How Music Works is a beautifully presented work in hardback - a striking, cushioned cover, colour throughout, clean and well spaced type. First I shall pause briefly on a little criticism, simply to get it out the way - much of what follows beyond that will be quite the opposite. Last year I commented on Simon Reynolds' Retromania, a book that intrigued, depressed and annoyed me in equal measures to the point where I felt a little bit like I may be going off long form writing about music, especially about popular music.ĭavid Byrne's How Music Works isn't at all like any other book I've read about music and it feels like breathing fresh air. These tend to either focus on specific aspects, artists or genres or instead deal with broader phenomenon. I've read a number of books about music over the years. Listen, think, write, move on to the next. Maintaining a music blog can make this relationship even stranger - a little too often listening to a new album by an artist you think you genuinely appreciate feels a bit too much like "work". The way we consume music now - with us at all times, on our phones and in our pockets, and with more songs at our fingertips than even imaginable 15 years ago: sometimes means we take it for granted. My own relationship has changed massively - through times of increased or lessened importance, at times I continue to be bowled over by how much music can affect me and at others I just want to pack it all away and embrace silence. Of course music, and the way people consume it, is always changing. It was a badge to be worn metaphorically or sometimes literally, telling those around me what sort of person I was. When I was about twelve I started buying my first music and within a year of so it quickly became the thing that defined a lot of what I was as a person: a rapid, insatiable appetite.
I've been a fan of music for almost as long as I can remember, whether it was the songs that first captured my attention on the radio (embarrassingly Status Quo's 'In The Army Now' is one of my earliest musical memories), Top Of The Pops (Kylie anyone?) or the music my father used to play in the car and seemingly impossibly late (to my young ears) at parties (Tears For Fears and the Thompson Twins).
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