Critic hat; fan hat (random musings)

I made a small promise to myself that I wouldn't use this blog for navel-gazing. I don't know how many times I've broken that promise, but I suspect it's more than I'd want to admit. Here's the deal: those of you who write about music, how objective are you, really? Or, I guess, how objective are you willing to be without boring the pants off your readers?

Technically, I don't have "readers" yet, so I'm only boring myself. I've read a spate of posts from other bloggers detailing how this or that record "saved my life," and that's great. For whatever reason, I cannot do this. When I try, it just falls flat. I'm starting to wonder if my experience with music is just... odd.

I can remember where I was when I first heard certain songs. I distinctly remember sitting in a Downtown St. Louis parking garage in the rain for this one, and in the backseat of my grandpa's station wagon on the day Kurt Cobain unsuccessfully attempted suicide (about a month before he successfully attempted suicide) for this one. For that reason I always associate Kurt's suicide with Beck's "Loser," even though the timing is all wrong. (I've sort of re-written the history of 90s rock in my mind with Kurt passing the torch to Beck. Which, if nothing else, shows how small my world was in 1994.) Parlaying all this into some kind of cohesive narrative is tough, though.

I'm not sure where I'm taking this, but I'd like to do more of the passionate, music-fan kind of writing, but truth be told, I'm more a nerdy music fan than a passionate one, and I'm kind of craving that right now. I might have to do a bit of retooling on this site.