Back again!
Was just listening to a new (to me) favorite group – Muse – ‘hard’ rock but not ‘heavy,’ and fun.
Why? Because I’d envied Deb, who listens to KNLR (the local Christian station) and that her car radio told her which artist/song was playing.
Only recently did 101.7 (the Adult Alternative;-) start suddenly showing me that on my car radio! Now I can go to wonderful Spotify and find the artist that sounded so good. Like Muse.
Then I go to Reddit and see if the group has a subreddit community there.
On Reddit, I use my real name – very rare indeed, because I’m bad at anonymity and would get myself in trouble and “out’ myself on a regular basis.
My point – and I do have one (thanks Ellen!) is that if I didn’t use my real name, I’d probably use the user name “Addicted to New.” Because I am.
Another left-turn here, hang on: I can go nuts when I go to the store and any yogurt – a DAIRY PRODUCT – is days beyond the expiration date. They are probably good, and there are 1,000s of little cups for the poor supermarket to try to track, but … off the shelves!
Then when I DO take home my all-good yogurt, with different flavors of roughly equal enjoyment, I organize them in the shelf to be eaten in the order of their sell-by date, oldest to newest.
A bit anal-retentive? Hey, we all are creatures of habit in some way.
And similarly to music – when I get into, say, a 20-year-old artist like Muse, I usually do so through the “front door” – their most recent album. Same with Monkey House, State Cows, Panic at the Disco! – trust me on the first two, they are great – and find I love their most recent stuff, and am less interested in digging into the back catalog.
So then I go to Spotify, and the music communities there are fun-ly predictable) not frustratingly because it’s a sure sign of human nature in digital form – folks who have been into a group for years or decades debate so many things, one being when the group or artist “peaked” and how crappy their later stuff was. Or uneven, etc.
I don’t enjoy the not-latest newspaper, magazine, blog post etc. except as an historical dive. I love what’s fresh, what’s new, and what’s coming (new Monkey House album in July, can’t wait! Single “Shotgun” is super, check them out!)
Maybe it ties back to the fact that I ride the tide of the daily news (or it rides me). So now is what’s fun. Then, back then, even way back then – not so much. Sure, the whole biological thirst/quest for “new stimuli” may be part of it. At the same time, looking back at Facebook posts or memorabilia from 5, 10, 20 or more years ago makes me very wistful, even melancholy and a touch depressed. Ah, we were all so much younger then.
But the new! It’s fun to check out what’s fresh. Be it the least-stale yogurt, music that’s new (or new to me!) or my car telling me who I’m listening to.
Leave it to Barney 