Something I've been meaning to get down for a while, but which I haven't gotten to develop at all:

When you like something enough, or in a certain way, it seems to have a special kind of undeniability. The kind that probably plays an important role in people thinking records are undeniably great.

Could this sense of undeniability be key to the feeling that music has to progress to get better? And that the big breaks are the important ones, the great ones, the ones to love, whereas the small changes show lack of genius, or complacency? That new is better?

The breaks have to be big, in order to escape that sense of undeniability, of inevitability. So that it can happen again.

(Connection to Wittgenstein here.)

I assume I've been hearing the new Shakira single on my alarm clock in the mornings, because at first I thought it was Alanis - it sounded like a shrill old harpy. But the last time I heard it it sounded casual and sweet, and Shakira actually sounded her age.

Or maybe I just didn't notice that it was scratching.

Listening to Aquemini for the first time in a while (I've been listening to less Outkast because I figured it would help me get more into other rap), I just noticed the scratching in the first part of the title track. Don't think I've ever 'heard' it before.

And yes, I know there's not much left. I blame the Beatles.

Today I started thinking about "My White Album". I really, really don't enjoy listening to The Beatles. So I thought that I could do the usual exercise that I wish people would do for multiple albums that they think are full of crap. (See here for a stalled thread about this for The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs.) So far all I have is a list of songs. I still need to get rid of the questionable ones and sequence them.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Happiness is a Warm Gun (first part) ?
Don't Pass Me By ?
I Will ?
Julia ?

Yer Blues ?
Helter Skelter
Revolution 1
Revolution 9
Good Night

Tape I made for a friend's birthday:

A:

Busta Rhymes - Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check / Le Tigre - Get off the Internet / Faust - The Sad Skinhead / Jay-Z - Can I Get A... / M. Mayer - Hush Hush Baby / The Beatles - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / The Beta Band - Dry the Rain / Wu-Tang Clan - Rules / The Dismemberment Plan - Girl O'Clock / Gang Starr - I'm the Man / Sonic Youth - Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit

B:

Stereolab - Metronomic Underground / Eminem - When the Music Stops / The Avalanches - Electricity / Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out / Outkast - Ain't No Thang / Mystikal - Bouncin' Back / Fugazi - Waiting Room / Herbaliser feat. Latryx - 8pt Agenda / A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario (remix) / Pixies - Hey

Ha. The more tapes I make the more apparent the slow shift in what I tend to put on the tapes.

Surely the ecstatic vamping has something to do with how effectively Jarrett is able to fuck around so much with the harmonic 'progression' in his improvisations. Set up a new key for long enough and you eliminate a lot of the 'requirement' that when you change, you've got to do something that fits in with the older harmonic material (like, the stuff from before the last switch, or before that).

It's been quiet in my house.

My roommates went on a week-long trip, and as I expected, about three days in, the loneliness started to bother me. In the summer I'm pretty out of touch with most of the people I met this year, so I just don't have the usual ordinary opportunities to be around people. (Forced opportunities are not an option.)

Maybe suiting this, maybe unrelated: I've also been leaving the house more quiet, deliberately, in that I haven't felt like putting on much music. When I do, I don't feel like hearing anything else right away when it's over. And I'm having a hard time picking a record I think I'll be happy to hear, although once I get one playing I usually enjoy myself.

Instead, I'll just do whatever I'm doing - reading, writing, or nothing at all - quietly. The air conditioning and fans make lots of subtle sounds.

I've made an entry very much like this before but I can't find it.

Just now I put on Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert for the first time in a while. I don't remember the last time I listened to it, though I know it was more recent than what I wrote about over two years ago.

Sometimes when I listen to a record for which I have strong associations, I feel as if what I'm really listening for is to see if I'll have a new memory to attach to it, instead of constantly just referring to the old one. It's not automatic, but it can get in the way of things.

Of course, sometimes I'll just keep listening and not having those memories, only to find out down the road that I made some anyway.