A Day In The Life (Harkive)

I suppose this post is a little different in that it is a musical 'day in the life' recorded as part of the Harkive project.

Okay, so what is Harkive? It's a listening project, set up by an MA student at Birmingham City University.  With all the streaming and scrobbling these days it is easy to know what people are listening to but for this project "I am interested in the How, Why and Where. I am less interested in the What." And they are collecting it from around the world on one single day.

So this is my personal contribution. All the music that I have listened to on 9th July 2013, and the reasons why.

At midnight this morning I was sat in bad, on the laptop, headphones on, listening to music.  Our Vapour Trails radio show had gone out a few hours before and I was keen to get some of the prep for next week's show out of the way early.  It actually takes a surprising amount of time to produce an hour of radio!  So I was flicking through my archives, listening to tracks. I tend to run this through Spotify as that gives me access not only to my own CDs & mp3s but thousands of other tracks too. I probably started about 11pm but, as this project only covers today, have only listed the tracks that I listened to after midnight.  Not all of these will be in next week's show and I didn't necessarily listen to the whole track.

• Move Away by Warm Jets
• Never Never by Warm Jets
• Hurricane by Warm Jets
• Vapour Trails by Warm Jets
• I Suppose by Puressence
• Drop Down To Earth by Puressence
• All That You Do by Dandys
• Shelter by The Boo Radleys
• See A Better Day by Graham Coxon
• 26 Years by Menswear
• Fishes by The Real People
• Chemical World by Blur
• Zeroes And Ones by Jesus Jones
• Ruined In A Day by New Order
• Dracula's Castle by New Order
• Snakedriver by Jesus And Mary Chain
• Belaruse by The Levellers

The morning routine tends to be conducted to BBC Radio 5live so the next music was when I got into the car for the drive to work.  I've got an idea for a future show (which I'll blog about in more detail later) involving the Shine compilation albums. I've recently bought all of them second hand and I need to listen to them just to check that the CDs are okay. So I'm ploughing through them on my way to work (a fairly short commute).  I'm on Shine 5, Disc 1.

• The Day We Caught The Train by Ocean Colour Scene
• Charity by Skunk Anansie
• History by Cast
• Stereotypes by Blur

At this point the next song was by The Divine Comedy.  I've got to confess that I've never been able to stand The Divine Comedy so I switched to the radio.  It was tuned to Phonic FM, one of the stations that I have a show on (Britpop Revival Radio Show, 3rd Sunday of the month, 2pm!).  I like Phonic a lot. It's a community station which means that there are no ads and no playlists - the presenters just play what they want.  This leads to the most gloriously eclectic mix of music.  Today I recognised the song 'Wicked Game' but not the version. When the car stopped at a red light I got out my phone and Shazamed it.  I'd had Shazam on my phone for a while but not really used it, so I was impressed that it identified the song instantly.  So to the list we can add;

• Wicked Game by Bossasonic

The next 9 hours was a music free work-day but I did pick up a couple of tweets about new releases that I make a note to listen to later.

Back in the car and of course the radio is still tuned to Phonic. I don't know the song that's playing though I reckon it is probably The Jesus and Mary Chain and I let it play out.  I Shazam again and it confirms the song as;

• On The Wall by The Jesus And Mary Chain

After that I switch back to the Shine 5 CD and am accompanied home by

• Something For The Weekend by The Divine Comedy
• Female Of The Species by Space
• Something 4 The Weekend by Super Furry Animals
• Going Out by Supergrass
• Sleep by Marion
• Inbetweener by Sleeper

Once home I listen to those new songs that I wanted to hear because I think they might be of interest to listeners for next week's show.  I find the Manics on Spotify and Babyshambles on YouTube.

• Rewind The Film by The Manic Street Preachers
• Nothing Comes To Nothing by Babyshambles

At this point I'm interrupted by my youngest daughter practicing her clarinet. So to the mix I guess we should add Oklahoma!, Doe A Deer and assorted scales!

Finally after an evening with the family a quick last minute email check reveals a couple of new tunes.  One from Mark Fernyhough, a songwriter I'm not familiar with, asking if I'd be interested in playing something from his soon to be released debut album (I am) - that one a soundcloud link.  And then an email from Darren of A Northern Light, a band I have long championed, with the youtube link for their first proper video.  So I listen to that too.  

