There are a lot of reasons why Delete As Appropriate has basically been dead this year.
A preceding year of reading so much of the amazing music writing out there and trying to keep up, increasingly feeling that it was a hopeless cause. Needing some time out to sort out some issues with myself, generally quite linked to the same sense of worthlessness. Getting back into video gaming for the first time since 1999, coincedentally (?) just before my music fandom really took over. Simply not getting as much time to listen to music as I'd like, even before that. A final year of my degree which turned out, through my own fault in part, to be the least fulfilling by far and sap my will to do anything constructive. Well, that is now over (I get my results tomorrow so wish me luck if you've happened to stumble across this) and things are definitely looking up for the future.
There is something else though - a creeping lack of excitement about almost any new music that's been nagging at me for a while. I wondered at moments if it was burnout from writing too much last year but, looking back, it was already setting in then. I think it's more to do with listening to the same music for 7 years now, or at least listening for the same things, and reaching for something new without really knowing where to look.
There are exceptions, of course. And they actually include some of the most obvious things that I'd expect to have been excited about - Patrick Wolf, Arctic Monkeys - as well as the not so much.
There's still hope then, but you might be thinking nonetheless that this doesn't sound like a very promising start for a return to music blogging. Well, it doesn't, and for the moment this is not going to be a music blog in the same sense as before as I talk about whatever else I want or need to as well. Don't worry, it's not going to turn into livejournal (there's a reason why I've never been able to keep one of those going long) and this post might stay as personal as it gets, but just a warning to anyone still out there. I really don't want to lose writing about music as an outlet though, and have really begun to miss it. Plus, you know, it would be nice not to waste all of the progress that I made last year in actually getting better at it. So I'm determined to find a way back in, and this, as well as another ideas that you might see more of soon, will be it.
Thanks for reading.
3 comments:
Good luck with the results!
Nice to see you back, and I look forward to reading this again. No pressure, but I believe you have an email to respond to as well, hmm?
Thanks!
And yes, that's on the way tomorrow if not tonight along with equally overdue uplaods of Garbage and the UK version of the Robyn album if you haven't already heard it (it's quite different!)
I have to admit that I'm glad I gave up trying to write music...I'm completely awed by all the stuff out there these days. And by the way, I think I know how you feel with respect to music...I kind of changed tack with music not so long ago too, it was boring listening to the same old stuff. Right now, for example, I'm listening to a jazz CD and it is bloody amazing.
But keep blogging anyway...in whatever form you decide to keep it up in. You might find you can do the personal thing a bit more...it's taken me a couple of years but I've finally gotten the hang of it!
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