when all else forward fails

I have a string of releases I am listening through for eventual review here. I prioritize on the basis of when I receive them, not according to when they were released. This is my best practice with respect to the artists/labels that send me their work.

I could care less about writing about something simply because it is freshly minted. Nor would I choose to bypass a strong release because it dropped a year or more ago, or because others have written about it before me. In fact, the last two contingencies will often be true. I find merit in writing about music that has been released amid an avalanche of new releases, well after its initial emergence [and the concomitant initial postings and forum discussions]. This fits well with my somewhat time-demanding listening criteria [about which more than a few of you have given me feedback].

The acceleration of everything- the production of cds/cdrs by artists and small imprints, the speed of *critical* feedback to the music via the internet, the buzzing and blooming virtual salons where the music under discussion is feted, rated and dated at improbable speeds- all contribute to a developing sensibility that devalues the essential ingredient time plays in shaping our perspectives.

Mostly I am saying this to deal with my own manufactured pressure to maintain fresh content here, however dizzying the glut of releases. I hope my readers visit to see what I have to say about music I have lived with a while, sometimes music that has been quickly forgotten in the avalanche of releases, relegated to the internet’s dustbin of history, which renders a thing dated by months, not years.

Let’s go backwards when all else (forward) fails…
When every thing old is new again.