background music.

Good music cannot be in the background. Bach demands your full attention. If you play him while reading a book, you're a dilletante who cheapens art and ought to be ashamed. What brings this up is I have had occasion to listen to a Boards of Canada album. While it garnered a 10.0 from Pitchfork, an impressive achievement, it is singularly unable to withstand the scrutiny of an undivided attention. It is intentionally background music. Bully for it, I suppose, everybody seems to have a cheap soundtrack running through their minds at all times these days. iPods and other such instruments of distraction are apparently mandatory enhancements to modern life. There is no time to be silent on the train or while working or even while reading in the privacy of one's home, a constant low-level din is needed. I am not averse to occasionally having background music on the train if it's too jittery to read and one has plenty of other silent time in one's life, but I know a number of people with a soundtrack running during even the slightest task. Five minutes of complete silence and inactivity are impossible and sustained critical attention to music alone with no other activity also becomes impossible. And Boards of Canada works as an enabler for such people.

Or something like that. I'm writing lazily. Music deserves respect, and worthwhile music shouldn't be used as a soundtrack. Don't waste your silent moments.