Fandom

My most recent excursion into the 33 1/3 series of books is the Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine entry. This one takes a slightly different take by telling the story of the album by relating the story of ten fans of the album and band. These are real fans, not generally music fans, but people who are obsessed with NIN and Pretty Hate Machine - they go on message boards, join NIN inspired bands, speak of Trent Reznor (the man that is the band) as "Trent," like they know him personally. All of this has been reminding me of reading Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked, which is all about a guy who is obsessed with one singer/songwriter and one of his  albums. It's made me feel like a bit of a dilettante, missing the days of my Cure super-fandom. When I read Juliet, Naked I even tried going through my collection in my head to try to pick an artist I could get into with the same fervour but couldn't come up with anything. I get the same longing when I read about Jandek - the intensity, the mystery! But I crave too much diversity in my music. I also think that sort of super-fandom requires a focus on lyrics that I'm rarely capable of anymore. Although I used to state there was a Cure song for every situation and mood - and I knew most of the lyrics.