Warning: this blog entry is totally self-indulgent, has nothing to do with my books or technology, and there is no good reason for you to read it. Feel free to stop right now….

… There is a great joy, when you spend most of your time on the bleeding edge of technology, in being well behind the curve on some things, and for me that is most often music. I tend to listen to music in extreme phases (ask anyone who has had the misfortune of working next door to me).

When I was at Ziff it was Opera. I’d wanted to learn to like opera since I was a teenagr, and in the early 1990s I immersed myself in Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and to some degree Wagner (Old joke: the answer is 9W. What is the question. The question is.. “Do you spell your name with a V, herr Wagner?”)

Somewhat later it was jazz, and then blues.

This year, it is grunge( /hip-hop/post-punk/alternative-rock). It’s like opening a small closet and finding a whole new wing of your house.

You may scoff (especially if you’re in your 20s), but until last month, I had never heard of Nirvana, let alone Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Now, all of this is made easier and more interesting by iTunes (has anyone mentioned that the iTunes store is like crack cocaine; how the *&(# did I spend $150 in 2 weeks??)

What is geat about being so far behind the curve is that this is well established ground; there is lots of information out there about what is good, what is weak, and how to wend your way through the best of it. A lot of it is “taste” but even there, you can easily and fairly reliably find “if you like this, you’ll like that” recommendations; from the simple sales-based recommendations on iTuens and Amazon to the immensely sophisticated algorithm of the Music Genome Project

Having lots of fun, so far I’ve bought up all of RATM, as well as a solid sampling of

  • Beastie Boys
  • Incubus
  • Nine Inch Nails
  • Nirvana
  • Pearl Jam
  • Public Enemy
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Sonic Youth
  • The Strokes
  • The White Stripes

Clearly I’m just getting started, which is why this is so much fun.