“He read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage,
and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.”
– Anton Chekhov, ‘The Bet’ (published 1889)
I first became acquainted with Chekhov’s tale nearly 100 years after it was written. For those unfamiliar with the story’s premise: During a discussion about capital punishment, a young lawyer wagers that he can endure 15 years of voluntary house arrest and solitary confinement against a rich banker’s promised payout of millions.
Like many readers, I’ve often wondered how I myself might respond in such circumstances. In the story, one of the conditions of the bet is that the lawyer could request books to read; of course, I would update these terms to include LPs and compact discs for my listening pleasure and study. Imagine being able to request the complete recorded output of Bruce Springsteen, or all Bob Dylan’s bootlegs, or every obscurity the Beatles committed to tape. And why not? You’d certainly have time to listen to it all.
But I recently had a revelation: In the context of the internet and digital media, we’re now in a very similar situation. If you look hard enough (and in some cases, you don’t even have to look hard at all), you can find in some form or another pretty much every song you’d ever want to hear.
Some calculate that there at least 40 million songs out there. So, matching a modest estimate of life expectancy with a similarly modest estimate of songs and running times produces this result: Even if you listened to music 24/7, you would still need about five or six lifetimes to hear every song once.
Now in my case, I tend to listen to music a lot like Chekhov’s lawyer requests reading materials: I go through phases, like when I was an angsty 18 year old and listened to mostly nothing but the Doors for months on end; I did the same many years later with the Velvet Underground when their multiple stereo mixes, mono mixes and associated related live recordings became officially available. Or all the Led Zeppelin reissues. Or my recent fascination with prog. Or Euro-retro rock. Or ska. You get the point.
It’s also just as easy to find oneself going down the rabbit hole (borrowing a different literary convention by a different author) and listening to everything and anything at all and nothing in particular, much like the way the not-so-young-anymore lawyer chose his reading materials 15 years later in an effort to preserve himself.
Maybe that’s the case for modern music in general, and whatever audience is left that hasn’t pledged its allegiance to e-sports – or maybe that’s just me in particular. If so, I don’t know if the following Best of 2019 list is indicative of such an act of desperate listening on my part. Still, if nothing else, this year’s new releases – along with some that are just new to me – indicate that there is still plenty of music out there in which to be interested.
DREAM SYNDICATE – THESE TIMES (ROCK): After not releasing any new studio recordings since 1988’s Ghost Stories, the Dream Syndicate issued How Did I Find Myself Here? in 2017. Now, two years later, they offer up another take on modern rock ‘n’ roll with These Times.
BECK, NEIL YOUNG, NORAH JONES, STEPHEN STILLS + OTHERS – ECHO IN THE CANYON (POP/ROCK): This Best of 2019 entry finds Jakob Dylan assembling an all-star cast to celebrate the classic California sound of the mid-1960s.
ALICE COOPER – BREADCRUMBS (ROCK): A six-song EP featuring covers of such Detroit luminaries as the MC5, Suzi Quatro, and Bob Seger and the Last Heard.
JOHN COLTRANE – BLUE WORLD (JAZZ): Not so much a reissue, as a lost session from a Canadian National Film Board production. Featuring John Coltrane’s classic quartet, this 1964 recording helps complete the historical record more than anything. Still, most Coltrane fans will probably consider it an essential acquisition.
BLACK KEYS – ‘LET’S ROCK’ (ROCK): Definitely a solid entry in their catalog, it encapsulates the Black Keys’ brand of psychedelic-blues pop at its best.
OLDER NEW DISCOVERIES
BLONDIE – BLONDIE (1976): “Heart of Glass” burst out onto the radio in 1978, but there was so much going on in the punk/new wave camp in the late 1970s that I just never got around to hearing Debbie Harry & Company’s debut long player. This first album, though, represents a bridge between the old-school girl groups and a streetwise ’70s New York aesthetic – as if you needed to know there even was such a thing.
RENAISSANCE – ASHES ARE BURNING (1973): Started by two ex-Yardbirds, Renaissance eventually morphed into a progressive art/folk group that focused on instrumental excellence and the vocal work of Annie Haslam. Had I heard this back in the day, I’m sure I would have liked it, but I don’t recall ever seeing this album stocked in any of my childhood record haunts.
HUMBLE PIE – ROCK ON (1971): Now, this record I actually did see frequently, but I was never curious about it. Maybe I had heard Frampton Comes Alive 100 too many times to bother looking up any of his old material. Too bad: With Steve Marriott nominally fronting this aggregation, Humble Pie sounded ready to give the Rolling Stones, Faces, or Foghat a run for their rock-star money.
DUMPTRUCK – FOR THE COUNTRY (1987): Jangle-pop band from Boston. By the time they released this album and were ready to make the jump, their time had passed.
STARZ – VIOLATION (1977): I’m at a loss to explain how this one slipped by me. Maybe it was because they shared management with Kiss; maybe it was their ’70s rock-god looks. Maybe it was the pseudo sci-fi concept album that some claim is buried in the lyrics, if one cares to look for it. But the one-two punch of the album’s Top 40 power-pop opener “Cherry Baby” and the rock-hard second track “Rock Six Times” (hearing Michael Smith howl “I cannot explain to you/ But I have lost my senses!” is awe-inspiring) should have been enough to put Violation over the top. Instead, Starz get my vote this year for Best Band I Missed First Time Around.
Finally, what does Anton Chekhov’s story portend for the future of rock ‘n’ roll? That’s a tough call, but like all great literature, anything worth arguing over is almost always open to interpretation.
- How David Bowie’s ‘The Next Day’ Stripped Away All of the Artifice - March 15, 2023
- Why Deep Purple’s ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’ Deserves Another Listen - January 11, 2023
- In Defense of the Often-Overlooked Mott the Hoople - November 10, 2022
