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April 15, 2005
Four Months of Joy Division
I've been listening to Joy Division lately. And by lately I mean not just occasionally, but most of the time. I have a 40 gig IPod, and it's loaded with over 7,000 songs, with a measly 101 songs by Joy Division, yet it's what's been playing in heavy rotation for the last 4 months.
No, I'm not depressed. No, I'm not OCD (well, maybe a little). I've just found the IPod a particularily nice way to rediscover music, even if a little out of context.
I listened to Joy Division a lot when I was growing up. Mostly to tapes of the records, listened to them as objects or art, single pieces. Listening to these recording (and the tremendous of posthumously released materials on box sets and unofficial releases) you gets sense ofofof the band. Look at it like a sonic retrospective -- similar to a visual retrospective at a museum, where the curator disregards the timeline of creation of the objects of art, instead focusing on the compare and contrasts across styles, time, current events or other external criteria.
I've gotten to the point where I can recognize the various live performances, live out-takes and non album cuts. The live versions presented on Heart and Soul present a whole different band thank on the very few studio recordings. just compare the three versions of She's Lost Control, which range from the maniacally detached, yet restrained studio version on Unknown Pleasures, to the version recorded live in Bournemouth on Nov 2, 1979, which seems even more restrained to the version recorded The Factory, Hulme, Manchester July 13, 1979 which culminated with Ian Curtis's microphone right-up-to-the-mouth screams.
The best part of this, is the lack of liner notes or other biographical information. As a youngster I obsessed over the liner notes. Reading, pouring over them on the way from the record shop. They were a great way to get inside a record, and understand all that was contained. Who recorded this? When? But now that I am listening to my collection more and more, folding in record I have owned for year to listen along side music that I bought last week, I've found that this is a delicious way to listen to music.
I should stop for a second and explain that I always listen to record as records -- track by track, in the order selected by the artists. It's really the only way to consume an album as a work of art. I love the fact that when I hear particular cuts from a record I can hear what comes before and what comes after. I love listening to an entire record from start to finsinsh in my head. La la la.
I'm not like the British -- obsessively collect singles and listen to them the day they are released. In fact, I find that will ruin the flow of a record -- my having to skip the song I've already heard 10 times to get the rotation and play count (in my head) of the rest of the record. That interrupts the flow. Plus singles, like paintings, rarely stand as well on their own as they do in the context of a record. And if they do, and the rest of the record stinks, the longevity of a single isn't there.
But once I've listened to a record a number of times, its fun and informative to listen to the output of a band mixed with it's other songs, albums and b-sides. Then, you can fold them into the Shuffle Songs function, and you get wonderful coincidences of contrasting one band from one time up against another band of another genre from another time. Absolutely wonderful. Just like college radio, without the Long... pauses... between...voice...over... that so plagues college radio stations and those that DJ.
All that said, my favorite museum shows are artist retrospectives -- with a canonical representation of works. I've only seen a few of these in my life, mostly due to the fact that museums are so aggressive to seek out and own individual pieces and display them with other works from the same time, or god forbid, same palette. Sometimes i think it's weird to see two different artists from two different times smashed up against one another -- especially when I haven't had the chance to see other works. I have no idea what to think.
At it's worst, that's what IPods do. But there are good parts to it, as well.
Imagine if all museums threw away the 3 x 5 white info cards next to each painting and sculpture, and instead expected you to react personally to the work, instead of scripting, in clear helvetica type the way some curator felt was appropriate. Bringing your own context to the art. Then, on the way out, they could hand you a book about what you saw. Then you could get the context and history and opinions of others.
That would be fun, wouldn't it?
Anyway. I'm just now getting over my obsession with Joy Division. Next up, Joy Division followed my Mercury Rev followed by The Frames followed by Keren Ann.
Posted by tdotjay at April 15, 2005 07:46 PM
