Recommendation systems for music are very popular, and I've used a few of them. But, as with seemingly everything, I don't like a lot of the culture surrounding it: it appears so flippant. There seems to be a constant, blinding desire to find new music to listen to rather than acquiring deep appreciation of any single piece of music. While there's no doubt that there is probably more great music than we can listen to in a normal lifetime, an obsessive quest to devour it all seems against the very spirit of the music. There should be time interjected between major discoveries, so that we can take pause and really think about what we have already experienced. Otherwise, even if you end up liking everything along the way, it really starts to become a game of keeping up with the rest of the world, which is quite devaluing to all involved.

(I accept some guilt in this state of music-as-a-game, by the way: I get into this mode when I sometimes try to plow through my backlog of unheard CDs. So this is really directed as much at myself than this (possibly imaginary?) community of recommendation over-users.)

I'm recalling the pleasures of catalogues, and especially the special powers of well-crafted lyrics, of rock music aspiring to importance through the lyricist's command and contrast of the personal and the external.

I don't mind if you forget me

I've written about being on the wrong (pathetic) end of relationships before. S recently suggested that this is bound to happen if one doesn't make sufficient attempts to be noticed by acting a certain way: essentially, how people expect, or if you like, want, others to act. Among other things: suppress naivete, be open, and at least seem to be like everyone else. According to this theory, emotional distance is inevitable when you are seen as being either willfully naive or simply unconcerned with what constitutes the "real" world. Its suggestion isn't so much forsaking individuality as forsaking a type of individuality, one should note. And as luck would have it, it's not the way of living I've been perfecting all these years.

These sorts of life philosophies and theories are all unverifiable, and so I can't definitely say whether it's right or wrong: one can only go on experience or instinct. The latter is difficult, because this theory seems to suggest that people are generally narcissistic, and don't care enough to try to imagine things from other people's point of view. Distrust of humanity I'm always down with, and so there is a biased appeal. But who wants to believe such a thing? The bleak consequences of not following this dogma are, frankly, depressing. My initial reaction was, of course, to say "To hell with those people!", the ones who un(?)consciously reserve their memories and emotions for a certain type of person. But...it is difficult to muster the inner strength to believe such things; as I've also said before, keeping beliefs that contradict the majority is not always easy. In things as mundane as politics and the like, it is simple enough, but this is life! Think of the stakes! In sum, I can't say with confidence that I will not regret changing myself so that I'm more palatable. We might need human interaction and understanding more than personal conviction. As a pair of young songwriters wrote in a moment of clarity, "What's the sense in arguing / When you're all alone?"

Does life have meaning? Oh, certainly yes, I very much think so. Is meaning only sensible when it's outside the self? I don't know - quite possibly. This uncertainty is why I worry it is not just socially awkward to lack sustaining relationships: being unable to relate to tales of lifelong friendships is one thing, and I can live with it like many other things I suspect I will not experience. But if that is to mean that it makes for a weak life too, then that goes beyond the merely uncomfortable into the frightening. That is why it is unsettling to think about whether such a fate is unavoidable, and if not, whether it's worth making changes to that end. What do you give up and what do you keep? What, essentially, is the ultimate point of existence? As much as I believe in personal accomplishment and awareness as being someway towards giving life meaning, like I said, it is a game with high stakes. Who is to say if it all means nothing if you leave no footprints in the process?

I do not wish to come off as totally gloomy, however: the silver lining, the one consolation is that my problems aren't as dire as perhaps I've made them sound. My existence isn't completely bereft of meaningful relationships; it's only the majority of them that are that way :-) The ones that burn on are extremely important to me, and I hope they continue as I (we?) travel through the uncertainties of the world in years to come. The best ones occasionally make one wish to be a better person: that is change I am ready for. Essentially, my hope is that the quality of the few trumps the quantity of the many. I hope I am not wrong.

