It's fine to ask people like Bertrand Russell to explain to us in the terms of dozens of others why we might feel a certain way. Or what way we should feel. But there is a complex science behind the desire of everything, including music and food, which are two of my favorite pastimes.
I don't know much about science, though I love articles in the Times that essentially could start out, or be summarized by the words, "They did a study on..."
'They'! It never fails to amuse––our complete naivety and trustfulness of sciency Thems everywhere.
The hunger for music is the same as the hunger for food. It's just as biological. You could compare it to a nicotine habit; an alcohol habit; a coffee habit; a person habit: the brain controls the desire. The brain controls the hunger for food, as the hunger for anything else. That's pretty obvious.
But––so––is music a habit-forming drug? Generally, it is, and specifically, it is. The desire to listen to (or play) music as much as possible, to color the experiences of everyday life (commutes, work, sleep) with melodies and howls and noodling noise, is habit-forming. But there is also a specific desire to listen to the same seven songs for an entire week, which puzzles and entertains me the most. Often it's a whole album, or back in the day it was, and I've started to do this again recently. But usually it's a select handful of mood-setting pieces that replicate a time/place as many times as I want them to (162, currently).
The thing about the brain is: it's really not that clever. It likes ingraining information into itself twofold, tenfold, googolfold. It likes routine. It outright adores routine and can't live without it. Sure, there are adventurers out there who never do the same thing twice. But they still eat, they still love music, and they still obsess over albums and songs for weeks.
What prevents us from just...stepping back and leaving the music alone for a few days? Letting it simmer? Trying something new? Because our brain gets sort of...stuck. Hooked on a feeling. Nostalgic for something that happened, like, yesterday.
And if y'all want to know what exactly the music is that I currently refuse to leave alone:
"Fists Up" - The Blow
"Muscle n' Flo" - Menomena
"Regulate" - Warren G
"Parentheses" - The Blow
"Wet and Rusting" - Menomena
And somewhere in there, the entire Vision Creation Newsun album by the Boredoms.
Also the new Klaxons CD Myths of the Future.
And also some of RJD2's new one, with its scary amount of singing.
