Spotify just notified me I could access my account, so I clicked on the link and was sent to the top 50 streamed songs of the day. Holy shit, what a bunch of crap. You couldn't tell one song apart from the next. I know now it's going to be a little hump to get over to get my music heard, based on the uniformity of the competition. It should just make it that much easier to climb to the top of the pile. It could just be that I'm so out of touch with popular culture I don't even know what's selling anymore. Time to accept what the gray hairs have been telling everyone else, I'm old.
I can remember as a child, my dad saying he hadn't been to the movies in eight years. I couldn't figure it out then, how you could let the world just slip away from you. But now I see that that isn't the world. Sure it informs popular culture but that's not thee same thing as culture. One day historians may look back upon a curated list of the biggest hits of the day and I know that 99.99% of the crap put out today won't be there. It doesn't matter what it is they're looking back at.
I used to collect records. I was such a good customer that I became good friends with my record dealer. I spun that to my advantage and would get great deals on records and eventually started working record shows with him. It was funny what people would collect. Rare records aren't good records. Most of the time the music is quite unlistenable. Too ahead of it's time perhaps, even by todays standards. But that's what makes them rare, and therefore valuable, too valuable to even listen to once it's purchased, aside from a test play to check for quality. If they survived the last 40 or 50 years though it was because they weren't worth listening to, and if they are rare it's because no one wanted to hear them then or there would be more copies. It's not often you find something old little known that's actually good. I got into lots of obscure bands, I hunted for little known vinyl and paid top dollar when I found it. I loved the weird and wonderful worlds for a while, but I couldn't stay there. It was a needed sonic experience but not a place I could stay.
In the end, before I left Canada, I sold the bulk of my collection back to my dealer, for about 10 cents on the dollar. I won't say how much I spent on records over time, it's like every other dollar thats come into my life, up in smoke. That's why we got two hands, one to give and one to recieve. If I had a dime for every ounce I've smoked I'd be a rich man. Anyone who says marijuana isn't addictive, hasn't spent 25 years as a chronic, it's as bad as vinyl. I'm just pursuing my musical addiction from the other end now, it's time to be the dealer. Seems like a natural progression. I used to sell drugs to suppport my habit why not sell the best drug of them all. Music. You know why its the best drug, cause it goes so well with all the others. You don't have to worry about fatal combinations unless you're on psychedelics listening to some heavy cello music or something, DMT and the Beastie Boys, mushrooms and Santana. It's pretty easy to press stop if you don't want to go down the rabbit hole, but sometimes you need to go to that place to come out the other side. And hear I am.