My Media 2008
2008 brought with it some wholesale changes for me, so I’ve decided to summarise my media consumption changes!
Hearing
Well, the year began with me becoming mildly obsessed by garage rockers such as The Cramps, Alien Sex Fiend and Birthday Party and really getting into the 80’s art rock scene with Young Marble Giants, Gang of Four and The Fall. My dad introduced me (for the second time) to Led Zeppelin and David Sanchez (master saxophonist) and Zep lead me into Iggy Pop, who then lead me to Bowie’s Berlin period (and masses of research into the mystery of his ‘White Diet’) and then this lead to Lou Reed (who I already knew partially from The Velvet Underground). So the year began with a lot of discovery and a lot of returning for second listens.
The middle of the year can be characterised by one song – The Eagles, Hotel California. It didn’t matter where we went in the world, everyone knew every word to this song. And when I hear it now, all I can see is myself singing it to twelve Vietnamese scooter drivers in a Saigon karaoke bar. Best. Time. Ever.
The final third of the year found me falling in love with dance music all over again. I’m blaming Chris Lake, Deadmau5 and the Kitsune label.
I’ve now decided that the music I like isn’t really confined by genre, it just needs to be pretty primal and raw. Be that throbbing basslines and squealing acid synths or arrhythmic drums and screaming singers.
This year also bought a minor movement towards Radio Four. There, I said it. Sometimes I try and get away with Radio Two, but it’s just not the same.
(James Whatley has just tipped me off about Frightened Rabbit too – check them out now!)
Reading
Again, 2008 has been a year of experimentation for me. I’ve still read The Guardian compulsively, but I’ve tried to add others in too. So this year I’ve been sporadically buying The Economist, The Spectator, Private Eye, Independent, The FT and I did once buy the Daily Mail, but only for the free Simply Red CD. Bugger.
Obviously my RSS feeds are my primary intake of news (both industry and actual news) but I’ve been making a conscious effort to include ‘dead tree’ stuff too.
While I was away I read loads of books. Books that, as an English graduate, I should have read at university but didn’t fall into the reading lists (it’s no excuse, but I was reading three books a week for most of my time at university – you don’t find much time to read for pleasure). So this year I’ve read Orwell, Kafka, Joyce, Blake, Ginsberg, Wells and Gogol. I also tried to read more political discourse, so The Art of War has had a butchers, as had The Prince, The Communist Manifesto and The Wealth of Nations.
Watching
I never used to be bothered too much about television. I’m not really a film buff and I didn’t used to have the patience for series’ but that changed this year. Prison Break, Heroes and Friends pretty much took over the whole of my box watching. Prison Break is awesome (hat tip to Michael Litman for the word ‘awesome’), Heroes was the first series to get me into science fiction and Friends is simply reliable.
I’ve also watched a huge amount of Family Guy and American Dad. Both are fantastic. Plus I revisited Black Books and thought I’d share this clip: