Why Do I Find Some Musicians Collectable , But Not Others?

Diamonds In The Dirt is the second album from Joanne Shaw Taylor, and it's the one I have.



If you have never heard her, try out one of her albums on Spotify. I listened to her 2012 release Almost Always Never on Spotify recently. It was good, but I didn't feel the need to learn how or why to use Favourites so I could add it. Nor did I feel the need to buy it. One of her albums is enough. I feel the same way about Chvrches, whose 2013 CD The Bones of What You Believe still deserves all the fuss it received at the time. And about Tegan and Sara, whose 2013 album Heartthrob was on train-music repeat for a while a few years ago.



You may not have heard of Maya Jane Coles either. I have her 2017 2-CD set Take Flight, the 2013 CD Comfort, her contribution to the 2012 DJ Kicks series, and the 2013 Heatwaves for mixmag magazine.



There are six CDs of Alfred Hill's String Quartets on Naxos. Just before the last lockdown, I bought volume 2. After a few listens, I wondered if there was more on Spotify and found there were, and it had the latest version by the Dominion Quartet. I think I chose volume 6, and very pleased with the result I was. I have a feeling I may buy all the others. Good string quartets are hard to find.



What is it about some artists that one CD is enough, but for others, a hundred are too few?

The essential Seven Dials CD is instrumental, has a narrow dynamic range, does not demand sustained attention, but has enough going on that when I do choose to tune in to it, there's something I can hook onto easily and be drawn in by. A good rhythm helps, as does melody, neat phrasing, strong licks and riffs, and thoughtful solo-ing and scoundscaping. I can take vocals, but neither too bland (Nora Jones) nor too guttural (every metal band ever). And no thump-drum intros. It's a balancing act, and any given artist might do it on one CD and miss it on another. Only a few do it consistently for a run of CD's.

It does explain why my collection includes medieval chant, baroque, Real Jazz (1930 - 1965), flamenco, Mozart, and chunks of trance and progressive house, and I see those as part of one continuum.

I have two more conditions.

I like each artist to have thier own distinctive sound. I should be able to recognise the composer or the artist pretty much by the end of the intro and certainly by the end of the first verse. Like Guerlin perfumes: each one smells different, but they all smell like a Guerlin.

And the musician needs to be changing and developing, in however nuanced a manner within their genre. I think Sohn's 2014 CD Tremours is a masterpiece. The 2017 follow-up Rennen is more of the same. Christopher Hogwood's 2010 release of Mozart's complete symphonies shows how Mozart's composing became more complex and experimental through the years: it's always Wolfie, but it's a Wolfie who is growing and learning all the time.

Needle, meet haystack (aka Amazon CD store, aka Spotify).

There are dozens of records and artists from my past phases of listening I still play now and again, thanks to Spotify. Many of them meet my conditions, but for some reason, they are now from-the-past. But that's something else to write about.