all the best of lists with links through to most of the magazines and blogs.
As they say in their blurb: “All in one place: notable lists of the best music, movies, and books of 2011. End-of-year lists are fingerprints; aggregate statistics are smudges. Therefore, no tallies.”
This is where you can indulge in that combination of barely concealed list-envy and/or shameless snobbery.
My ultimate annual mark-sheet of whether I cracked it is the British magazine, the Wire‘s top 50. It is there for your scrutiny in yearendlists.com – the envy is in seeing how this magazine lives up to its motto “adventures in sound“.
The snobbery kicks in when you count the number of albums you own and appreciate that appear on this list. However, the best part of the Wire is the discovery of adventurous music, like their album of 2011, the glistening, uplifting “Far Side Virtual” by James Ferraro or at No. 2, Rustie’s kaleidoscopic electro, “Glass Swords”, and the surprises of veterans like the Beach Boys at No. 5 with “The SMiLE Sessions”, or Lou Reed & Metallica with “Lulu” at No 9.
The yearendlists.com site allows you to further indulge your superiority of a different kind — on the other end of the scale, where the naffest of dad-rock lives, you can look down upon Q magazine’s yawn-inducing list, where uninspiring albums like Adele’s “21”, Bon Iver’s self-titled and Coldplay’s “Mylo Xyloto” cracked their top 10. In between these opposite poles, there is a lot to stimulate obsessives, and normal fans alike.
‘Tis the season to listen widely.
Leonard is the Mail & Guardian’s news editor. He is also a full-time music obsessive.