Musical Obsessions

Regular readers know of my musical obsessions. I get into a song, a record, an artist, and listen to basically nothing else for days or weeks.

I've been reading Nick Hornby's Songbook and he has talks about this behavior (which he's prone to as well) in the book:

Dave Eggers has a theory that we play songs over and over, those of us who do, because we to "solve" them, and it's true that in our early relationship with, and courtship of, a new song, there is a stage that is akin to a sort of emotional puzzlement.

Well I am glad there's actually a theory about this. Makes me feel better.

BTW - the book is great, if you love songs and obsess about them.

Comments

[Tom Conrad]

Hey I'm delighted you're reading Songbook -- I think I recommended it to you in the comments on a previous post a few weeks pack. It's a fun read.

We've been steadily rolling out some playlist features at Pandora that were in part inspired by some of what you've written about the space. I'm hopeful that we're putting together stations today that "work" for you much better than they used to. If you've not given us a listen in a while, have a listen again - err, after you get back -- sadly we're blocked in Greece.

Ironically, I missed you in Santorini by one day -- I left early on the morning of the 30th. It would have been great to finally meet. Hopefully we'll be able to connect some time when I'm in NY. You're critiques of what we're doing have always valuable.

Tom
CTO @ Pandora

[Rick Cecil]

I'm actually relieved to see that there is such a theory out there.

I'm currently fascinated by the theme song to "John from Cincinnati" ("Johnny Appleseed" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros). A great song, whose riddle, for me at least, is complicated by Milch's decision to use it as a theme song to a fascinating, cryptic show. So not only am I trying to decrypt the song, but also how it relates to the show! [r]

[Michael St. Hilaire]

I sometimes have to play a song for myself a few times to get it OUT of my head. Strange eh?

Speaking of songs that stick in your head, I went and saw the movie 'once' this weekend, a lot of great music from Glen Hansard, frontman for 'The Frames'. Highly recommended for anyone who loves music.

I bought the soundtrack within hours of watching the movie.

Michael St. Hilaire
CEO
www.fliva.com

[Bill]

I was just listening to a podcast where they were talking about some good reads for MBA candidates. SOngbook was one of the books mentioned, I immediately remembered this post and came to find it again. I just ordered the book

[Raj]

I obsess about the notion that music and art in general are puzzles that are left for people to solve.

It seems to me that obviousness, regarding instrumentation and lyrics, tends to greatly influence my musical listening habits.

Easy puzzles are boring --- there's nothing to solve. Obvious music has no alliteration worth thinking about, no metaphors worth pondering, and instrumentation and production suited for psuedo-artists.