I suppose it depends on where you're coming from. ...
You're certainly right there.
The main reason why I'm being less than convinced of the film may be that I watched it not just as a lover of library music but also from the perspective of someone who was professionally involved with filmmaking and the creation of documentaries, video clips and TV reports for a time. It's simply a badly-made piece that -- apart from technical and artistic deficiencies -- shows a remarkable lack of interest in its subject as well as an absence of respect towards interview partners.
You don't sit down four venerable composers who have given the world so much joy on a row of chairs for an interview like naughty schoolboys. They're all visibly uncomfortable throughout. In a little while these men are going to leave us, how can one possibly treat them like this?
I'm not at all advocating an approach that might be too intellectual. I would have been delighted to know more about the collectors, get more anecdotes, more of the human touch and all that. The film clocks in at almost two hours, and for this running time the actual content -- in terms of entertainment, in terms of background info, in terms of everything really -- seems astonishingly thin. I don't even know what the voices of the people who are being interviewed sound like because everyone is drowned in music. The music in turn is being talked over. So we're getting the worst of both worlds from start to finish.
Even though I do consume library music mainly in the form of digital files, learning about the emotional side of physical collecting means -- would mean -- much to me. That's exactly because I cannot experience it myself in this way.
I do have some memories of library music, from the one year I lived in London as an exchange student. I became friends with two blokes who were in a band and lived together in a shared flat in Lewisham. They had a few shelves full of library records which we regularly listened to when I was there. I don't remember the term "library music" being used much -- I think we talked about "rare grooves" instead. Back then one could probably still find KPM LPs on the pavement.
But I didn't catch on. I was content with finding those records with their generic covers and the music they contained fascinating. So I missed out on this.
The ship has sailed. It would make no sense for me to start collecting library records today (I've got just a couple). It would be like spending my holidays in that Javanese fishing village my friends talk about having been so magical twenty years ago. To find a depressing remnant of it surrounded by hotel towers, interspersed with expensive shops and overrun by package tourists.
I envy you.
