Sweet serendipity

‘If you liked that, why not try this?’ Such tempting words, so hard to resist. I love the idea that some immeasurably complex computer algorithm, lovingly created by nerds, can sift through the teeming piles of new music out there and find something for me that I didn’t know I was going to like. One day this glorious state of affairs may even come to pass. For the moment, though, these links always lead you to (i) music you already own and enjoy, (ii) music that sounds a bit like the music you already own and enjoy but isn’t as good, and (iii) music you wouldn’t touch with a bargepole attached to another bargepole. For me it’s always little Jamie Cullum or Michael Bublé. If you listen to anything vaguely jazzy, the algorithm always sends you to Michael Bleeding Bublé. Even nerds aren’t completely incorruptible. I can imagine that brown envelopes full of used notes, carefully placed, would constitute a sensible investment in these hard times. They might even be tax-deductible.

Forget algorithms. Serendipity remains the music-lover’s best friend. You never know where you are going to find the next great album. I have been looking back at my log of music played this year, and if we discount that damaging Bee Gees phase, and the rediscovery of several old favourites, there are three newish albums that appear to have been played to death. They are not the three I would have predicted, because I bought all three with relatively low expectations. Not one is from this year. That’s not to say that nothing any good was released in 2012: it’s just that I haven’t heard it yet. Or maybe I haven’t realised how good it is yet. The wheels of justice grind exceeding slow, and ears don’t necessarily go much faster.