Dark Age Rage

Geoff was bagging medieval music the other day. And look, I suppose it's impossible not to make fun of a group that advertises itself (in Comic Sans Font, no less) as Melbourne's most exciting medieval music ensemble, or whose newest songs date to the 13th and 14th century, respectively. But still, I've got to admit that I like medieval music, I've studied it, and have a few CDs of it stashed away.

I suppose it can't compete in terms of originality with modern musical genres, like rock, pop, folk, alternative, indie, punk, rock-pop, folk-rock, funk, progressive-rock, folk-punk, progressive-alt-folk-punk-jazz, hip-hop, trip-hop, hip-hop/rock, progressive-jazz-rock, pub-rock, garage-rock, and pub-alternative-funk-jazz-hip-hop-progressive-folk-punk. What with all the 'rock this' and 'punk that' and 'funk you', God only knows where it's all going to go next, but taking a wild stab in the dark I'd say maybe some garage-independent-alternative-house-folk-rock-jazz-rock-folk-folk-jazz-funk band will make it big in the next couple of years.

As fans of medieval music (that's plural because I'm including the Baron in that description, I'm not aware of anyone outside our house who likes it) we have to content ourselves with other pleasures. The pleasure, for instance, of listening to something that is not years, not decades, but centuries old. The pleasure of being able to imagine ourselves in a time and place when modern concepts of harmony (stuff modern rock bands pretty much take for granted) were invented. And, I suppose it's not much, but the pleasure of rediscovering something that thousands, maybe millions of peoples listened to centuries ago, was forgotten, and only rediscovered in the past few years. It's not much... not much at all.

But let's put it another way:



GetsomeSteeleyeSpaninterya!