There's too much music.

I don't know exactly what led me to this not-very-surprising thought; perhaps a comment on Matt's blog, or perhaps it was this weekend, when I came across a copy of the fantastically-ace Dresden Dolls album sitting on my hard drive, where it had sat for the past four months, unloved and unlistened. As the joy of Girl Anachronism and Coin-Operated Boy filled my ears, I realised: I can never hear everything. At the moment, I'm reacting violently against this cold fact, obtaining a copy of The Magic Numbers' Hymn For Her to work out the exact point in the song where the sun rises and you look into the girl's eyes and go hand-in-hand over the horizon, ready to have a brand-new adventure, which will inevitably involve kissing at some point. At the same time, I'm immersing myself in music that I've never really given much thought about; a set of CDs curated by Saint Etienne has got me all excited about British girl-pop bands of the 1960s, so after dancing in the dawn, I'm hearing tales of heartbreak; of first crushes; of intense jealously for the girl who lives on the corner who gets all the boys. It's just too much. I forget who I am, who I like. What happened to the boy who listened to The Evening Session every night and who thought that (What's The Story) Morning Glory? was the best album ever made? And should I worry that he's no longer around?

A lot of the blame has, like most things, to be placed on the Internet. I can still remember my first attempt to use the net for musical purposes. One day, back in 1998, I joined the Kenickie Mailing List, to keep up with my love for all things Laverne, Montrose and Santiago. Unfortunately, the day I joined was also the day they decided to split up. Even so, it was my first introduction to a music community, and, although I was a bit too quiet on the list, they were very welcoming, and I did get involved (there's a particularly awful piece of writing that I gave to a girl called Kate who was going to assemble a book to give to the band). I have only met one person from the Kenickie mailing list, but they were all a decent sort, if possibly a little obsessed with toast. They're also the first, but not the last, in a whole host of people that I could tell you many things about, but I don't actually know in any sense. I can make Kieron Gillen go into sniffles just by saying "Impactor", but I've never been in the same room with him. This makes me sad (although he probably doesn't feel quite the same way, I imagine).

Anyway, the Internet. At first, it turned out that it was a good way of getting in touch with people in Singapore that were willing to send you bootleg tapes of early Oasis recording sessions (laugh all you want, but I Can See The Sun is a song that deserved to be on an album or single somewhere), but then came Napster. Somewhere, in the background tcp/ip handshake codes of the Internet, you could hear the sound of terror. That was the Manchester Computing Centre, struggling to take the strain as I took full advantage of a direct connection to the Internet. I attempted to download songs by Godspeed You Black Emperor!, although I eventually gave up and bought Slow Riot For New Art Kanada in Wilmington's CDAlley (And even now, I try to be faithful to that chain, visiting every time I go back to Chapel Hill. The guy who runs the shop is very friendly, and always has a conversation for me when I'm there. Although I haven't had the heart to tell him I don't live there anymore). I downloaded this, I downloaded that. Mostly live tracks by Hole (yes, honestly). But it was useful; whenever somebody recommended a group, I would download a track or two, then the next week I would head off to Piccadilly Records, HMV, or Vinyl Exchange, and come out with the album (it's true; my university grant money didn't go on the usual vices of cigarettes and alcohol. It was lost in the haze of a 3-for-£20 sale in HMV). The best find during my time in Manchester? It would have to be (The Best of) New Order, which I found for £2.99 in the back of WH Smiths when it was still in St. Ann's Square.

I can still remember when I first played Sleater-Kinney's The Hot Rock; the wild sounds of Start Together irritating the occupants of A15 and A13 for many Saturday mornings, I imagine. It was a review in the NME that forced me to buy it; a completely over-the-top piece of writing by Steven Wells that made me think "if it's half as good as he says, it'll be the best thing I've listened to all year." It was twice as good. And I can also remember, in a fit of despair, having been mugged the day before, heading into HMV to buy Spiritualized's Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space, easily the most depressing album of 1997. As I'm writing this, I realise that the NME and the Mark Radcliffe show were probably the two main influences on what I listened to when I was at university. After all, I did send Mark & Lard a CD made up of Records of The Week one Christmas (still not sure why I felt the need to do it, seeing as they probably had copies of them already, but they seemed touched when they talked about it on the radio).

After university, I guess you could say I drifted somewhat. I was locked into what I had discovered at Manchester, and didn't really see the need to branch out into anything new. It wasn't until I went to Chapel Hill that I started looking around again. In the first semester, this was because I didn't have much else to do, sitting timid and alone in my room at night. So I discovered Saint Etienne and Dexy's Midnight Runners (beyond Come On Eileen, natch), and (the rest of) New Order; I found a music board on the Internet that talked about nothing but music. It was to be my downfall. I started ordering CDs by obscure bands on even more obscure record labels, eager to see if Saturday Looks Good To Me's Meet Me By The Water could possibly be as good as they said (it could, and it was), and catching up on the back catalogue of bands that I would have previously ignored (imagine, not hearing Forgotten or Don't Talk To Me About Love by Altered Images? Life would be devalued). I loved music; it kept me going. I danced and tidied up on November 1st 2002 to a combination of New Order's Temptation and the Dexy's version of Jackie Wilson Says, and my love of Ultrasound…heh…it was a very funny moment.

I got back home, still loving music. But a subtle change came over me; I realised I was not John Peel. Nor was I meant to be. I didn't have to run away from the eight-year-old in me that bought Smash Hits every week; Betty Boo was fantastic, and Beyonce's Crazy In Love was just as good. It was not that I had discovered Pop Music while dancing in remote parts of Chapel Hill; it was that I had let it back in.

So now, I'm obtaining pop albums, getting into Annie, Girls Aloud, and the rest, while still finding time for more indie-type bands like Stars, The Dresden Dolls, and The Concretes. But I'm still looking for more; going off to blogs and discovering about J-Pop and Bollywood and Afro-beat, and music made in Amsterdam cafés. I can't listen to all of it. Even though I always beat a path to it in service of a joke, I know nothing about Norwegian Death Metal (I just think it's funny that a country that gave us the word 'fjord' also gave us band who like to set themselves on fire or drive spikes through each other's heads), and I don't think I ever will.

I cannot listen to everything. But when I hear records like Coin-Operated Boy, songs that have moments that make me almost burst with joy, for the bridge that makes you glad to be alive in the here and now, so utterly perfect is the lyric "this bridge was written to make you feel smittener / with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer", only to be followed by a song that begins with "shoulda known / shoulda cared / should have hung around the kitchen in my underwear", I'm glad for the way for the way I approach the music. I will not become an expert, it seems. For what is the point? Somewhere, somebody can recite the FAC number for every Factory release. But I have heard The Distractions sing Time Goes By So Slow, and even if I don't know all of their history, it doesn't make "it falls like tears / of wasted years" any less heartbreaking.

Looking back over the post: there should have been more jokes about Norwegian Death Metal. I am sorry. The next ten tracks to be played on my music player are:

1. Bruce Springsteen — I'm On Fire
2. The Beat — Best Friend
3. Garbage — When I Grow Up
4. Cat Power — Maybe Not
5. The Temptations — Beauty Is Only Skin Deep
6. Life Without Buildings — Sorrow (I could write about the album for years. I'm mostly English. Eyes like lotus leaves. Not even like)
7. The Go! Team — The Ice Storm
8. Manic Street Preachers — Yes
9. Baker Street Philharmonic — The Last One
10. Blink-182 — I Miss You

and of course: