I give up. I know, I'm disappointed in me as well. But after the third or fourth leak that I downloaded without thinking, only to leave it wallowing on my hard drive, it hit me. People need to stop making music. I can't keep up. At some point it ceases to be fun and just starts to become incredibly annoying. Not to mention how tiring the whole process is.
Every week, it's another band I've never heard of with an album THAT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT MUSIC, LIFE, GOD, ETC., ETC. I guess albums that promote just having a good time aren't enough. If you doubt me, take a gander at the ZBC offices on a Tuesday when we go through the mail. Imagine a music fan's wet dream: Envelopes filled with fresh new promo discs, all vying for a coveted slot on our playlist. Now let reality sink in as you realize that a) most of these bands suck, and b) even the bands that do get added to the playlist will end up breaking up and forming crummy bands that will just serve as a shallow reminder of how great their first band was.
This endless game of catch-up I play is only reinforced by my own doubts about myself. You'll never have as much music as the others, my ego tells me. You need to maintain your Oink account if you want to stay on top of things. And so I download indiscriminately. Maybe, more than anything else, it's one of those hobbies that turns out to be more than a hobby. It's a rat race. A cutthroat world of trying to one-up the person next to you.
It's a thoughtless and vicious process, akin to drug addiction and masturbation. I'll wake up some mornings with entire discographies from bands that are horrendous. Did I really need to download the whole Oingo Boingo discography? I ask myself, bleary-eyed and drooling over my tight, ironic D.C. Department of Recreation tee.
My computer whinnies and whines every time I approve another download. Go to hell Nick! You and your 40 GB collection! Seriously, stop. Like a junkie ignoring the pleas from concerned loved ones, I just press on until, yes, I finally have the full studio outtakes from The Velvet Underground and Nico sessions. Then I backhand my computer and tell it to "Byte me." I'm corny, I know.
In addition to just the sheer quantity that I have to slog through week after week (this is what I do for you, dear reader), I'm also bombarded on all sides by bands that have somehow gotten big who in reality are just awful. I blame MTV and I blame myself (again, vicious cycle part kicking in here). Who do the people at MTV think they are? Maybe, more importantly, what in the world are they thinking?
But come on, this nth generation of emo-soul-bearing, white-boy-blues-pap is killing me. Let's call a spade a spade: My Chemical Romance is The Cure perpetually stuck in that band's Pornography phase (with about a thimble full of the latter's talent) and Panic! At the Disco just plain sucks and then starts to become even worse because they had the gall to reference a Smiths song in their name. Seriously, do you know of any other bands that have put more thought and pointless, high school creative writing juices into their songs? "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies"? OK, pal.
All of this leads me up to my decision. I'm issuing a musical fatwa to the world. Stop making music. Just for a week. The last time I experienced actual silence was in the womb and even that was spoiled by Mom and Dad's constant playing of Talking Heads' Little Creatures. Special thanks to Mom and Dad for setting me off on the right path. But seriously, I need like a week just to play catch-up.
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