This week: When the other shoe drops, bad bosses and good bosses, and a little post-rock taster as a treat.
I get nervous when things go well for extended periods of time. I have a hard time trusting the ongoing passage of days where I am not wrestling with some personal existential crisis, and the longer that goes without disruption the more nervous I get - Catherine and I will have been together for 18 years in two months time, and I still wonder if one day she'll just be gone, either through tragedy or some irreconcilable difference, and what I'd do if that ever happened. In my lived experience, the other shoe always drops, good times never last, and the best thing you can do when they are with you is enjoy them to the fullest, and keep an eye on the horizon for the oncoming storm.
It's been over a year now really since anything truly anxiety-inducing has happened inside my personal life*, and because I had our holiday to Australia firmly in my sights, I missed the first thunderclouds on the horizon when, shortly before we left, my now former boss announced he was leaving the company. Within 48 hours of being back from vacation I learned that several other colleagues had handed in their notice, a significant (and truly misguided) restructure of the part of the business I worked in would take place meaning several colleagues I worked along would lose their jobs; one of my rear molars exploded and left me in pain for nearly two weeks and necessitated two visits to the dentist for a surgical extraction; one of my team members, amongst the first people I hired to work for me left the company because of the working conditions inside a part of the organisation I had no control over, Catherine and I have had a bought of terrible illness which has laid us low over the weekend and beyond, caused us to miss a concert, and I'm now out in the world looking at alternative employers because whatever faith I had in the decisions people are making around me has been shaken to its foundation; also my Father-in-Law passed out in the street for no reason and spent the day in the hospital with a concussion on Sunday as well.
It's by no means apocalyptic. We are in a privileged position; roof over our head, money in the bank, options for the future, and each other, but the relentless assault of anxiety-inducing change has slapped me firmly out of my lethargy. Part of my trip through therapy was the realisation that I dealt best with my anxiety when I recognised what was causing it, and took positive action to address it. We will see what that means, whether this turns into another twist and turn in my employment history or not, but it's far more possible now than I imagined it would be just four weeks ago.
Talking of people and changing employment...
I can be hard to manage, I know this. In part it's because I had a long string of bad bosses before I reached the turning point in my life which turned into my career path. A key component of the breakdown which sent me to therapy was caused by a highly abusive and bullying boss who knew her petty tyrant ways would never be challenged by the surgeons she worked for because they liked her efficiency and knowledge more than they cared about the wellbeing of the people she managed. That experience, as well as several other boss-level authoritarian transgressions in my history have caused me to view all my managers with a greater or lesser level of suspicion until I feel like they show me who they really are and if I can trust them.
Nearly two years ago I had my first new boss in my current role outside of the person who initially hired me, back when the team I was working in was 8 people in total instead of the 25+ it was when Alan joined. I was comfortable, established in a routine and knew what I was doing and how we were adding value. My opinion was (is? that's less certain now I think) listened to and respected by people in senior positions. Alan's appointment left me anxious, and his formal, slightly disengaged approach to the team I worked in was in stark contrast to his predecessor, who had been an on-field captain, deep in the details, instead of a coach in the dugout, directing play. He listened though, while I unburdened my concerns to him on a weekly basis, and he said things which made me want to believe him. He spoke genuinely about his key focus being the wellbeing of the people around him; and when a colleague of mine in another department who I just happened to be friendly with told me their tale of woe, and their intent to leave the business, I brought it to Alan and said "this is someone in a bad situation, outside of our team, but they're a colleague and a good one and they need help".
Alan took me seriously, and within a few hours decisions were being taken to address their concerns. Over a year later, they are still here, with the company. I just spoke to them last week, and they're enjoying their work and their position. That was all I needed to trust everything Alan said from that point; it was an inflection point in our relationship, proof that the deeds matched the words.
You're probably wondering what this has to do with music. This is meant to be only occasionally a therapy session and mostly about records I have listened to. Well, if my superpower remains somehow meeting interesting people, Alan definitely qualifies, because it's probably not common that your new boss is also a well know House DJ with a 15+ year career of spinning discs live to crowds of punters and rubbing shoulders with musical luminaries. Nothing is likely to make me trust and enjoy talking to someone on a personal level like knowing their musical vibe, and Alan was more than happy to talk tunes with me during our weekly meetings which was a delight. So, with Alan leaving the company, meaning that I can send him a link to this blog without worrying that it might in some way get me fired, I asked him to contribute a list of albums for me to listen to as part of my race to 1000 records. I knew Alan's musical taste would cover probably a big blind spot in my listening, and he gave me a selection of late 70s and early 80s R&B and pop classics to listen to, so I spent some time over this week adding them all to my big spreadsheet of albums I've heard this year.
I knew Shalamar by name, knew them as a disco funk band, but with a gun to my head I couldn't have named any of their songs until this week, at which point I spent much of the forty-five minutes listening to Friends going "Oh, this is by them as well?"**. Shalamar exist as almost a kind of opposite force to There's A Riot Goin' On by Sly & The Family Stone - upbeat happy-go-lucky disco funk which doesn't delve into social issues and wants only to have a good time - which I did, listening to this album.
I hadn't anticipated having two Janet Jackson albums on my list before I listened to a single Micheal album but that was probably short-sighted of me; I knew Rhythm Nation was always going to make my list, and it feels like the accepted understanding now is that Janet's position in musical history is far more significant than just being overshadowed by her megastar brother. The Velvet Rope sounds a lot like a modern R&B record - there's a direct line between it and Lemonade and ANTI - but I struggled with trying to figure out when the appropriate time to listen to it would be; it's languid and chill, and sprinkled with little interludes which make a long album even longer, and it evokes a mood that feels so laid back its horizontal at times. As much as I consider myself a purist of the "full album front to back no skips" school of album listening, it feels like it's meant to be played in bursts, or sporadically deployed in single form in a dark nightclub somewhere.
