Frisson Music: Talking About Music On The Internet, Differently

I read about things all the time, to a fault. The Guardian website is constantly telling me that I’ve read 15,000 articles in the past 3 months as it begs me for donations. Unfortunately, much of that reading is a compulsive response to my constant anxiety around current events; and is definitely not healthy. (Maybe I’ll unpack that in a future post, but this isn’t about that…) My point is that I read a lot. And yet, hardly any of that reading is about my favourite thing, my reason for living: music.

I think it’s because a lot of traditional music opinion writing doesn’t do a great job of actually evoking how the writer feels about the music they are talking about. I find a lot of it impersonal and corporate.

The 1975’s Matty Healy (first, definitely not last time you read his name on this blog) said once that he loves music more than any other art form because ‘it commands you how to feel.’ I resonate with this observation profoundly. There is room for interpretation in music, as there is in literature or film, but there is something about the medium being sound that changes the way the human body responds to it; as opposed to a visual stimulus.

Here enters Frisson, the name of this new site. Frisson is the word for the sensations you feel when you experience excitement or fear. Think goosebumps, shivers, and a lump in your throat. I’m aware of this because I was trying to find out what the hell was happening to me when I listened to music or attended a concert. I get incredibly intense frisson from music, and it’s a beautiful thing. It makes me feel alive unlike anything else. That’s why I love going to gigs so much: that adrenaline rush as the curtain drops and the first note is struck. It’s why I love listening to new music, as each new beat and bar excites and surprises.

To circle back to the start, what I’m saying is that I want to write (and maybe talk) about music in a way that evokes the aforementioned sensations and emotions so that other people can find those experiences. So that I can find more people who feel the same way as me and perhaps build a community of people who intensely love music.

So, there will be album and song reviews, there will be scores, there will be lists and all the things you expect. But framed by my unique lived experience of music, and incredibly importantly, relentlessly positive. I am not in the business of giving the next Ed Sheeran album 2/10 just to dunk on him because his music isn’t avant garde enough. If I don’t like something, I just won’t write about it. I also intend to make some videos on YouTube and a podcast if this thing starts to go well.

I hope you enjoy reading what I have to say. I’d love to hear from you if you have any thoughts about what I write, or what I write about. Now, time to go and read The Guardian’s home page again.