A Bit Out of Sorts

Some of you may have noticed that I owe my readers approximately four posts and a weekly mix at this point. I've been AWOL for nearly two weeks now, and the only way I can explain it is that I've been feeling a bit out of sorts lately. It could be the culmination of my ongoing unemployment, my general uncertainty about this blog, and my natural propensity for inexplicable bouts of this type. When I say uncertainty about this blog, I mean that I'm mulling over quality versus quantity issues.

Over the course of the last year I aimed for quality over quantity (fewer, but longer, detailed posts), and it seemed to work quite well. I've never really wanted to be a blogger that tries to pump out links to songs just so I can be among the first to post them and generate massive traffic. Lately, I've just felt more pressured than usual to keep delivering detailed commentary to the best of my ability. And I often just don't feel up to the best of my ability, nor do I feel like I'm hitting my best a lot of the time. Sometimes I feel like I've run out of ways to describe music and that I'm merely repeating myself. The temptation to write a couple lines saying "These songs are really good and you should listen to them" and post links grew over the past couple of weeks. But I want to fight that feeling. It could also just be my lifelong struggle with writer's block and with diary-writing of any sort (I've never been able to keep a journal for more than a few days...even on overseas trips).

I've also started to feel a little snowed under with the amount of music I want to listen to properly and can't seem to commit my brain to. I want to listen to music with the same intensity as a fan, not always as a critic. I'm not a professional music critic, nor am I a music journalist, and it would do me good to keep that in mind. Critics don't seem like happy people (just look at Paul Morley), and I get enough unhappy naturally without becoming one.

This isn't a cry for pity or sympathy - it's merely an explanation for my spotty showing these past couple of weeks. In the end, I think I needed the small break to recollect myself, and I needed to remind myself what this blog was supposed to be about in the firstplace: my love for music. That means I shouldn't feel pressured to write about music I don't feel anything for and perhaps it means I shouldn't feel pressured to stick to any sort of rigid production schedule - if I have nothing to say for the week, I just shouldn't post. I may lose readers in the end, but audience numbers shouldn't be my goal. It might take some re-thinking and re-formatting how I write here, but I want to push through this gloomy ebb of self-esteem. And music will help me do that.

For now, I'm leaving you with two tracks that brought me back to the land of the posting: Butcher Boy's Carve a Pattern and Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career. Both are uplifting songs from upcoming albums releasing in April. I look forward to hearing them and hopefully falling in love with music again.

Carve a Pattern - Butcher Boy

My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura