acb

I spent much of this afternoon sitting in a cafe near Stoke Newington. Good atmosphere, good coffee, execrable music. Their entire music collection seems to consist of one CD on repeat; that CD appears to be a collection of covers of obvious Bob Marley songs done in corporate-jazz/R&B-ballad/bland-acoustic-ballad/smooth-black-music-for-rich-white-people style. It appears that there is a whole generation of musicians influenced by Kenny G, Luther Vandross and Boyz II Men Color Me Bad, churning out insipidly bland pabulum in fully-equipped ProTools studios somewhere (presumably) near LA.

If I ran a café, one of my key hiring criteria for staff would be that they have to be passionate about music. It doesn't matter what kind of music: whether it's hip hop, krautrock, country and western or whatever. As long as they care enough to bring in things that have inspired someone, rather than falling in the valley of the undead at the statistical average of public taste, and dig up the good things that don't end up getting played otherwise. Part of the job description would involve bringing in CDs to put on.

(Of course, they'd have to be able to make a decent cup of coffee, but that can be learned.)