I love music. All kinds of music. When I joined Substack I was happily surprised by the number of very good music stacks, written by knowledgeable, smart and interesting people to read. As I have barreled through 7 decades on this planet I have moved through many kinds of music, musicians and ways of listening to music.
I started out on a Zenith transistor, moved on to a bigger radio and then to music players. A record player which led to a collection of 78’s, 45’s and 33’s. Then long-playing records, I bypassed 8 tracks, cassette tapes, cd’s and then streaming.
Some of my cassette tapes
Throughout this magical mystery tour of tunes, and tune master's I have been confused by the genre labels, or form names for the music.
The first two radio stations I listened to played all kinds of music. The first two record stores I frequented did not group their records in genres or forms, but artists alphabetically. In those stores, if I did not know an artist, I could listen to some cuts there at the store, before deciding what I wanted to buy. As time has drifted on all music now seems to be segregated into genres or forms. I think I could get stuck in one or two of those categories, if not for the fact that I look for new artists, and work to ignore genres. Which have some, to me weird names: shoe gaze, guitar pop, indie folk, black metal etc. These names seem like a trap to me, a place to get stuck, and miss out on other kinds of musicians and interesting ear candy. (Now I will readily admit I still fall into this trap, as you would see if you found my Spotify playlists, the longest ones being named with genre names.)
Some of my Vynl Albums. ( I live with cats)
Some of my CD’s.
What I like to do on Spotify is follow music writers here on Substack and others I have found and try to follow their release radar or discover weekly playlists. These seem most like those first two record stores that arranged their music by artist, not by genre or form.
Early in my musical exploration, which continues, I ran head on into Duke Ellington. Besides being a great musician and composer, he had some interesting takes on music.
One statement in particular immediately made sense to me:
You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it's bad.
Duke Ellington
So, for me if my ears, heart and soul like the music, find it good, then that artist, that song is in my collection. As I look over my collection of records, cassette tapes, CDs and streaming albums and playlists I see an ever-widening array of good music.
One of my Spotify Playlist, all of which are megalong.
Jon Pinter
Love this post Jon! I totally agree with you (and Duke) that we need to stop listening in categories. I know my music tastes are all over the map. I'm open to anything that registers with me regardless of genre. Love the photos of your collections! Your playlist is amazing too! It would be quite a night to hit random and just sit back and enjoy all the unique sounds and voices!
Duke knew what he was talking about. All of his songs and instrumental compositions reflect his ability and his openness to new ideas, as well as the confidence he had in his musicians to play them.