And I’m discovering other ways to ease myself back in gently, such as podcasts about music. Rob Harvilla’s exquisite 60 Songs That Explain The 90s has just returned with a new colon: The 00s, which is satisfying my nostalgia RDA but also reminding me why new music was so important to me back then, and why it still could be now.

Because as a reader... See more

It would be too easy to blame this entirely on podcasts, so I won’t. I’m going to blame it mostly on podcasts, partly on audiobooks and partly on devices that allowed you to carry TV round the house with you.

if you listened to that hot podcast or that must-read audiobook while cooking dinner or hanging the washing out, then you could add it to your pile of cultural chips to trade later.

I’m not a Swiftie (nothing against them! some of my best friends are Swifties!) but this summer I was sad not to be, because the collective ecstasy of the Eras tour looked so delicious and so important, and collective ecstasy is perhaps the thing I miss most about being A Person Who Loves Music. After all, I once wrote a whole book about the power... See more

It was that golden time on the internet where new music was thrillingly accessible, but not abundantly so. The treasures still had to be sifted out, by those who cared enough to put in the hours; snuffling through the music blogs and the BitTorrents in search of our precious truffles like the trendy little pigs we were.

I can still remember the... See more