Old Music

I overheard some 15 and 16 year olds talking the other day (at work, not out in the community)- they were discussing 'old music' but I couldn't quite hear what they meant by 'old music'. So I asked. 'The first Arctic Monkeys album' one of them replied.

I nearly spat my false teeth out. I mean, when was that released? 2003? Old music?!

They would have been 5 or so at the time, so maybe they had a point, but fer Christsakes!

They also see all music ever recorded as equal somehow- no context, no real distinction between music recorded in 2003, 1993 or 1963. It's all a 3.5MB, 79p download. One of them was equally into Arctic Monkeys and Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap. And Iron Maiden.

I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor

Lights On

One of the things about the caravan we stayed in last week was it had more TV channels than we have at home, including a variety of music channels. NME TV had an hour of Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian videos showing one evening, head to head. I can't stand Kasabian, but a lot of songs by Sheffield's finest I really like and I'd forgotten about this one, Leave Before The Lights Come On, a single from 2006 which has some of the ramshackle charm of the first album and none of the more overbearing muscularity of the second.

01 Leave Before the Lights Come On.wma