CD, LP, or digital download: kiss, marry, avoid – your choice
Nostalgia.
What does that word mean to you?
Memories of a happy time? Faded photographs that lose none of the technicolour love and joy they encapsulate? A certain song?
Music has to be one of the most accessible and emotive art forms us humans have access to. It transports us to various periods of life, makes us think, and soundtracks our every move.
The power of music is never more prevalent than when we really tune in. When we twist the dial away from the generic radio station and choose a frequency that genuinely turns us on. When we get intentional about what we like, what speaks to us, and who we want to be, something special happens.
Here’s why choosing the alternative route opens new doors.
Shuffle: let go of expectations
Last week, I was off work. The first week’s holiday I have taken in 2020 – bliss.
As I had a bit more time on my hands I decided to give up on the radio and Apple Music. I dusted off the iPod classic languishing on the shelf and fired her up. The poor old dear doesn’t function without a bit of help. She’s old and has to be plugged in to get the juice to work, so she rarely gets an outing!
I hooked it up to my speaker and a power source. Unsure quite what I felt like listening to, I went old school: shuffle all songs.
It was glorious. The iPod didn’t disappoint, she cranked out classic after classic. It was one of those shuffles where you don’t have to skip every second song seven times to find something you actually want to listen to.
Nostalgic, wonderful. Track after track transported me to different times, places, people, feelings and milestones.
Analogue, glory be!
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of digging out the old iPod, is that there was absolutely no interference from Apple. While it’s great to have new music suggested by an algorithm sometimes, where is the joy in that? Really? It’s so cold and inhuman.
All of the thousands of songs from years gone by are there because I decided to put them there. Well! Almost all of them. There’s a selection of albums, artists, songs, and playlists added by friends who knew me well enough to suggest them, gleefully impose them on my digital library, or hand-curate them for my lugholes. Gorgeous!
So what? Why not just have the music you like, harder, faster, better, right now?
Because it’s not the same.
For a start, Apple Music is always churning. So that playlist that you liked and forgot to save? Yeah, you won’t be able to find that again.
The real joy of reconnecting to the music I found on my old mp3 player, is that putting music on an iPod Classic was a pain in the backside. A proper faff.
You had to take a cable, plug it into an actual desktop, or a laptop at best, connect to iTunes and add, manually add, the music that you wanted, either from an mp3 file you’d (definitely legally) got hold of, a rip of the CD you’d shoved into your computer, or a file bought from the iTunes Store. That is a major palaver!
So, if you were the kind of person who didn’t want to accept the audible backdrop of generic drivel, if you were determined to curate your own soundtrack, you had to be dead sure that whatever you put on your iPod was worth the hassle. Perhaps it was some kind of delayed gratification: you had to work hard to get that reward. You earned it, through your commitment to whatever tunes floated your boat.
The best kind of marketing…
Brands work hard to insinuate themselves into our everyday lives. To develop a relationship with their customers; to be seen not as a commodity, but as a friend.
So, thinking of musicians, bands, artists as people who help us to fulfil a need, what does it say about the artists who made the cut? Like old friends and comfy, familiar cardis, they are strewn across the landscape of our lives, making our existence richer than it would be without them.
And how great is it for those bands to say that they’re on your iPod? Not that they’d know of course. A terrifying lack of data which I’m sure would prompt a cold sweat in the boss of any business in this day and age. But wouldn’t it be amazing to bump into an artist outside a gig (remember them?!) and tell them, “Mate! I found my 10+ year old iPod classic the other day and your album was still on there. It took me right back to when me and my friends/ex-girlfriend/boyfriend did XYZ. You soundtracked that whole trip!”
We’ve established that I’m not the coolest Chica upon meeting the band. Yet surely that has a load more heart than, “Hello. A bot in California analysed my behaviour and suggested your latest offering might be enjoyable to me and yes, I have computed the information and can concur with the assessment that your music is pleasing to my ears.” 🤮
That iPod Classic has accompanied some cracking road trips. And knowing that the songs are still there, and the friends I haven’t seen for years, who geared me up with the tunes to accompany me, are out there somewhere warms the cockles of my heart.
What’s your intention?
Isn’t there something wonderful about designing something the way we want it to be? Living, working, doing business, listening to music – with intention. Rather than simply drifting along to the automated jukeboxes of the world, grooving to their pre-determined track?
Soundtrack your own life.
Let the people you love supplement your playlist with banging beats, soothing soul, and even the odd power ballad (sorry, not sorry). And then ask yourself: how can you bring a bit more of that deliberate rebel spirit from your stereo to your life and work?
Your words matter,
Laura
A Bonus Playlist
Here are just some of the belters that showed up. I have to ask how some of these managed to slip from my consciousness. Such is the curse of the never-ending churn of newness that we live amongst!
An aural time capsule of 2012 Laura, coming at you.
Enjoy.
The Libertines – Mockingbird
The Crystals – He’s a Rebel
Joni Mitchell – Come In From the Cold
Alabama Shakes – I Ain’t the Same
Arctic Monkeys – Cornerstone
Oasis – Cigarettes and Alcohol
Daft Punk – Rollin’ and Scratchin’
The Verve – She’s a Superstar
Kings of Leon – Holy Roller Novocaine (who even remembered that the secret track was there?! Not me)
The Black Angels – Doves
I would share this with you as a downloadable playlist – but clearly, an iPod Classic doesn’t have that capability! You’ll have to make your own digital version… but making playlists isn’t a bad procrastination tool is it? 😉
The Weekly Writing Reflection
Welcome!
Each week I share an inspirational quote and a writing prompt. The idea is for you to spend a moment doing some active reflection through writing.
I like this, a lot:
“What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”
- Eugène Delacroix
And your writing prompt, if you’d like to use one:
I’m obsessed with the idea…
What’s Caught My Eye This Week
Each and every week I’ll share a few snippets of inspiration, thought-provocation and jubilation. Hand-curated delights, selected by yours truly to stimulate your mind and soothe your soul.
A humbling watch – I don’t watch a great deal of television, but Sandi Toksvig’s latest programme caught my eye. The Write Offs follows a group of eight adults as they try to overcome lifelong struggles with reading and writing, with the moral support of Sandi. It’s a pretty humbling watch and eye-opening in equal measure. Thankfully, the programme portrays the participants sensitively and the tone is supportive rather than judgemental. Catch up online.
Are you feeling lucky, punk? – I’ve talked before in this newsletter about the kick I get from those happy little coincidences that lead to great things. Here’s a wordier article on making your own luck, similar to one I shared back in July.
A poem for World Suicide Prevention Day – I’m late with this and I’m sorry. I’ve just this week come across this poem to shed a little light in a time of darkness. Please, please do share it. Post it on social media, text the link to a friend, email a colleague. Sometimes, the hardest question to ask is, ‘Is everything alright? Really alright?’ Those first words may as well be Everest. If you’re worried about someone and you don’t quite know how to say what you think you need to, copy and paste the link and send it on. Sending love and light to you and the people you care about.
Thank you for reading.
I’m excited to continue these rambles with you into the recesses of my mind now I’m refreshed from my holiday. I’m all set up with Ali Smith’s Autumn to take me into the season properly; Winter and Spring are waiting on my bookshelf too. I’ve heard good things! Wish me luck.