And then just when I think that I'm done I notice that in the corner panel on Youtube is a link to Beady Eye covering Rock 'n' Roll Star at Glastonbury.  I watch this for pure vanity reasons.  It's shaky camera, dodgy quality footage taken by someone in the crowd but I was one of the people stood at the side of the stage for this (right behind Patsy Kensit) and I wanted to see if I could spot myself on the video - I couldn't.

So to finish off the day's listening we have;

• Berlin by Mark Fernyhough
• Kill It by A Northern Light
• Rock 'n' Roll Star by Beady Eye

It's not necessarily a typical day's listening but then it's not atypical either. What I did find interesting though was the different ways in which I listened; Spotify, CD, Radio, YouTube and Soundcloud (oh, and live clarinet!). I wouldn't want to try and do this 'audit' every day but it's been fun and I look forward to seeing some of the results from the Harkive project. If you're interested, be sure to sign up at their website www.harkive.org

Would you pay £18.50 for an album?

The recent demise of the HMV chain of record stores, the last real national outlet for buying music on the high street, has got me thinking.  All the places where I bought music as a teenager are long gone Our Price, MVC, Woolworths, Tower Records and now HMV.  I ought to be nostalgic for them but I'm not.  I couldn't even summon up much enthusiasm for the inevitable 'support you local independent record store' campaign.

Why?

I suppose I have to think about why I used to shop there and why, even though I buy just as much music now as I did in my youth, I haven't bought anything from a record shop in years.  The main reason was that it was the only choice.  You had whatever stock was in your local record shops and that was it.  If they didn't stock it, you weren't getting it.  I can remember finding a review of an album from years previously and deciding that it sounded so good that I just had to get that record (It was 'The Inmates Meet The Beatles Live in Paris' seeing as you're asking).  I had to go to the shop, they looked it up in some big reference book and ordered it.  It took about 2 months to get it!

So yes CHOICE, is the big thing.  The internet has changed music distribution entirely and how can a physical store, even a huge one, compete?  The Tower Records shop at Piccadilly used to be almost a tourist attraction because of the range of music it stocked.  Right now, via Spotify, YouTube or a dozen other services I can listen to practically anything I want.  And that has enabled people to branch out and try new artists and genres in a way that was simply incomprehensible only a decade ago.

Another change has been the COST of music.  Aside from the streaming options mentioned above, if you want to buy music it is quicker and much, much cheaper than ever before.  When preparing for my last show I came across this CD from Travis.  It cost £14 in 2001, that's £18.50 in today's money.  I can buy a brand new copy of that CD from Amazon today for £5.30, or a used copy for £1.27 (download is £8 for some reason).

Travis: Worth £18.50 or £1.27?

Okay, so comparing the price with a used copy may not be a fair comparison but it represents an option that is available to me today that would not have been there a decade ago.

Would you pay almost £20 for an album? No, we have adjusted to a different price range.  I'd baulk at paying more than £7 now unless it was for something really special.  Even then that decision is normally made after giving the album a few listens on Spotify first.  How can a record store compete on cost?  It's not that long ago that HMV were still trying to sell albums for £15.  The surprise is not that they've gone bust but that they lasted as long as they did.

However perhaps the reason most people give for why they love record shops, especially the independents, is the staff.  Building that personal relationship with someone who would recommend new music to you or maybe just a cool place to hang out and listen to something different.  Who wouldn't want to hang out in Championship Vinyl from the movie High Fidelity?

Maybe I just never found the right record store?  But I do know that now with blogs, facebook, twitter and all the other resources of the Internet I can get more interaction and recommendations about music then ever before.  Plenty of the tracks that I play on the shows are from 90s bands that I'd never heard of before people through our facebook and twitter sites recommended them.

So I've got more access to information about new (and old) music than ever before, can purchase or listen to almost any music and at a much, much lower cost than at any other time in the history of recorded music.  So farewell HMV and your ilk but your time has passed.  For a blog that focuses on 90s music it may seem a bit rich but in this instance nostalgia for record shops is over-rated, we've never had it so good.

Of course you may disagree...

Postscript: After watching that clip I too felt the urge to obey John Cusack and purchase a copy of 'The 3 E.P.s by The Beta Band'. Instead I had a listen on Spotify.