Late to the party

Recently, I was beginning to think that music was losing its hold on me. Nothing grabbed me the way that it used to. Everything sounded like a retread. Had I reached the age where nothing new would interest or excite me the same way it had for the past 37 years or so? Of course, I would have all my old favorites (and there are certainly many of them) to sustain me and make life more bearable, but there was something inescapably depressing about the idea that my musical journey was nearing an end, that my years of active listening would yield less and less fruits in the future. Some may have already sensed a bit of desperation and impending doom in my previous explorations of soft rock. Things got so bad that I was willing to give bands I had previously listened to and not liked that much (The Smiths--sorry, I can't get past Morrissey's voice) or enormously popular bands that I sensed I would not like at all (The Cure--ditto Robert Smith's voice) a try. The results were as dismal as my soft rock foray (all I liked was The Smith's "How Late Is Now?" and The Cure's "Pictures of You" and "Just Like Heaven"). I guess it was in a similar spirit that I picked up a used copy of The Jesus and Mary Chain's compilation, 21 Singles 1984-1998, and haven't stopped listening to it since I first played it a couple weeks ago. The strange thing is that I had bought The Jesus and Mary Chain's album, Darklands, when it came out in '87, but for whatever reason it didn't take hold at the time and I never looked back (strange because I now realize it contains three of my favorite singles: April Skies, Happy When It Rains, and Darklands). I've since gone back to listen to Darklands and their first album, Psychocandy, which I had bought a while ago but never got around to listening to. Unfortunately, aside from the singles included on the compilation, the original albums didn't grab me song for song the way the compilation did. The early singles that got them noticed, and created a controversy at the time that like most controversies seems absurd today, are drenched in feedback (some fans also took offense to their short sets and the fact that they performed with their backs to the audience. Silly, right?). Once the feedback gimmick is dispensed with, it's one great single after another. Moody vocals, evocative lyrics, echoes of the Velvet Underground, The Ronettes, Link Wray, The Beach Boys, The Ramones; what's not to love? So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the end may not be as near as I thought, that music continues to surprise and exert its mysterious hold on me which is probably another way of saying that I'm not dead yet.