Change was a band I did not know at all, but I knew Luther Vandross from his 80's solo career so I had a hunch we were in for more Barry White-esque chilled late night music on The Glow of Love and I was not wrong. I love an album which is six tracks long but still nearly 40 minutes, and if I had to sum up how I felt about it in a word, I would say it was 'cool'. Make of that what you will.
I had a little bit of PTSD when Alan recommended Duran Duran because back in 2017, when I first undertook this endeavour, it was getting writers block while trying to find something, anything to say about a Duran Duran album which caused me to stall and eventually abandon the whole thing. Well, its 2025 now and I am more disciplined and I really don't have to say too much. I was a child of the 80's, Duran Duran were in my head at a young age and its almost certain that some part of listening to them and The Thompson Twins that led me in turn to Gary Numan and The Cure and formed the foundation for what would be my teenage music taste as the 80s drew to a close. I think Rio is unashamedly a great album - it's easy to get sniffy about Duran Duran because they were sleek and popular, but Hungry Like A Wolf and Save A Prayer and Rio still exist in the public musical consciousness nearly 50 years since they were first recorded***, so I think its safe to say Simon Le Bon and company deserve their place in musical history, regardless of their incredibly capitalist veneer back then.
Long time readers will know that when a stone-cold musical classic passes my way, I run and hide like a scared child because honestly, what am I going to say about Off The Wall, arguably**** the best album by a musical artist who exists in a stratosphere of musical fame which admits only the Taylor Swift's and Beatles of this world. Off The Wall is pulsating, it's the absolute least contrived, least engineered expression of Jackson's musical talent. It's Stevie Wonder-esque and that's not a comparison I throw around lightly. If you've never heard it, it's an absolute must listen experience, if only to explain how he eventually became the behemoth he was at the height of his fame
That covers Alan's albums, and he goes off now to do something else new and exciting. Good luck Alan, see you down the road somewhere.
We can cover these albums in a little lower word count hopefully, as they're a grab bag of stuff I threw on this week for one reason or another.
The people who work for me are the only people in the office who know about this blog and my project, so occasionally they throw a recommendation at me. Kamila suggested I listen to the latest Maroon 5 album because "There's a few good tunes on it". Part of my principles in writing this is never to be overly negative about music because everything is someone's favourite and locking yourself out of musical experiences is net negative for your life. I will say that I like and respect Kamila and I disagree with her about there being some good tunes on Love is Like. Did you know there are eight whole Maroon 5 studio albums? Makes you think.
I was making chilli this week so I put on Blood Sugar Sex Magik because I was going to listen to One Hot Minute but realised I'd already covered it. Anthony Kiedis told me to fuck off once backstage at the V97 festival, but despite that I still like this album and the ones released either side of it (Mother's Milk and One Hot Minute). Chad Smith is one of the greatest drummers ever and I could listen to John Frusciante play guitar forever, so this album never fails to hit for me.
The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest was recommended to me by my sister-in-law who we were meant to be seeing on Sunday until illness laid us both low. It's exactly the kind of hip hop I enjoy (and I knew it would be, because I own still a CD copy of People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm because I loved Can I Kick It? as a teen and bought it originally on cassette. Very much in the Jurassic 5 / Pharcyde school of old school hip hop that I love.
This is why I listened to
Bows + Arrows by The Walkmen. The album is really pretty good Strokes-esque indie rock and I really don't know why they never made it in the way that other bands do, but the drumming on
The Rat is absolutely sensational and has to be
seen to be believed.
I'll talk more about Taylor Swift at the end of this week, but my plan to listen to one of her albums every month has been going well but I was running out of time in September, so I listened to all 120 minutes of Fearless (Taylor's Version). This is the earliest of her albums that I fully enjoy but also probably in the bottom two of albums I've listened to in frequency so I enjoyed it, but it was not my favourite.
OK, just two more to go:-
What do you listen to when someone is yanking sections of a broken tooth from your gum after sticking needles into your mouth repeatedly? Well, I didn't have long to make that decision and in my panic and despair, I picked a pair of of instrumental post-rock albums about despair and the end of the world. A friend of mine introduced me to Red Sparowes back in the late 2000s, and I was intrigued by the idea of a band which writes musical concept albums but entirely without vocals. How do you convey the concepts, the narrative of your album without a single word being sung or spoken? Well, you do it by naming your tracks something like "
Mechanical Sounds Cascaded Through The City Walls, and Everyone Revelled In Their Ignorance" or "
The Sixth Extinction Crept Up Slowly, Like Sunlight Through The Shutters, As We Looked Back In Regret...".
Both At The Soundless Dawn and Every Red Heart Shines Towards The Sun beautifully convey a kind of aching, lonely despair, the whole-album equivalent of the Dead London guitar lick from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds. Its haunting and entrancing in equal measure, pulling slide guitar tones gracefully across a sea of distortion.
It made great music to have your teeth pulled out to.
* While of course being fully alive to the front row seat I have to the collapse of western civilisation and the rise of far-right idealism. I still talk to Catherine about the idea of moving to Orkney not just because I loved the people and the feeling of distance I had when we were visiting, but because I feel it might be the place I can most distance us from the disaster I feel is coming. I still worry that I'll look back on these lines in three years time and go "that was our chance to get out of here".
** Everyone almost certainly knows 'A Night To Remember' and 'I Can Make You Feel Good' and 'There It Is' - I just didn't know who the band was.
*** Which is like "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn still being relevant alongside Smells Like Teen Spirit.
**** By me, I will make that argument, but I don't think I am alone.
