Music Is The Best: The Update For The Week as I Head For a Break

Hi, how are you? Thank you for reading my newsletter. I don’t say that often enough – but I really value you checking in on these if you do. They’re mostly a lot of fun to write, and on the days when I am struggling to find something to say I am reminded of when I used to do this five days a week for years on end. There’s always a way through. Eventually.

As I write this I am on holiday. For the first time in a year. Well, apart from a wee Christmas break.

I am very much looking forward to this holiday. I am flying to Melbourne to be with the rest of my family – they went over early for the school holidays. It’s the longest we’ve been apart in ages, given this whole pandemic-caper. We’ve been a tight little unit of three (plus the dog). But Katy and Oscar went to Melbourne 10 days ago and five days ago I dropped the dog off to be with his grandparents.

I’ve put the Out of Office on and turned the computer off. Well, the main computer…

I’m trying something new this time – traveling just with an iPad. And so, I endeavour to still file my three newsletters next week – but if I don’t you’ll know why. I’m hopefully having a very good time. And I’ve forgotten. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you.

In Melbourne, I will be hunting for movie soundtracks to Australian films. Because you might know that I have become an absolute soundtrack fiend. I thirst for them. Daily. I have been buying CDs off TradeMe to find the soundtracks I cannot get on vinyl. I have sold a great deal of my record collection, but I don’t part with the movie scores. And I now regret the ones I did once own and sold ages ago. But they’ll be there to find again.

Earlier today, I found – on vinyl! – (I always hear that in the voice from Half Baked when they say, “on weed!”) the score to Twin Peaks. I consider this a holy grail, basically. I am so thrilled to have this. I won’t have time to sit and listen to it – on vinyl – until I get back. I will probably play it on my headphones on the flight as a comfort anyway. Across the last four or five years this has been one of the albums I’ve listened to the most.

But here’s a really weird confession: right now I am listening to the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. Weird, because a) it’s true, b) I’ve never heard it at all before, all I know from it is Whitney’s cover of the Dolly Parton classic and c) I have never seen the film. I bought this (on CD) for $1. And no, I didn’t need it. But I’m just in that deep with this soundtrack thing…

I also picked up the soundtrack to season one of Stranger Things. How about that show, right? Oscar and I worked through all four seasons just recently. I’d seen the first season back when it debuted, I liked it, but didn’t feel the need to follow through. I wanted to start it again though so that this time I could follow on through all four seasons and thought Oscar might like it. We devoured all four and loved every second of it. The music a highlight. I love the original score and across the episodes there were many great music-moments.

The big news – for season four – was Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill and Metallica’s Master of Puppets. Both extraordinary songs and so well positioned in the show. Both finding whole new audiences as a result. Isn’t music the best? Isn’t it so wonderful when that happens!

A couple of weeks ago, Radio New Zealand asked me on to talk about the Kate Bush song. But what could I say? Why get an old white guy to talk about that wonderful music. I’ve talked about Kate Bush on radio before, sure, but my time has been. I had my turn. I truly believe that. I’m done. It’s time to step aside. So, I turned down that offer to work for free, it can be someone else’s turn.

But I did enjoy reading this piece about the 25 greatest ‘needle drops’ in Stranger Things. I liked it so much I made a playlist featuring every single one of those mentions, bookending it with the show’s opening theme – which I never skip when the little button pops up giving me the chance to skip it and save a few seconds. I have to watch those opening credits all the way through every time. It’s not a long time. But it’s always a good time.

Anyway, I thought you might like to check out that playlist too. Mostly very well-known songs. Some songs you might have thought you don’t need to hear again (American Pie) but a funny thing happens when you group songs together on playlists. And in soundtracks. This is part of the reason I’m so besotted with soundtracks. I love the connections that happen between songs – they’re in dialogue with each other as well as sending messages to us.

Oh yeah, I also reviewed the actual score from Stranger Things 4 earlier this week

You know, when I quit Facebook earlier in the year, I think it’s fair to guess that I lost three-quarters of my audience. That’s probably why I refer to myself now as a 75% retired music writer.

I don’t regret it at all.

It's not that I wanted to lose the eyeballs, it’s that I wanted to get back some sense of myself.

I really feel I’ve done that. And when I get up at 5 or 6am or stay up until 3 or 4am – it alternates by the way, it’s never at the same time, on the same day – I listen to my new age music, my classical, my instrumental scores from movies and I get to keep those things for myself. It’s beautiful. All mine. Just for me.

But I still like sharing things – here. And on my Off The Tracks site. I’d share them anyway, even if someone could prove to me that it makes no difference to the world at all or that no one at all is reading them. That’s fine. It keeps me happy. And busy. I like to be both.

I hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend. And I’m sharing a link here to my brand new e-book. I put this together this week – it’s a random selection of essays, blog posts, even a couple of the Substack newsletters. They are in some cases, previously unpublished, re-written, updated. In other cases they are just as they were when they went out on that old Stuff blog (Blog on the Tracks) a decade ago or more or appeared here or at Off The Tracks or in a publication I freelanced for.

It's $0.99 for a copy and it contains 280 pages of music and movies and books-related content. And you can find it on Amazon where I also have an author page with other e-books I’ve made. And you can rate it on Goodreads if that’s your thing.

But that’s also fine if it’s not. I just feel like I should share these things, as I have them, and when I make them.

I’m also sharing Vol. 73 of our regular Friday playlist, A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good!

So have a great day, and weekend, and I hope to be in touch again next week. Or else if all gets lost, I’ll ‘see’ you here when I’m back from holiday. Taking tips now for Melbourne music stores and must-see places and things to do in that wonderful city. And hoping you’ve had a great week featuring some musical reconnections and spiritual epiphanies too.