My earliest recollections of music are from roughly when I was 4 years old. I was sitting down, leafing through my Dad’s vinyl collection. The soothing, melodic harmonies of George Harrison’s guitar from Here Comes the Sun break the ambience…too pretentious? Ok fair enough. Please keep on reading…

Not as many of my friends know the extent of my passion for music as much as they know about my sport. But it’s something that’s been with me throughout my life, a soundtrack to the rollercoaster. From the early vinyl memories, I progressed to recording songs I liked from the radio onto cassettes (and accidentally erasing a side of the Beatles White Album).

Then came the CD revolution, expensive, but worth the excitement of opening the packaging and reading the inner booklet. From that we went to ‘questionable downloading’- limitless music and a destroyed computer to the chagrin of my parents. Did I lose my passion for the album during the downloading phase? I don’t think so- if anything the accessibility furthered it. I started downloading complete discographies of artists, including a possibly unhealthy obsession with getting my hands on every Jimi Hendrix track available. What changed everything was streaming, where a song can be saved or skipped in a heartbeat.

The analogy I’ll go with is compiling a book, from random chapters of classic novels. Readable, interesting, but ultimately confusing and lacking flow. Swap the chapters for short stories and we have a book, the playlist, that’s punchy and flowing but lacking the depth of the classics. Music now is geared towards those short stories- an instant grab that forces you to hold your click.

This is not an attack on ‘new music’, and the new ways people consume it. I’m just confused. I find it hard now to listen to an entire album on Spotify, instead my library is filled with one or two songs from a myriad of different artists. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Ultimately music is what you need it for- maybe in today’s society we need the short stories as we bounce from challenge to challenge.

My main concern is how much longevity music nowadays will have. A current example- the artist 6lack, who recently produced a critically acclaimed Hip-hop/RnB album which I enjoyed. Will we be talking about it in 50 years with the same sentiments as the timeless Tommy by ‘The Who’ though? The issue is that for music to ‘stand the test of time’ there has to be a groundbreaking aspect, but so much has been done that it’s hard to break new ice…and other than the innovative use of electronics there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room to move.

I wrote this article as I usually do- lying in my bed, thinking it through first. This time though I had just emerged from a REM (iconic 90s American band) wormhole, mesmerised by their genius in their music video for Losing my Religion. Is the innocence of the 4 year old listening to Abbey Road lost forever? My life is in way like one of those REM videos sometimes- disjointed, posing more questions than answers. Ultimately though, I am strapped in for the journey. I’m excited by the next new phase the world of music will throw up, and whatever it is, I’ll keep listening.