On Waxing Lyrical Pt.I: An Introduction

The first proper music purchase I made was No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom. I became aware of the band through when their single Don't Speak began doing the rounds on 5FM. I was 11 at the time and already I felt like I was skirting the fringes of the commercial scene. I was not as interested in the things that other people were. I wouldn't experience the minefield of social interaction and peer pressure for a few years yet. It would turn out to be a time I'd rather leave in the dark.

Feeder's Echo Park is the most notable album from the beginning of my collection. This album's first single was Buck Rogers and received a lot of airplay time on radio. I remember playing the album as soon as I got home and paged through the sleeve to read along to the lyrics. I used to listen to the album in my mother's car while I washed it every Sunday (and also on the way to being dropped off at my girlfriend's place). It made my year when the band came out to perform at SuperSport Park in Centurion. The carwash experience paid off when I realised that I was singing along to every song that they performed.

On several separate occasions I have been moved by music and for a variety of different reasons. Decisions were made concerning my music interests where the influences where anywhere from the trivial to the profound. A high school crush turned me into a dance music refugee. I met a rock-chick and the infatuation inspired in me a passion for integrity and truth in music. It was from here that my interest in the honesty and depth of rock and alternative took root. First stop on my migration: Tuks FM.

As the harbingers of alternative/punk, The Pixies seemed to dwell in my unconscious for a long time before germinating into an explosive compulsion that pushed me off the charted musical plane. Where is My Mind, easily their most recognisable track, is timeless (despite bordering on being overplayed, even today) and instantly recognisable. However brilliant the track is, it in no way represents fully the style and outright guts of the band and their tremendous body of work. Countless hours of listening on a CD Walkman and repeated inspections of the CD sleeve turned me into the biggest and most die hard Pixies fan in South Africa. I knew that I would complete this collection.

Music commands a large amount of my attention. It is the most precious of my collections. I have gone to a lot of effort and expense in its creation. I set very high standards for myself in most things I do and this is no exception. It, quite naturally, has become an overwhelming compulsion to collect the original CD's and the covers and sleeves that come with them.

Currently in my collection are the complete catalogues of The Pixies, The Foo Fighters, The Shins, The White Stripes, Portishead, Zero 7 and Skunk Anansie; there are a number of soundtrack albums, a number of Best of's and a couple of singles that I bought when I was much younger. In all, I have over 70 full length albums and counting (keeping in mind that many others have been removed from my collection for reasons of embarrassment or changing tastes.

Music's effects are many and layered. As such, the different aspects of my life that it has touched are as varied. I don't see how a person can describe the feelings that music inspires. Nor how to relate the memories that music evokes. I don't believe there will ever be something that can communicate as music does, even without words.