Solitude

Solitude

Monday, January 13, 2014

5,000 pageviews broken!

When I started by musicblog more or less two years ago in January 2012, I had only one goal: to be able to express the feeling listening to music gives me and share my thoughts about it with you. I knew that some of my friends thought I am a show-off that needed to prove something or that my writing abilities would be somehow extraordinary. I am not different from you, nor do I possess the ability to make you like exactly same music as I do, this is not my objective. My desire and intention is to promote the bands and musicians, who do not necessarily receive much limelight, have millions of dollars or get to the headlines, but have that undying passion to create something, to leave their own footprint to society and to express the full scale of their emotions by composing music. The people I am talking about are musicians that stay awake at night writing songs while you sleep comfy, lock inside their apartment when creativity strikes, loan money from their parents or relatives to buy that first guitar, write the lyrics in the bathroom wall or abandon themselves in the middle of the woods to embrace nature.  

My thrive for music started a long time ago, when I was 13 years old and received my first cassette, Twisted Sister's Come Out And Play. I can still remember the feeling I had when I tore up the package and opened the expandable booklet with Dee Snider crawling out, eyeballing me: the feeling was immense and memorable and it had a true feeling of danger, excitement and rebellion in my teenager's eyes. From that moment on I was hooked on music and knew that heavy metal is my thing. I have never been a bad boy: I have always done my homework, eaten my veggies, received good grades and stayed out of trouble. However I knew pretty early on that there is dark, empowering and absorbing side in me that feeds from heavy metal music. Music has the power to convey all my emotions and over the years I have been able to find comfort, express my hatred, embrace loss or solitude and solidify triumph by listening to tunes.

Internet and the change in the distribution models of music both legitimate and pirate (iTunes, Amazon, Torrents, PirateBays, Blogspots etc.) over the last twenty years have introduced new tools for me to be able to track, find and connect to new bands easily. On the other hand the music industry has suffered some major setbacks with digital music revolution: the sales have dropped down from the golden years and if you buy digital copies you are more or less labelled as a traitor or impostor: you have to have a physical copy or you are nothing. I tend to agree, but then again the world is not the same anymore. I listen to several hundreds of bands actively, so I have made the decision that I simply cannot afford to own each album in physical copy because my financials would not support it. Secondly all the room in my apartment would ran out and finally I don't want to support producing anymore plastic than this planet can tolerate. I don't judge you from doing so, but since I listen to mostly from portable player or sitting by my computer, I have decided to support the new and upcoming underground bands via Bandcamp. The business model they have created is appealing both to the artist and the fan. I am happy to be able to support the artist directly and giving money without greedy middlemen. In return I get topnotch quality rips in FLAC or ALAC and am able to enjoy the music pretty much as the artist intended and what's best, with good conscience. 

Last.Fm music network blew my mind when I joined it in 2010 through a recommendation from my friend. Why hadn't I heard of this absolutely fantastic site before? This is pretty much everything I need to further expand my taste in music and to get to know to hundreds, thousands of bands I have missed out before or didn't even know they existed and to share my opinions with other musiclovers around the world. There are upsides and downsides to every story and I tend to refrain myself from not pissing off other users, but sometimes reading the comments in the song's shoutbox can get pretty boring and repetitive: "Epic", "<3" or "I marry to this song" but then again that is more better way to express your emotions than by referring to a particular song. Another bible I use every day is Metal Archives a network of the people, by the people and for the people. There are currently 94,764 enlisted metal bands so if you want to get crazy, look no further. Naturally this list has bands from all genres of metal you can think of and many of them have never performed live or intend to do so. This is a network to familiarize yourself to what people can do and you will be amazed how professional, profound and comprehensive it is.

My day starts with music and it ends with music. I have arranged that I am able to listen to it while I am working, cooking, working out, driving, walking, cycling or going to the sauna. I simply cannot function if music is not present in my life. My current intake in music is about six to ten hours per working day and during weekends it can be even more. One thing I do not recommend is sitting by the computer, having drinks and keeping your credit card available...you'll end up spending your lunch money on Bandcamp!

I got carried away: guilty as charged, but I just wanted to give a little insight in my music fan-ism and explain why music is so important to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and thank you for your feedback and comments. Words cannot express what it means to matter to someone, to be able to contribute and to be able to co-exist in this humongous global network of music lovers. With a humble bow I exit into the frosty and moonlit night. 

Spinebrain




No comments:

Post a Comment