Sound and the Fury: New Music, Then and Now...

Redartz:  Well, here is another post inspired by a flea market excursion. You might guess by now, correctly, that I haunt these things with some frequency. What can I say? It keeps me out of the pool halls (a good thing, as I'm a lousy pool player).

In this instance, the 'big find' wasn't a comic or collectible. It was a box full of compact discs; about 200 of them. Completely unsorted; this box was stuffed full, sitting on the floor of one particular booth, and marked for the whopping sum of 12 dollars. Most folks would pass over such a box; cds suffering in popularity from the availability of streaming services and the resurgence of vinyl. But not me; I took a brief look over the top of the stacks (one could realistically only access a couple dozen without emptying the box all over the floor). Yes, there was junk, but several discs of interest- enough interest to justify the purchase. 

So an hour later I was hunched over a card table in the living room, sorting and stacking piles of jewel cases. There weren't any 'big guns'; i.e. no Beatles, Stones, Duran Duran, Hendrix. But there were many I chose to keep: a Simpsons disc, Basia, Enya, Modest Mouse, Harry Connick Jr., and more. There were quite a number of classical discs, many not already among my collection. But providing the fun (and today's subject) were the many discs totally unfamiliar to me. Soundtracks to films I'd not heard of, cds by acts from all over. World music, Jazz, Big Bands, and so on. And how can you beat the fun of auditioning all this new (new to me, anyway) music? Right off the bat there was a great discovery; a disc by an act called Groove Armada. Now you UK residents may know of them, but I did not. Popped it in for a listen and was quite pleased, googled them and found out they have had some success 'over your way'. Now I will have to search out more of their work. 

The 'moral' of this tale is that it is still a pleasure today to discover good music. Maybe it's easier in today's world to explore different musical outlets. Back in the 70's and 80's, learning about new music meant having either a friend with a great lp collection or access to a record store with knowledgeable staff (and preferably a good imports section). In college we had a terrific used record store, called Second Time Around. They had a big selection of old and new lps, but the big attraction was that they kept receiving many of the hot new sounds from all around the world during those heady days of the Punk/New Wave era. Nobody else in our area could have introduced me to, for instance, Gruppo Sportivo. Every week, our little gang visited that store to see what was in (after a stop at the nearby comic shop, of course). And we rarely left empty handed.

So for our discussion: expanding your musical horizons. How did you do it 'back then'? How do you do it now? How important is it for you to 'stay current', and do you enjoy finding great music from the past that speaks to you now? What acts were you stoked upon first hearing? Go ahead, we're all listening...