Flavour of the Week

I kind of imagine that this is the closest to what an identity crisis looks like.

For the past few weeks I've found it increasingly difficult to get excited, or interested in anything remotely resembling music. If I find something that piques my interest, it doesn't stay that way. Within a day or two I've moved onto the next big thing, or the same three or four albums that have managed to keep my interest over the past couple of months.

Is the well of good music drying up?

I certainly hope not.

This year has been a good year for me as far as music is concerned. The highlight has certainly been discovering Darkest Hour and Anime Fire, and of course the release of Radiohead's *brilliant* new album! But very little else has been able to sustain my interest.

There was a period where old-school style hardcore was interesting to me, and another where metalcore was awesome. I keep coming back to brief flirtations with hip hop, where I go through stages of about a week where a particular hip hop artist or album will get me excited. It's always either Dizzee Rascal or Lupe Fiasco. Last week it was Nas' new album. In a month or so's time it will be something else. Metal is something I find myself getting into more and more.

But no one genre or no one album really maintains my interest for an extended period of time and, again, I find myself coming back to that same three or four albums that have dominated my stereos and iTunes for the bulk of the year.

This week's flavours of the week appears to be trip hop and acid house. I bought Faithless' "Reverence" last week and that is an awesome, awesome album. Right now I'm listening to "Maxinquaye" by Tricky which I borrowed of a friend a while ago but had not really gotten around to listening to it. These are certainly new styles of music to me ... well, kind of. I had a brief flirtation with The Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx and Massive Attack in like 2003/2004, but that's about it. And I often play Unkle's new album at work because it's so freaking cool! (I think I previously posted about it, actually).

I don't know what my issue is ... I love music. I love punk and metal and hardcore and all their derivatives more than any other genre. But nothing maintains my interest. Very little gets me excited anymore. There are a few Australian bands doing the rounds (The Amity Affliction, Anime Fire, Closure in Moscow and sleepsmakeswaves) that totally blow me away, and I will rave about them as much as I can.

I just need something new and something to get me excited and interested and absorbed and involved again. I keep thinking I've found it, but a week later something else takes over. For example, for the past couple of days I've been talking about how excellent Breach are. And they are FANTASTIC ...Swedish hardcore: catchy melodies and awesome rhythms. But by tomorrow I'll probably be playing Faithless or Massive Attack or something along those lines. I had mostly metal or metalcore CDs in my car today, and I flicked through the eight or so CDs for about ten minutes in the carpark after I left work before I finally settled on playing the ONE non-metal CD in the pile (The Presets, if you were wondering ...).




I'm just sick of this "Flavour of the Week" crap ... Someone give me something, anything, to obsess over!

I haven't had a good obsession in a while ....