What is music for?

I have been thinking about music quite a lot recently. I've been inspired by posts at Cultural Snow and My Nut Free Life to think about what music is for.

I was talking to someone other day and they couldn't understand why I dislike so called 'dinner party music'. You see, I hate bland music, I almost prefer something to be terrible than just shoulder-shruggingly OK. At the very least music that is genuinely awful ilicits some sort of response from you.

The whole conversation got me thinking about the moments in my life when a song or a piece of music has grabbed me and forced me to pay attention. They are extraordinary moments that only ever happen once when you listen to that song. Every time you listen to it again, you know what is coming and no matter how arresting it is, it will never have the impact of that first moment.

It may well be pleasant to hear James Taylor, Norah Jones, Damien Rice et al burbling competently quietly in the background but they will never have the impact of the truly great. Great music refuses to stay in the background, it demands your attention. They are musical moments that make you realise what music is for. Moments that I look back on with a bit of sadness because the exact way I was feeling would never be repeated.

When I think about my moments I remember hearing Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. and Radiohead's Let Down for the first time. Mahler's Tenth Symphony, Bob Marley's Redemption Song and the sheer swagger of Rock'n'Roll Star by Oasis all had a great impact on me.

To illustrate what I mean, here is a more recent song that just blew me away the first time I heard it. This is Glosoli by Sigur Ros. Sigur Ros can be something of an acquired taste with their ethereal meoldies and lead singer Jónsi’s falsetto voice. However, it is a taste well worth acquiring as this extraordinary song demonstrates. I would encourage you to listen to it first before you read what I've written underneath the video.



The song starts quietly and gradually builds and builds before exploding at 4.41 (thats the moment!) into a wall of sound with tumultuous guitars and the skirling falsetto soaring over the top. When I heard that for the first time, it sent almighty tingles down my spine and it may sound ridiculous, but it made me feel 3 foot taller.

In the end, I think that is what music is for. It should make you feel. It should make you feel happy, sad, angry, peaceful or any number of other feelings or emotions. The best music changes how we feel, everything else is just aural wallpaper...

Arcade Fire vs Radiohead

VS

A couple of weeks ago, I got the new album by the Arcade Fire - Neon Bible. It is very very good, particularly the grand Intervention (it has pipe organs on it!!) which will get plenty of airing when I venture on to the airwaves of South Manchester on Refresh FM. But then I made a mistake. You see, it is such a good album that it got me thinking about others that have grabbed my attention in the same way in the past. That then got me thinking about OK Computer by Radiohead. So I toddled off and listened to Neon Bible and OK Computer back to back.


Now why, I hear you cry, is that a mistake?


Well, the problem is that as good as Neon Bible is, it pales into insignifiance next to OK Computer, which is simply so much better than anything else.


OK Computer is now coming up to being 10 years old and is still one of the few albums that I can sit down and listen to while doing nothing else. It is a magnificently rich and complex album that rewards many repeat listens. There is not a wasted lyric, note, distortion, string or bleep anywhere on it, it is one of those rare occasions when everything is spot on. Despite the intervening decade it has barely dated and still sounds fresh.


It has so many great songs on it; the furious Electioneering, the beautifully melancholic No Surprises, the epic Let Down as well as Karma Police and Paranoid Android. It also signalled Radiohead's transformation from a great rock band into the musical pioneers that they have become. It is the sound of a band at their absolute peak. I wonder if some of the melancholy feeling on the album comes from the realisation that no matter what they produced after this, they would probably never scale these heights again. And despite the enviously high quality of Radiohead's output since OK Computer, none of it is as good.

OK Computer has been lauded far and wide since its release. If you have never heard it, then I implore you, as it comes up to its 10th birthday to seek out a copy and revel in what is, in my opinion - and that of many many others, simply the greatest album of all time....