Lately, my most played new album is by a group called the Guillemots. I have no idea what the name means, I’m not even sure I know how to pronounce it. The album, called Through the Windowpane, is addictive because it’s so densely layered and varied I keep playing it, listening harder and closer, trying to uncover its mysteries and decide if it’s brilliant or just some little guy hiding behind a curtain trying to make everyone think he’s the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes this album reminds me of stuff I like but other bits are so close to James Blunt they could lead to projectile vomiting.

That is what it’s all about though, isn’t it? We listen to tracks that sound like other music we like, because rock music is a bastard hybrid that feeds on itself while hip hop wouldn’t even begin to exist without its relentless recycling of old riffs. The mark of ‘quality’ is how creatively someone recycles. The ’90s were great for me with Brit-pop harkening back to all those classic ’60’s British singles. Oasis never met a John Lennon record they didn’t like, Blur seemed intent on trying to one-up the Kinks, and Paul Weller, well, he remained Paul Weller.

For most of my life, I’ve been a fan of music and movies to an extent normal people would view as insane. While many of my friends own houses or apartments (and even, gasp, vacation homes!), luxury cars (and boats!), I have more CDs and DVDs than any single human being should logically own, filling a rented flat that would normally house a family of four.

Much of my waking time is spent in search of my next favourite album, and the rest trying to deal with all the stuff I already own. That I can hang an iPod around my neck and have music with me at all times helps, but leads to other problems: it’s difficult enough to cram stuff onto my 60-gig iPod, how do I deal with just four on the Nano? At eight in the morning, I have to try and anticipate my mood at five in the afternoon (generally bored, pissed off or a combination of the two). And try to save some space for promising new stuff.

Like The Corner of Miles and Gil – the title attracted me. At first I thought this album by Shack was going to be some gonzo tribute to classic Miles Davis/Gil Evans recordings. Not even close. For the most part it sounds like classic ’60s (or ’90s?) Brit-pop, like an album the Small Faces might have made if they collaborated with Burt Bacharach. Plus a lot of songs seem to be about drinking tea or characters that drink a lot of tea. So I like it.

On the other hand, I’m really suspicious of This is Hazelville by a group called Captain. Some might hear Prefab Sprout, which is okay, or perhaps Deacon Blue, which is borderline. But every time that female harmony creeps in, all I can think of is Dream Academy – one classic song for the ages, two albums of forgettable nonsense. Before I know it, I’m scanning the menu looking for something else to play.

See, a lot of music I’ll listen to once and like, but it doesn’t break through to the level of something I’ll play over and over again. Many tracks sound okay when I skim through them at home, but once they’re portable and I start actually concentrating on them, they leave me yawning and switching over to U2. At least two dozen albums are lying around I know I’ve heard and liked, but I can’t recall a single song from any of them. That is probably not a good thing and I wonder whether the albums are really crap or if I only have the attention span of a three-year-old…

And lastly… why is it bands that play in Hong Kong bars consistently choose such awful songs to cover? With 50 years of rock, soul, hip hop, pop and country to pick from, why do they all play the same 20 songs? Why, for instance, does the band at Cavern only know one R.E.M. song? Why is it that every night at Insomnia they cover Lenny Kravitz but you never hear them try the Stones? Why do people actually freaking cheer every time the band goes into Dancing Queen as if Abba themselves had risen from their wheelchairs to sing it? And why does every Filipino bass player need to have a 5-string electric bass if the band is only playing Come On Eileen? I swear, I have heard Hotel California every night for the past five years and I’m at the point where if the band starts doing Bryan Adams I have to run out into the street before I get the dry heaves.

Sometimes you get lucky – I still recall the night I wandered into the Wanch and heard
some Japanese group segue from Miles Davis into Led Zeppelin. There’s good stuff out there but it doesn’t come to you, you gotta work for it. For every Eugene Pao, there’re 20 morons with MIDI. But for every 20 morons with MIDI, there’s a Eugene Pao. And that’s da name
o’ dat tune.