Over the winter break, I bought a book that analyses Elvis Costello's classic album, Armed Forces. I got about fifteen pages into the book when I realized that I would have to listen to the album again before I read the book 'cause the author assumes that I, the reader, knows the album as well as he does. So, here I am, two weeks later, listening to the album and realizing that I have little to no desire to read the damn book anymore. At one point in my life, this was my favourite album and that's that.
I bring this up because over the weekend I had an interesting discussion I had with Mac. She stated that questions like, "what are your desert island, top five favourite albums?" are useless and uninformative as topics for idle conversation with strangers. She had a strong argument stating that music is fluid and that what you like at one point in time varies from another point. She thought (and she'll probably correct me if I'm wrong) that a more interesting question was asking what kind of music you liked to listen to in different times, moments, and with different people. Essentially, asking someone for their favourite music tells you little about them, and this is true, but I believe that knowing the associations and personal annotations that people make to their lives with music DOES tell us a lot about people. I'm starting to believe that Mac just likes to argue with me and therefore picks the topics of conversation in order to get a reaction out of me because she knows that I'd think a question like that is a very interesting question, but I agree with her that if you've just met someone that it's not something that you'd open with. It's, like, a second or third date questions for me. Hell, I'm still not entirely sure what my girl's favourite music is... except for Death Cab For Cutie, which she loves with all of her emo heart.
THEREFORE, in honour of this question and others like it I'm going to start a list ('cause that's what I love to do). I have, in fact, been cataloging my favourite records for years... since high school at least. The list is always changing and my reasons for keeping certain records on and taking them off changes from list to list. I wrote down my reasons for what made and what didn't and this was all for my personal benefit. I'm being totally serious. I am, surprisingly enough, not terribly embrassed by these lists. Hell, even their existence doesn't really bug me. Am I going to post them? Nope. Not now at least. So what list am I going to make? Haven't decided yet. That's for tomorrow's entry...
3 comments:
Nice, you did a good job of encapsulating my argument - and then proving my point by saying how your lists keep changing.
I love it when an argument comes together.
Kara, I was never arguing against you on that point. I just think it's an interesting question to ask. That's all. I never disagreed with you that my lists don't change. Some people, especially those who really don't care about music all that much, don't have lists that change very much over the years.
Anyway, YES you're right.
And that's all that matters... NOT (and that, my friends, is my only Borat reference)
ok, just to break up this intelligent debate.
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE IS NOT MY FAVORITE BAND!!!!!
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
how did that even get STARTED?!?!!?!
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