Sunday, July 30, 2017

Grave Considerations: Music Out of Time





Confession time: I am a hoarder of music.

It may not be as noticeable as it was back in the yesteryear of physical media, and maybe two years ago my wife and I went full hipster and only bought physical music on vinyl. But this in no way sated my appetite for new music, and I continued with my stockpiling and constant iPod syncing.

But I don’t necessarily want to talk about that terrible, terrible habit of mine today. The hoarding is something that’s gone on for years and years, and I often believe is a part of a larger issue that I’ve never made myself confront.

What I want to talk about here is this strange phenomena that I’ve recently stumbled upon, that I can only seem to name “music out of time.” I am using this to refer to music that was released at some point in the past and was consumed, but for some reason disliked, only to be rediscovered years later and be really enjoyed. I’m not talking about something like “I heard this song once or twice and didn’t like it, but now I do.” I’m talking about “I heard this when it was brand new and didn’t like it, but can’t really say why, but now I do.”


Example: in 2006, Cradle of Filth released Thornography, an album that I bought right away. I know, I know, but I don’t care. Cradle of Filth is always knocked and maligned, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in the Internet cred fest of trying to justify my enjoyment of this or any other band; for me, it’s more than sufficient that I like them. But this is not about that argument either. I bought Thornography, threw it in the CD player in my car and went out for the evening. I have real distinctive memories of hearing the first three or four tracks before thinking, “Man, this isn’t very good.” At the time, Cradle was reaching some degree of mainstream visibility, mainly due to the emergence of Bam Margera, a guy who became temporarily famous for some reason (I really don’t know why) and had an MTV show and all those hallmarks of true and lasting fame, where he would occasionally hang out with metal musicians. Slayer was on once; Dani Filth was on once. The rest of the roster I don’t know about. But anyway. Cradle had entered the corner of the mainstream eye right around this time, and maybe there was a part of me that, upon recognizing that, felt that this album couldn’t have been good, because now the band was being linked to a stupid show staring an idiot.

But whatever the reasoning, I think I listened to the album maybe twice in its entirety, and then put the disc back in the jewel case and never thought of it again. It would be sold off in one of my CD collection purges that would happen on occasion back in the day, and honestly was never missed. Back in November of 2016, I was clicking through my iPod and realized that I was missing a few Cradle of Filth albums. I downloaded and synched the missing ones, among them Thornography, and decided that someday I’d be bored enough or stuck in the car long enough or listless enough to give the album a listen again, a decade later, to reaffirm my dislike of it. And then something funny happened.

One day, I found the conditions right, and hit play. The typical symphonic intro track passed, the same track from every Cradle album. The first song started, and it was pretty good. I remembered liking the first two or three songs though, so this was fairly expected. And then the second, and third, and fourth, and so on tracks passed, and they were pretty good. And I found myself sitting in my car, thinking, “This is just like other Cradle of Filth albums. There’s nothing wrong with this.” It had all the usual things that I liked about a release from the band, so what was the problem I’d had in 2006? Perhaps this is a fluke, I thought, a bastardized paraphrase of Ebenezer Scrooge, some response brought on by a bit of memory or something. So I tried again, and a third time at the gym. Each time, I found the record to be pretty good. 2006 hadn’t been a particularly good or noteworthy year for me, so there wasn’t any real hard points of nostalgia to affix this album to, the way some music gets locked in to the grooves of your personal history and from that eternally remains good or bad in its assessment. Thornography followed 2004’s Nymphetemine, and album that I do have real strong chronological associations with, and is more or less the same type of listening experience. Generally speaking, I’ve fallen behind with the Cradle release schedule, and have three recent albums that I’ve heard maybe once or not at all, all of them victims of my music hoarding. But I lost ten years of listening to this album, and I can’t even explain why. While it may not be a big deal at all, and I sincerely doubt that it is, I am slightly saddened that I for whatever reason was so curt with this one.

Another example of this is Necropolis, the 2009 offering from death metal titans Vader. Album after Vader album make me so excited. I even like The Beast, an album which for some reason people think is garbage. But Necropolis eluded me for a very long time. I bought it when it first came out, finding it on eBay for real cheap. At the time I was in the throes of long term unemployment, and decided I was going to indulge myself in buying some new music on the Internet to make myself feel like I was a real adult again.  Being unemployed for a long time really does make you start to feel like you’re less than human, and something as small as looking forward to a CD coming in the mail can be enough to remind you that you are still a human. And so I waited for Necropolis to be delivered, and when it was, I threw it in the stereo and didn’t dislike it, but just found it dull and lackluster. For a Vader album, that’s a pretty unusual review, because even if you’re not a fan of the band, you do know that they are going to blast away until the record ends. I remember hearing this and just finding it boring. I’m not sure I listened to it more than twice. When I got an iPod in 2012 Necropolis was ripped onto my computer and synced, where it sat until just this week (the week of May 8th, in case this doesn’t get posted for a while yet). Driving home from work, I had a hankering for some Vader, and thought, “Why not give this one a listen?” Man. Necropolis is a good Vader record, a good death metal record in general, every bit as pummeling and fast and intense as anything else in the Vader catalog. For the first time in a long time I was slightly glad for traffic, as it allowed me to listen to the album twice. 

Dismissed at first and rediscovered years later. Why? What causes this music to be unappreciated in its time, yet quite thoroughly enjoyed years later, almost instantly? These two tales are not the only instances of this, and I am not talking about some record that came out years ago and I only discovered recently. These are instances where I first encountered the music when it was released, and only had it ‘click’ for me years later. Recently, I’ve found myself scrolling through iTunes and thinking, “I want to listen to this entire discography,” as though I were making day-long projects out of music.

Maybe there is no cause or reason for this phenomena, and it’s just a naturally occurring thing. I mean, there’s nothing that says I have to appreciate Zyklon’s Disintegrate on first listen in 2006, and maybe if it doesn’t click for me until 2017, that’s just fine? It seems a bit odd that it would just take years for all the audio stars to align in such a fashion that makes a previously discarded album seem correct. In the cases mentioned by name in this piece, these are not unknown or new bands, but rather bands I’ve followed with rapt attention for years, and still do. Ultimately, this may be a nothing in search of a problem, initial momentary boredom with some music that years later is rectified. After all, I can think of albums contemporary with these overlooked ones that made bigger impressions on me, and so maybe these forgotten ones were simply pushed to the side by something more immediately gripping or satisfying or interesting. I suppose I can’t really say. Perhaps there really are albums that I just shove to the wayside because they weren’t something else.

What I am left with are these hidden gems, efforts buried by time and discovered for the first time years later to feelings of surprise and the comforts that old, reliable, familiar music brings; that sense of “ah, Vader, as always” that feels so, so right. An odd feeling of being wrong so long ago, and now being relieved that the rediscovery happened, as it gives the semblance of a missing segment of the bands’ road has been resurfaced, smoothing out the run from album one to the present day; something missing or lacking has been accounted for. No explanation is provided, although one is sought: but that may be unnecessary, as the explanation may never have been needed. My overactive mind searches for some explanation, but maybe I should just be happy with having heard some good music. Maybe I don’t need an answer to everything, or an understanding of everything. Maybe.

But my mind can’t accept that. As if there weren’t enough things demanding my time, attention and energy these days, my mind can’t just be ok with the idea that I panned something in 2005 that I find enjoyment in in 2017, and my mind cannot abide this rough spot of the intellectual mosaic. So I have to find a way to smooth it over, and make it palatable for my mind. That may never be possible.

Or even necessary.

But damned if I will stop trying. It really is hell in here.

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