Music

I have a large collection of records and CDs (5000+) as a result of being the London correspondent of a Greek music magazine in the 1980s. I got to interview some big names (from Mick Jagger to the Cure), went to gigs on the guest list and obtained many freebies. I like indie music, house and techno and I have been known to go to raves, which I can justify as being in a dirct musical line from chamber music through to opera and punk. I believe that music follows a historical pattern. In the 17th and 18th centuries music was paid for and enjoyed by the aristocracy (chamber music was perfomed in err.. chambers) and the opera themes were mythological and heroic originally turning more 'realistic' with the rise of the middle class. Popular art in the 20th century produced musicals which contained accessible music based on stereotypical urban fables for the more na d more prosperous working classes. Black music (from ragtime to bebop) injected sex and the teenage monetary power reinforced it and its symbols. In this age of mass communication and production music is paid for and enjoyed by the masses; we pay to hear our peers. What is the logical conclusion : we make our own entertainment by dancing in massive raves. here we are : the audience provides the enetertainment. And yes this is a very marxist view of the history of music. Folk music by the way does not enter in the equation as it has always been part of it.

I can't stand country and western by the way, and ballet has always seemed to be funny and unnatural.