Wednesday 2 January 2008

Spirit of the times

Okay, you will have to bear with me on this one because I have a feeling I'm going to have a hard time articulating myself with this.

Basically, I watched the film 24 Hour Party People last night and it made me aware of how out of touch I am with the world around me, in particular with arts and culture. One brief look at the play-list on my i-pod and you will be hard-pressed to find an album that was recorded less than ten years ago. So I'm 25 years old and I'm living in the past listening to the same music I was listening to in high-school. If you was to show me a list of the top 10 musical acts in Britain right now I probably wouldn't know who half of them were.

Just the other day I was watching a repeat of Have I got News for you on TV channel Dave and in the odd one out rounds a picture came up that I thought was Tim Wheeler from Ash but was in fact James Blunt. I didn't recognise him. I wasn't even that familiar with who he was. I had heard the name but I didn't know what he looked like and I wasn't sure I knew his music. After looking on Wikipedia I now know he was the guy who wrote that awful song You're beautiful. For a brief moment after finding that out I didn't feel so bad for being out of touch. You could even say I'm quite fortunate for being ignorant of the music of the musician James Blunt.

But I can't continue being ignorant of everything or else I'll leave myself open to ridicule. Very much like a childhood friend of mine who shocked us all in school one day when we found out he didn't know who Saddam Hussein was. He didn't even know about the Gulf war. We didn't know how he could not of possibly known something that I remember to be one of the biggest news events of my early childhood. For many years after if anyone one of us was in a disagreement or argument with this friend we would use his ignorance of the Gulf war crisis against him to shatter any credibility he could've had, reducing him to an object of ridicule. Anytime this friend would make a statement or claim we thought might be wrong we would say "but XXX (no it wasn't Vin Diesel, the XXX's are there to protect this persons name - not sure why though), you're probably wrong coz you didn't even know who Saddam Hussein was until we told you".

So yeah, I gotta get back on the hobby horse and get back up to date with what is going on in the world, but not just to avoid ridicule from my peers(though it's probably to late for that after that admission about James Blunt). It's important to me as an artist as well. Because what the film 24 hour party people made me realise more than anything, is that as an artist I need to know what the zeitgeist is and stay one step ahead of it, if i'm to accomplish any worthwhile goals I have for myself. Though to be honest I kind of knew this already. I think it was what the people in that film achieved artistically, and the cultural influence they had that inspired me most of all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I could make you a mix tape of okayish modern music but everything is on CD now.