There's no such thing as new music. There's just old music you haven't heard before.

The other day somebody asked me the "what are you listening to right now?" question. This questions assumes that I'm one of those people who spend their weeks ploughing through the latest releases. There was a time I had to do that and it almost killed my love of music. I envy Bob Harris who always says that his favourite record is whatever he's just heard. I can't do that.

In addition to this we now have access to so much stuff we haven't heard it seems absurd to give any special respect to whatever happens to be new.

There was a live example this morning. I was reading Michael Chabon's "Telegraph Avenue" which starts with a guy in a record shop going through a crate of old jazz records. He's delighted to find one by Melvin Sparks. Because I'd never heard of Melvin Sparks I fired up the album he was talking about on Spotify and really enjoyed it. It was made just before his death in 2011.

I was just enjoying that when my son messaged me to say he was enjoying "Living On A Thin Line" by The Kinks. This was recorded in 1984 but he'd heard it on a Sopranos soundtrack, which came out sixteen years later in 2001.

Like I should have said to the woman who asked me what I was listening to right now. There's no such thing as new music. There's just old music you haven't heard before.