Background check

“I’ve got enormous holes in my background knowledge of music, which is quite exciting to me in a way. The things I love I fall in love with obsessively, and everything else either doesn’t interest me or is something that I can later look forward to learning all about.”

-- Carl Barât (Taken from Adelaide's weekly Rip It Up Magazine, issue 849)

All I have to say is, thank god it’s not just me!! I have huge holes in my musical background, too. With siblings much older than I am, you would think I’d have a vast knowledge of classic rock bands, but not so much. I grew up on Michael Jackson, Culture Club, and more than anything else, Simon and Garfunkel. Also some big band/swing, and oldies (like, “Blue Moon” oldies. But they’re so good.)

American music fans can’t believe I never got into Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones. The best I can do with that is say I know some Boston and Aerosmith. Not really the same thing. British music fans can’t believe I don’t know anything by…well, it’s so bad, I don’t even know the bands I should be listing there.

Mostly, this doesn’t bother me. I feel exactly the way Mr. Barât described – the music I love, I love obsessively, and the other stuff I just don’t care about or I will one day, but I’m not bothered in the meantime.

But this also is one of the big reasons I cannot, for the life of me, write a decent music review. Things of an analytical nature, no problem. But an actual single or album review? Fuhgeddaboutdit. Because I don’t have this vast background knowledge, I am useless. I can’t write one of those “this band sounds like that band in their this band phase” which typify so many music reviews. (I also don’t necessarily know enough about instruments and production aspects.) I wrote ONE. I’m not proud of it. Please don’t ever read it. (I will not tell you where/what it is.)

I feel a bit better, though, knowing that Carl might not be able to write a good one either. (Just humor me, ok?)