How I discovered Courtney Barnett (Part 2)

I posted the first part of this short extract from my forthcoming Glasto book a few days ago and didn't want to leave it too long before I got second bit up on here.

All the background is there to be seen in the other post, and there doesn't seem much point in repeating myself, so without further ado...  

How I discovered Courtney Barnett (Part 2)

Now, I wasn’t really expecting much. The NME hadn’t given me much of an idea about what she was all about; they’d thrown the usual words and phrases around, but as they’d used these in the rest of their pieces about the “new stars of 2014”, it didn’t actually mean much.

I had a brief look on Wikipedia, just to gain an idea, but again, Wikipedia being fairly neutral, I was kind of at a loss. I was then down to YouTube and played what Wikipedia had told me was her big hit single from 2013, Avant Gardener.

I clicked on the track and sat there open-mouthed. How the fuck had I missed this? How the actual fuck? 2013? What had I been doing? Was I that disconnected from things? This was beyond brilliant. This is what I had been waiting for. And more.

I’d been talking with friends for the past 18 months or so who were into music and we were all saying and feeling that there wasn’t really much new or much worth recommending. We all toyed with the idea of different artists, of newly raved-about albums and tracks and of new bands that seemed to be mentioned whenever cutting edge or fresh seemed to be in the air, but nothing seemed to hit the mark. We all were kind of reduced to listening to The Ramones first album again and gradually coming to the same conclusions that we were all getting too old and/or popular music had run its course. There didn’t seem to be anything new under the sun.

The only options were going down the most obscure route possible and finding stuff that no-one had heard before or getting into genres of music that we’d all previously discounted. I even dipped a toe into opera. It was a horrible and creeping realisation that we’d probably never get excited about any new music ever again. It was something that was probably always going to happen, but too difficult to contemplate. Without being too over-dramatic (a bit dramatic but,) it brought visions of our own mortality into sharp relief. This was it; no more phones calls saying, “Have you heard of…” or “You just have to listen to this album, it’s fantastic!”. No more CDs or memory sticks with new music on and no waiting to see if what you personally thought was good was actually rubbish. We’d all end up buying Classic Rock magazine and turning into the musical equivalent of Caravan Clubbers.

But at that moment, a mere 30 seconds or so into Avant Gardener, I had both a eureka moment and a massive sense of relief. It was superb and simply just a brilliant song. The words; dry, wry, self-effacing and full of humour, were like a breath of fresh air. The music was classically good. Classically good in the same way you could describe Mahler’s 1^st Symphony. The two things together were a perfect fit that seemed just so right. It was hearing something that worked so well. I’ve listened to enough music (too much music, Jackie would say), over the past 40-odd years to know what works and this worked so fine.

Instinctively I knew this was something special. I felt like Jon Landau, writing about Springsteen; “I have seen the future of rock and roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen.” Well, I’d just heard Courtney Barnett, and I felt the same. My faith in music had been restored again and I wasn’t facing the rest of my life listening to the same old stuff-good as it is- over and over again.   

Now I understood that there was a faint chance that Avant Gardener would be a sort of a one-off and the other songs she had recorded would pale somewhat in comparison, so it was with a slight sense of trepidation that I listened to some more. Luckily I wasn’t disappointed at all. Far from it. All of the other stuff that I could find was equally as good, if not better.

(I am writing this bit at the end of August, four months or so after that day and am listening to Courtney Barnett on CD. Yet again. The obvious and slightly sad twist in the tale might be that after being initially blown away by it all, my enthusiasm may have been misplaced and it would just be another CD gathering dust with thousands of others in my house. That is, I’m pleased to say, not what has happened. If anything, this could be my favourite record of the past decade, if not all time. It’s up there with Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” or The Fall’s “Dragnet” or Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” or…well, you just think of your favourite record and it could stand proudly beside it. I must have played it at least every other day since I got it April and I don’t think I’ll ever get bored with it. I have raved on and on about it to anyone who was the slightest bit interested. And it isn’t just me who loves it; the consensus amongst my friends is that there is new music out there, Courtney Barnett is something special and we can all smile again. )

So, Emily Eavis, you were right! I was looking forward to seeing Courtney Barnett at Glasto more than any other headliner. Prince? Metallica? It didn’t matter one jot.