I’ve just finished re-assembling my entire music collection on Spotify. It’s taken me the best part of three days, since I amassed a pretty sizeable library in the years before Spotify had pretty much everything. Time was when iTunes was where one kept all one’s digital music, ready for transport onto this or that hand-me-down iPod Shuffle, bought from a friend for £20 or so. Those early models could only store so much music, and you had to decide which 240 songs would make it. Those were trying times.
My parents grew up with mixtapes and CDs, but I belong to the generation where music went digital. If a song came out that you liked, you bought the CD, burned it onto iTunes or some other software and uploaded it directly to your device (alternatively, you could take the cheaper route and just find any one of the YouTube to MP3 converters that were occasionally dodging the censors). My first walkman – a bizarre pen-drive device that might just as easily be taken for a vape pod today – had a small collection of music, mostly hand-me-downs from my parents: Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits, Spiceworld, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. This was back in 2008, and Spotify was still a few years away from hitting the big time, so most of us turned to YouTube for our music. YouTube, ever-growing, seemed to have almost everything, and I’m not afraid to admit it was a major conduit for musical discovery in those early years (and still is!).
Carving up my library into playlists has made one thing glaringly obvious: my taste in music has changed little over the years. The range of artists has certainly exploded, but the genres are almost exactly as they were in the first playlists I drew up in iTunes years ago – that is, a motley collection of Folk, Klezmer and Gypsy music, with a similar number of Classical musicians (my parents were both music teachers); a broad range of World music and edited highlights from the major Pop hits (largely selected for nostalgia purposes); and in the top spots, a virtual eternity of Soundtracks, and – constituting the greatest majority by far – Soul, Funk & Disco. The last ten years have seen Afrobeat, Hip-Hop and Flamenco occupy an increasingly large section of the library, while Rock remains miserably underrepresented (it’s quite simply a genre I’ve never really been that drawn to). What Spotify doesn’t have is the absolute mine of videogame soundtracks that I’ve also collated over the years, but perhaps that’s for the best…!
Yes, I’m a heathen because amongst the thousands of songs in my collection I haven’t got a single song by The Beatles, or the Rolling Stones, or even Bob Dylan (I feel I ought to apologise to somebody for this). But I do have every single track James Brown ever laid down (even the bad ones), a fair grasp of obscure Balkan folksongs and a burgeoning playlist of sevillanas that I am trying to learn off by heart. And thanks to Spotify’s constant suggestions, which get smarter as the playlists grow and grow, the fact that almost all of my favourite artists died a long time ago is no barrier to discovery: every week I find something new.
The music we listen to has a profound impact on who we are. Equally, I’m sure who we choose to be has an impact on the music we choose to listen to, but I’m more inclined to believe in the transformative power of music. With very few exceptions, my taste in music veers towards the upbeat. Fast-paced, feel-good numbers dominate. I wasn’t counting, but if I were to go back and have a look, I probably couldn’t find more than one or two dozen slow or sad songs amongst the thousands. Those that are there are there for a reason: Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On holds the line as one of my favourite albums of all time, and Whispering Winds from Don Bluth’s The Land before Time is just there to make me cry on occasion. The reason for the lack of slow music is quite simple: I’ve always turned to music as a cure to my doldrums. I’m not one for wallowing in my sadness. If you want to conquer misery, loneliness or fear, there’s no use getting stuck in a rut. You have to face your demons head-on. I’d much rather shake off my blues with something that puts a smile on my face immediately. That’s why my most-used playlist is called Smile! (feel free to vomit)
Personal music curation is an unending process in the digital age, but Spotify is one of the few technological advancements to which I’m not afraid to be a committed disciple. A virtual library where you can find almost all the music ever produced, anytime, anywhere? Yes please! BB x
P.S. I’m a fervent believer that music should always be shared, so if your tastes align with mine, or you’re simply curious to explore, please feel free to browse the following playlists I’ve put together:
Cairo to Cape Town: A collection of African music, from Moroccan Gnawa to Highlife and Afrobeat
Liquid Red: A collection of the finest Soul & Funk music from James, Aretha, Marvin and more
Puro arte: A small but potent collection of Spanish folk music
The Book of Barnabas 