Where's all the Good Music?

Sometimes I get a little disillusioned with new music. Or, rather sometimes I find it difficult to muster up the enthusiasm to seek out new music. It may be an age thing. When I was but a wee lad (well, probably about 16) I lived for music. I read every music mag going, I spent hours in WH Smiths or John Menzies looking at rows and rows of tapes and flicking through endless plastic covered record sleeves looking for that new undiscovered album which would become my world for the next week or so. I'd scour all those specialist dusty record shops looking at dog eared second hand records looking for a bargain or that album discarded before its time.

But I don't do that anymore. In fact, I don't think those shops exist anymore. No, the extent of my musical journey of discovery encompasses looking at Amazon and Itunes' top 100. Big, underwhelming wow. But is it that the music has become more uninteresting or that the ways of discovering it has become a more clinical, bland process?

Probably the latter, unfortunately. Because the music is out there. It just take a little more effort to find it and less reliance on an actual physical feeling of joy at discovering it. So. what do I mean by that? Well, you have to forget about the actual physical joy of holding that scarcely listened to album in your hand. No, discovering new music revolves around finding a new web address or downloading an album some obscure bloke in the Times has recommended (when did I start truting anything the Times says?). Its not enough anymore to simply look at the top 20 albums in HMV and buy every other one because, chances are, you will be completely underwhelmed by the majority.Most modern bands unfortunately seem to currently have that "one album fits all" mentality and therefore, chances are, if you discover a band or artist you like, their second or third albums will sound exactly like their first (see Dido, Amy McDonald, Snow Patrol etc etc). Such artists clog the charts.

No to discover something new and exciting, you have to work a little harder than the modern day equivalent of flicking through records in alphabetical order. It can be disconcerting for the reasons mentioned above. It can even be actually a little depressing because it leaves one with the sense that, actually, modern music has nothing new to say. It's all to easy to revisit ones past and buy a best of Eagles CD or that copy of the Joshua Tree you never actually got around to purchasing. Unfortunately, thats called taking the easy option.

No, hit that internet thing you've been threatening to get a handle on. And, you know what, you might find something interesting. You might even find something that excites you in the way that the first time you listened to a copy of Pet Sounds all the way through did. I promise, they are out there.....Tara London (an old school soul/ blues singer who kicks Amy Winehouse well into touch), Leddra Chapman (a folky, poppy singer songwriter with a penchant for clever lyrics), Eli "Paper Boy" Reed (chanelling "Sam and Dave" in the best possible way). These are just three amazing people I've discovered in the last few weeks with a little help from modern technology. Who knows what the next few weeks will bring! Happy hunting!