Ozzy The Painter

Week two! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. No new Ozzy updates this week, but I do have some introspection about how I listen to music, as well as some unsolicited recommendations. More tangible stuff to come next week!

The Problem with Music as Escapism 

As you might have gathered from my last post, my personal relationship to music is kinda stagnant right now. Not just how I create it, but how I listen to it, talk about it, question it, let it shape me. And I'm exploring how it got that way, and how I can mend that fence. 

I didn't have many rituals to get me through this year. My usual coping mechanisms (before COVID-19) involved some kind of social event or public space, and the ones that didn't certainly felt the extra pressure when lockdown hit. So, left to my own devices, I relied heavily on music as a source of comfort. I went back to old favorites from summers past, albums that helped raise me, songs that comforted me during past difficulties, empowered me when the weight was heavier than usual. Sure, these personal classics rarely have the same effect these days, and I've outgrown most of them. But listening back has always been a kind of ground, a reminder of where I came from, of why I started making music in the first place. And in some moments in 2020, this little ritual was able to soothe me once more. 

But here's the problem. Ultimately, I don't think music has a responsibility to soothe me. I don't think any art form does. 

Couple things. First of all, as a kid, I was the most excited about the music that made me uncomfortable. The catalyzing records of my youth were consistently steps into something frantic, alien, unfamiliar, seemingly uncontrollable but perfectly choreographed. The moments in music that hyped me up as a kid were the moments I didn't expect. Moments of discovery, intensity, and occasionally some unexplainable fear. So if I really wanna remember where I came from, I need to remember that uncertainty, that sense of adventure. 

Secondly, despite whatever Stefan Ek will tell you, I don't think music is a consumer good. It's not for me to purchase, consume, internalize, and move away from. To me, it's like a dialogue with a living being, a discussion that takes two sides listening, challenging, and respecting each other's time and intelligence. And respecting the duality of that conversation is what allows me to speak the language; I can't be a convincing musician without also being an avid listener. So for me to be looking to music for escapism alone feels disrespectful. Like I'm asking someone to only tell me exactly what I want to hear. That's not the kind of relationship I want with art, art that I can connect to intimately, art whose creators have spent thousands of hours honing it to its purest form. That approach cheapens what it really is to me. 

So – as with any decent relationship – for me to start patching things up, I need to acknowledge that I haven't been doing my part. This year I didn't really allow music to challenge me, because I (understandably) didn't need any more challenges. If I didn't understand something, I would, subconsciously, refuse to let it in. And because of that, I had a really unfulfilling year as a listener. 

But I'm not writing this just to dunk on myself! It's Christmas, it's Capricorn season, it's a time for reflection, but also for results. 

Everything In Its Right Place 

Revisiting how I listen to music feeds into a parallel effort of mine: creating routines and rituals in my life. It was hard before COVID, and it's fucking hard during COVID (I've considered being evaluated for ADHD a few times). But when I manage to build some decent habits, it always pays off. 

I missed a lot of music this year, so I spent this past week making a plan for catching up. I've trawled through some year-end round-up lists from friends and music writers, and I've amassed a long listening list, which is just getting longer as time goes on. 

My goal is pretty simple: listen to one album per day, and write down some thoughts about it. But as simple as that is, it still brings up a lot of questions for me. A lot of philosophy jack-off questions like, what does it even mean to listen to music, in a focused way? How long do I need to process it? What's the best environment for different kinds of music? And the list goes on. 

I'm not gonna answer all of these questions at once. And I've got a hell of a backlog to get through, and it's still growing. So I'm just gonna jump in, and I'll keep asking questions and refining the process as I go. 

Here are some albums I listened to this week: 

• Ovrkast. - Try Again (thanks to Hasani for the recommendation) 
• Mereba - The Jungle Is The Only Way Out 
• Nick Hakim - Green Twins (more on this one next week) 
• BIG $ilky - BIG $ilky, Vol. 2 
• NNAMDÏ - DROOL 

So far, all I can say about them is that I like them. Still gotta sit with them for a little longer, digest them properly. I'm gonna dive into these albums, and some of those tougher questions from earlier, in future posts. 

I know this all probably seems like a lot of effort to put into just... listening to music. Unfortunately, it has always taken a lot of effort for me to build these habits, so these really structured approaches are sometimes the best for me. I also think that listening to music is really complicated, much more so than we recognize. So maybe we can learn something from overanalyzing this just a bit. Either way, I've got albums to listen to, songs to finish, and questions to ask and maybe answer in the coming weeks. And I'm very excited to get started.

I'll see you on New Years Eve!

Ozzy