I seem to have a love/hate relationship with Xgau. The good, first: what I like about him, compared to most other music writers, is his interest in looking beyond the mere surface of things, and putting things into some historical context. Fawning praise is definitely not his most common reaction, and even when he does praise, it's usually quite measured. This is good, because it makes it clear that truly great material (A/A+) is released quite rarely. Related to this, he's also really skeptical and near immune to hype, sometimes seeming actually hostile towards towards those he perceives as doling out unquestioning or insincere praise. These are good qualities in a reviewer, but the most essential is of course the writing: without it, opinion counts for naught. Stylistically, Xgau has it down: pithy and to the point, moving away from the obvious and trying to say something that helps frame an album in a larger context. All this I really approve of, because it's tiring to read reviews that merely list tracks and say whether they are individually good or not. His reviews don't try to be comprehensive because they see no need to be: information like the context of the band coming into the album, picks for the best songs on the album, and definitely the details of individual songs, are easily discovered from innumerable other sources. The reviews take it upon themselves, as I see it, to provide the one unique thing they can: namely, offering a critical judgement on the work. And he's definitely capable of writing the occasional classic line, which sometimes becomes intertwined with my mental map of an album; for example, his reviews of Moondance, Grievous Angel, and The Velvet Underground.

I say all this to make clear that when I sometimes say I hate him, it's a hyperbole, foremost, but it's also not blind distaste. Indeed, I find that the reasons in the first para somehow pronounce the faults I list below. With that disclaimer in mind, there are at least two things that get on my nerves. First, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way, it's hard to figure out what his reviews mean sometimes. For all my praise of the style and philosophy of his reviews, there are times when they tell me very, very little about the records in question. Obviously this might be because I haven't read or thought enough about music to decipher his references, and so this isn't really an "objective" criticism; nonetheless, it's a pretty serious one! With the positives from the first para in mind, I don't want to join the legions of people who claim he is intentionally obscure to show off or to seem superior; my sense is that he assumes the audience is smart enough to understand him. Still, slightly more guidance to the reader would go a long way towards making his reviews must-read. As you might expect, this point is especially frustrating when the album is rated poorly, yet I think it's pretty good; I'm very curious to find why his view is so different, but sometimes I am just left puzzled. Which brings me to point two.

The second issue is that we sometimes have a profound difference in tastes, pure and simple. Why this riles me up sometimes is because the criticism comes from someone given to critical thinking, and cannot be readily dismissed as idle ranting. Maybe worse yet, one gets the awful fear that the fellow might be right. But fundamentally, I just disagree with some of his judgements of what makes music good. There's no point being coy about specifics, so let me name some: Henry's Dream, for a start. To weaken my case, I should say that it's not my candidate for Cave's best album lyric-wise. But the condescension in his quotes of Cave admirers is unwarranted: come on, you can't paint us all as an insipid mob who would swallow anything with shades of high-art just to appear sophisticated. At least in my case, admiration of his ties is only in addition to the quality of the songwriting. And yes, fans and critics do have this odd distrust of high art except when one of their own has a connection to it ("classically trained" is frequently cited as a badge of honour), I'll admit. But I doubt that any Cave admirers are suggesting that his lyrics are poetry in the classical sense of the word, and if they are they're hardly any different to the legions of fans of Bob Dylan or Paul Simon or Leonard Cohen (oops! :-)). If one digs further, there is the unflattering portrait of Cave as a "death freak", which is too simplistic, and so on and so on. In short, I think he's simply wrong on Nick Cave. Most recently, there is the review of an AR Rahman best-of. Doesn't make much sense, but if it implies what I think it implies, namely that it's just pleasant schmuck...it means war. (Marginal kudos to him for reviewing the thing, though.) And finally, there is the infamous A- review of SouljaBoy which I don't feel knowledgeable enough to comment on too much. (My instinct tells me it's bogus, but you never know.)

Of course, one might ask what the alternative is: the legions of reviewers on Web 2.0? I prefer Xgau. I like having people who, first, definitely know more than me, but also have a verifiable and consistent take on popular song over a long time period. I like reading people like myself to give suggestions on what to purchase, say, but for analysis that goes beyond what CDs are worth buying, I would go with a good journalist. Which I would have to say Xgau is, despite the criticisms detailed above. In summary then, while there are times he leaves me fuming, I see him as a very important critic; should he influence an upcoming music journalist whose writing avoids my subjective criticisms, that would be simply wonderful.

(By the way, on reflection, the moral that I seem to have derived from writing this piece is: perhaps it's wise not to get too worked up about music reviews. Music fills that role quite nicely.)