Pendulum died, and so did my soul.

Writing about music is fucking hard. There’s too much of it, and not enough at the same time. To talk of spending your days blissfully writing away about this and that new release (the dream) is bullshit because music writing is stressful.  It’s all-consuming and achingly obsessive by nature; I find myself desperately trying to invent new ways of describing what the music is doing to my senses when all I really want to do is scream : “PINE TREES! IT SOUNDS LIKE GODDAMN PINE TREES AND MAGIC FORESTS!” As every Friday looms by, my frantic anticipation for something better than the last intensifies.

I crave creativity to inspire my creativity,  something by someone, anyone, either so groundbreaking in its brilliance or its sheer awfulness that I can sit down in Pret and write something halfway decent while gleefully thinking to myself that this is the ‘real deal’ in my caffeinated bubble of words and jingly guitars and more words and crazy down-tempo weird stuff (you may replace ‘stuff’ with ‘shit’ if you’re my dad or someone of equal authority).

I have an opinion on everything. Even Krautrock (an ugly joke name for weird music that’s way too influential for my stubbornness) grabs my attention. Yes, it’s the godfather of more music that I don’t like (sorry Bowie) but I can’t help but get excited by the notion that something so awkwardly minimalistic and long (Kraftwerk, I’m calling you out here) can leave such a weight on my mind that when I do come across Germanic, robotic music, be it an album, a track played in a provocative BBC documentary or in my head every time someone mentions Vitamin C, I can’t help but revert back to my internal back catalogue of angst and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, #millennial). Ranting aimlessly serves no purpose unless done legitimately however and while I recognise this, I can’t help but keep myself awake at times worrying that if I took the time to appreciate John Grant then I might be missing out on something else more accessible to my soul and boogie senses.

The key is balance and I don’t mean that in a holistic sense of peace, love and rock’n’roll  – although that is always the motive. If I spend all of my time going on about how much I love Half Moon Run then I will never progress journalistically or as a music fan, no matter how pretentious that may sound. Yannis of Foals might be ultimate bae; his music and general face are up there among the holiest in my ranking system, yet ‘Cassius’ is one of my least favourite songs ever and as contradictory as that may sound, it just enforces the necessity of  balance.

There’s always good in bad, bad in good and a lot in nothing so why limit your ears to what they already know? If I want to write I’ll write and if it’s terrible then maybe it’s a reflection of my lack of talent, or perhaps of my mood when I was listening to a particular piece. Or, how it was raining outside when I was listening to Father John Misty and the combination of the cold wetness of London and lovelessly monotone masculinity made me think less ‘musical masterpiece‘ and more Father John Misery. 

Writing about music is fucking hard. But listening to music is even harder.