1700 tracks and nothing to play

I have to admit I succumbed and bought the Arctic Monkeys album, Whatever You Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. I cringe at the thought, because – call me a snob if you will - they are just too popular. The album is selling like there’s no tomorrow, the band is swimming in awards and their US tour (starting March 13th in San Francisco) is sold out. This is the kind of resumé that would normally make me run a mile in the opposite direction.

For the Arctic Monkeys, though, I have to make an exception. This, of course, is a Sheffield band, writing songs about Sheffield life in Sheffield language. The lyrics, found behind fascinating titles such as “Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But...” and “You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me”, are really what makes the Arctic Monkeys. The music is good (sort of) too, but let’s face it, there isn’t anything very original there. Anybody who has experienced Sheffield life as a young person (or as an old person who likes to walk in young people’s shoes) cannot help but smile in recognition at these lyrics. Laugh out loud in recognition, even.

Heaven knows what anyone who has not experienced Sheffield life, or even life in the UK, makes of this stuff. They clearly make something of it, and either I underestimate them or they don’t really care too much about the lyrics.

Take these lines, for example, from The Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured:

Ask if we can have six in
If not we'll have to have two
Well you're coming up at our end aren't you
So I'll get one with you
Oh, won't he let us have six in
Especially not with the food
He could have just told us no though
He didn't have to be rude
---
Drunken plots hatched to jump it, ask around are ya sure?
Went for it but the red light was showing
And the red light indicates doors are secured

Now, I can’t really assess how much sense these lines would make to you if you were from, let’s say, Portland, Oregon. To me, they make perfect sense – so much so that I find myself inadvertently grinning as I recall numerous journeys home in a Sheffield taxi after a drunken night out.

Of course, there is nothing special about what the people in this song are experiencing – the same thing takes place every Friday and Saturday night in every town in every country in the Western world. A group of six intoxicated friends try to hail a cab and find the driver rudely announcing that he won’t accept such a large group, especially not as they have brought some food with them. (In other words, the taxi driver just thinks that they are drunk, messy and more trouble than it’s worth.) The group splits up and gets into two cabs. In one of them, the drunken passengers decide to do what English people would describe as a “runner” – jumping out of the cab and escaping without paying. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for the driver) they discover the little red light that indicates that the doors are locked (usually intended to prevent people from falling out of the cab).

In other words, nothing special. Just ordinary, universal, drunk people’s antics. But described in such a poetic way, these scenes paint a picture that conveys a lot more about life in the north of England than the story itself. Not with quite the brilliance of John Cooper Clarke ("you know you're in the wrong hotel when a fight breaks out in the minibar") – yet, but who knows what the future might hold. And like I said, I really didn’t think anyone outside of Sheffield, or at the very least the UK, would get this. But clearly they do, and snobbery or no snobbery, on balance this is really a good thing as it ensures that we will hear more from these guys in the future. Provided, of course, they don’t change their perspective due to their newfound fame. Actually, a recent interview suggests they already have, and make no secret about it. Can’t say I’m surprised.

Anyway, as I was putting the Arctic Monkeys album on my iPod, I noticed that the little bar at the bottom of iTunes said “1733 tracks, 4.1 days, 6.79 GB”. Amazing! Music works exactly like clothes! It doesn’t matter one bit how much of it you have, you still can’t ever find anything half decent. My iPod actually claims that I could, if I wanted to, listen to it for over 4 days without hearing the same tune twice. If the iPod was interested in what I had to say, I would tell it that out of these 4 days and the 12 or so made up by CDs not yet transferred to the iPod, I struggle to find two hours of good music to listen to.

I was what you might call an early adopter of the iPod, which in plain English means that I didn’t get one of the natty G4 versions that other people, such as my husband, did. Instead I got a machine that looks less cool, weighs more and has a much shorter battery life. On the other hand, the simple fact that I did get my iPod at a time when it was still unusual and brought out the wow in people means that I have grown incredibly attached to it. I still feel as though owning an iPod makes me special. I still want to believe that when people see those white headphones (which by the way are the best in-ear headphones ever) they think “oooh, there goes a woman who not only has plenty of dough but knows how to spend it”. (And I am, of course, still concerned about those news reports that came out a few years ago saying that white headphones shouldn’t be worn when going out as they might attract muggers. Diamond ring? Designer handbag? No, baby, it’s your headphones that give it away!)

Anyway, the question is, what now? Do you continue to schlep this white brick wherever you go, because if you ever did get a sudden urge to listen to, say, Karma Chameleon by The Culture Club, you could? Or do you let the iPod stay in the living room (where it is still very functional) and get yourself a little Flash stick for the gym? My husband is travelling to Europe tomorrow and just came to ask me (as CTO of our household) if I would be awfully kind and put a small selection of his favourite music on our son’s 256 MB stick, so that he didn’t have to go through the trouble of carrying his iPod. To be honest, this got me a little scared. Has the iPod run its course? Is it time for it to retire? A frightening but sadly relevant thought.

I’m so glad I have important issues to worry about, so that I don’t have to be weighed down by petty stuff!