I've Never Listened To The Cure's Disintegration.

I've never been a completist. I've never been a trainspotter or a twitcher. It seems strange to me that there are people out there whose favourite REM albums are ones I've never bothered with. The same with The Fall. Both bands produced their "best" albums long after I'd lost interest in them, and even though their early records are among my most cherished, I feel no compulsion to listen to "Automatic for the People". I know the hisses and pops between the notes on the first five* REM records, and then...the thrill is gone. They became someone else's band. And that's cool. 

REM when I liked them. Note that Bill Berry is still in the band, Stipe has hair and there is still a band called REM. 

I got bored of The Cure after "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me", so I have missed out on their masterpiece. Quel Dommage. I'll live. So will they. 

I know people, men, who are exhaustive. Who have to listen to every squeezed out note, every Japanese import or tossed off split-single on magazine front flexi-disc. It's quite romantic I think, a grail quest. There is always something nobler, purer, and forever out of reach. Or, looked at another way, its controlling. Its all about ownership, about unassailable mastery, about brooking no argument, about owning all the things. I am the expert: I've heard every last fart and whistle the band ever squeaked out, and therefore mine is the correct opinion. 

Either way, whatever that little masculine quirk is (I know no women like this), I don't have it. I expect its saved me a lot of money over the years. 

It just seems so unrealistic. I'm not the same person I was at 20, or 30 or even 40. I'm a fuck of a lot older for one thing, and I've put away childish things: the boot cut jeans and beads are gone, the copies of The Idler and 2000AD, the grueling hours spent on low-impact flirting in the pub with oblivious women. I don't wear Ben Sherman shirts, go to Blow Up at the Laurel Tree or stink of some vanilla spray thing I got from the Body Shop anymore. I don't dye my hair (though I might do again one day - John Higgins: The Nicky Haslam years). I no longer do those things, so why would I want to listen to the same bands I listened to then, as they become more and more sophisticated, and further away from the things that made me love them. This was before the internet, and before "independent" was a demographic label, and before marketing bullshit had colonised every last corner of creativity.When the music press dropped crumbs and you snaffled them up like a patient dog at the dining table. We knew nothing then. It was exciting. You worked harder. These days I love the free availability of ALL MUSIC ALL THE TIME, its so convenient. But there is very little sense of reward and there's no risk. 

There's no more reading about Thin White Rope doing a cover of Can's "Yoo Doo Right", coveting it, saving your pennies, going to a shop and ordering it, waiting a week and a half, taking it home, playing it and discovering its shit. Now you'd ask Alexa to play it and turn it off in seconds**. That's obviously progress, but still. Something has been lost. I had to try really hard to like that record because it represented significant outlay. I nearly got there. I wasn't ready for Eno's "Here Come Warm Jets" when I first bought it. It sounded thin and arch and wacky. I was wrong - I mean it is all those things, but its also incredible. I love it now. I made an effort. 

Why would I ever want to listen to REM's "Reveal", with its slick, polished sound, and Stipe's clearly enunciated vocals and professorial lyrics. The REM I liked - still like - featured vocals that were an octave deeper and you couldn't understand a word Stipe was saying. I covered "Radio Free Europe" with a band and I sang noises, because apart from the chorus, that's all that song is. REM then were shrouded in mystery (and hair). The bass and drums were proficient but part of the joy of Peter Buck and Michael Stipe's contribution was they were limited, they lacked technique and that made them vivid and immediate. Stipe often sounded like a drunk Elvis stubbing his toe somewhere upstairs, and Peter Buck was taught his guitar solos by the bass player. Perfect. Now they can riff on the chamber-pop of The Beach Boys they're a very different band, and say nothing to me. 

In the eighties records, for some reason, were often really badly recorded and sounded almost willfully shit. Everyone sang in a monotone and sounded like they had a terminal head-cold. It was trebly, it was clattering, it was glorious. Would I really like "Pyromaniac" by The Verlaines if I heard it for the first time now? Or "Smoke Rings" by Slab? Or "Sunburst" by Tangerine? Probably not. But I do like those records because they are part of my life: they have myriad associations, they coloured my experience, and they speak of friendships, of past relationships, of YOUTH. They remind me of being young and strong and guileless, and waiting for everything to start happening. As opposed to old and weak and guileless and waiting for everything to start happening. I still listen to "Fly Robin Fly" by Silver Convention, because of the peculiar cascade of sensuality that washes over me. And it's rubbish! 

Is it like you're having a relationship with the band? Is it a long standing commitment? You both change over time and the love changes with you, deepening, becoming richer. Sure, there have been rocky patches, times you fell out or didn't see eye to eye, but you weathered the storm. So glad you made it. That makes me sound quite shallow, doesn't it, with my fair-weather infatuation. I'm only there for that dizzying first rush of pop lust, then I'm halfway down the hallway with my trousers bunched in both hands, laughing and never looking back. What a bastard. 

But its not really like that is it? REM don't know who you are. They don't care. Your loyalty means nothing to them. They do what they want and just assume you'll suck up their "new direction". You're just money and fawning praise to them, and they don't even want that any more. They split a decade ago. Let it go. Its not happening. You're not a fan - you're a stalker. Its a shame for you and your family. 

Do what I do: listen to records by people who are comfortably dead. They can't touch you for it. I'll listen to Disintegration when I get the bad news about Robert Smith. 

*Six, if you include Chronic Town. I got bored around either Green or Out of Time. 

**Alexa has a live version. I just hate the bloke's voice. The Loop version of "Mother Sky" is much better.