How Do You Listen To Music and Do You Even Listen?

Introduction

As you have probably gathered, music is a great part of my life. Allegedly the first record that I liked was "Hound Dog" by Elvis Presley when I was around three years old.

Growing up in the sixties music was on a record player or via transistor radio, often listening to Radio Luxembourg, and pirate radio stations. Then we finally got a pop station from the BBC in Radio 1 and the first record they played was "Flowers In The Rain" by The Move and the disc jockey was Tony Blackburn.

The only tape we had was reel to reel, and on TV "Thank Your Lucky Stars", "Top Of The Pops" and "Juke Box Jury" were places to check out the latest records, though they were not always acceptable.

This is my own potted history of music media:

The main picture shows my options for listening to music, which include radio, vinyl, cassette, CD and DVD/Blu-Ray. I also have digital copies that I listen to when walking on my phone, and I like to see artists playing live.

This is all music that I own and have paid for.

So What Is This About?

Streaming models are not good for artists, and I have said several times that companies like Spotify would have no problem if no new music was ever produced because they have such a huge catalogue of music to stream.

This is the ultimate musical convenience.

Very often people don't even choose what they want to hear, they just let their app decide for them. I am often told that I am behind the times because I listen to music in so many ways instead of Spotify. A few people have told me that they only hear music when they watch a TV series or advertisement. I get the feeling that these are the sort of people (and I know a lot of these) who would never read a book (or have one in their house) or watch a film that was in black and white or had subtitles.

Since the millennium the way the public treat music has changed dramatically. People like convenience and that is what streaming platforms give them, and once someone is on that path it is highly unlikely they will change because convenience is king.

I am as bad when I watch a film or TV program. I may have the DVD but if I can watch it on demand, without leaving my sofa, then I go for that option.

Anyway, carrying on from this playlist I have discovered a few more wonderful records in my collection and I will share them with you to close this piece.

The Godfathers - "Walking Talking Johnny Cash Blues"

While I know of The Godfathers I didn't know their music, and still don't, but this closed a magazine freebie and takes a beefed-up version of the Johnny Cash beat to make a truly great song reminiscent of "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" by The Alabama 3 which you can listen to in this piece.

Echobelly - "Dark Therapy" from the album "On"

This is a song that is always with me but was on one of the compilations that came from the other room and the gorgeous vocals on this beauty still give me goosebumps today. If you listen to this it will stay with you too.

Bob Marley and the Wailers - "No Woman, No Cry" from "Live At The Lyceum"

I will close this short playlist with this truly great song. I remember trying very hard to source a copy when it was released. I got it, and a few weeks later it hit the top forty.

I pulled out my vinyl copy of the album for the main picture in this article and was shocked to find that this was not a Marley composition, it's only taken me forty-five years to find that out, although this is the story from Wikipedia, so it still may be a Marley song in reality.

Although Bob Marley is widely believed to have written the song, or at least the melody, songwriting credit was given to Vincent Ford, a friend of Marley's who ran a soup kitchen in Trenchtown, the ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica, where Marley grew up (he specifically mentions the Government Yards of Trenchtown, a public housing project). The royalty payments received by Ford ensured his efforts would continue.

Thank you for reading, I really appreciate your support, and would love to know how you listen to your music.