Art of Listening #11 with Keith Jopling
The Art of Listening returns this month with its eleventh instalment, following a short summer break. In the latest episode, host Keith Jopling examines how the music we choose can shape and elevate our experiences. He also reflects on a holiday playlist he created 25 years ago- still his go-to soundtrack whenever he’s by the sea.
I’ve been working on a holiday playlist…for 25 years.
If, like me, you are now attempting to crank your year back up after a break, you might employ a number of strategies. If you get straight back to the regime - a healthy diet, exercise routine and diving headlong back into work - good for you, you are officially hard core. I prefer easing back into the swing of things. One technique is to continue a couple of holiday habits into your ‘real life’ to help with the transition (I read this life hack over a decade ago and have lived by it ever since). For me that’s swimming (albeit lake instead of ocean), a croissant for breakfast and a few more days of aperitif sundowners just before ‘dry September’ kicks in. Another is to keep playing the holiday playlist on rotation for a few more days.
I assume you plan your music listening for any upcoming vacation; albums saved to your library, a playlist or two you’ve put together - maybe one with a destination theme or just a more relaxed vibe than usual. I just had a two-week break ‘en famille’ on the Cornish coast (exploring the South coast for a week then North to St. Ives for our annual pilgrimage), and was particularly looking forward to some quality music time. Anticipation was high for the new album releases by Wolf Alice, CMAT, Vistas, Deftones and Blood Orange, and I also stumbled upon a few serendipitous new discoveries in Hand Habits’ Blue Reminder and Eve Adam’s American Dust, both very good and recommended.
As a music fanatic, I am constantly toggling between checking out something new or spending time becoming more familiar with a record. I’m always balancing the time spent listening to new music and classic catalogue - the buzz of the new versus those favourites that come with a guarantee to lift the mood. I consider music listening time a valuable commodity at any time but that especially applies for time by the ocean shore. But, the true pleasure of a vacation is finding the time for something unusual - in my case working my way through Genesis’ 1974 prog rock classic The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (now re-issued) - albeit in two sittings. I had an exquisite return to an album by Goldfrapp from 2013; Tales of Us - which sends me into blissful reverie on the beach whatever is happening around me. I listened twice through the whole thing and it’s truly wonderful. It’s slow, beguiling, and beautiful and doesn’t contain a weak track. An under-appreciated classic I feel.
Mostly though, I returned to a playlist I’ve spent well over two decades ‘working on’, called Porth to Porth (porth being Cornish for beach). This is because we spend the week in St. Ives traversing between its two main beaches, which both offer a completely different vibe, one for surfing and one for swimming. These trips between the beaches set the rhythm for the whole week.
The songs are mostly those with obvious references to sun, sky, beaches, water, sea and so on, others more specific to discovering or listening to that particular song on previous trips. Over the course of 25 years, some songs have come and gone, others have stayed on the playlist as permanent residents. I first put the playlist together on iTunes and I found an early version recently on a revived old iPod (more about this in another edition). It was transferred onto streaming sometime around 2014 I guess. As such they act as metaphors in all kinds of ways. The songs have come to have a special place in my heart in a way that is different to my other favourite music. It’s not difficult to explain why. St. Ives is our collective ‘happy place’ and as such, holds half a lifetime of memories, mostly very good ones. A tradition is the arrival song, played without fail as we approach St. Ives - a now familiar approach road of landmark roadside places, first glimpses of the Atlantic bay of Carbis, cedars and palms that signal the exotic does indeed exist along the shores of Britain. That song is “Wetsuit” by The Vaccines, surely one of the most bittersweet and joyous ‘holiday’ songs ever recorded. And for reasons I can’t possibly explain, as the last day of the holiday approaches, I cannot control the arrival into my head of the song “Ready to Go Home” by Morten Harket, from an otherwise unremarkable and forgotten 1995 solo album by the A-ha frontman. It’s a cheesy number, but boy does it help me get my head around ‘returning to reality’.
For some reason, the playlist really did soundtrack this year’s trip more than most - which was all the better for it. The songs etched their way even further into my brain, accompanying my jaunts to the beach for early swims or a sneaky pastie. If you go back to a regular place for your vacationing needs, and for some reason you don’t have a playlist, I urge you to make one and then keep working on it. The obvious platitude is that a playlist can soundtrack your life, but when it comes to a vacation - the phrase doesn’t quite do it justice. The songs can become inseparable from place, and from who you are in that place. If it's possible to feel even more deeply in love with music, it's this playlist that does it for me.
Learn more about Keith Jopling:
Keith is a music strategist, advisor, consultant, writer and mentor. In 2021 he started the music podcast The Art of Longevity, featured under Spotify’s “must listen” music podcasts and on all other platforms. The archive sits on his music curation site The Song Sommelier.
Keith has worked with the boardrooms of labels, streaming services, start-ups and investors. He has held previous roles with Sony Music, Spotify, EMI and the BPI. Most recently he was Consulting Director at boutique music agency MIDiA Research (2019-2024) and began his career in music as Research Director at global trade body IFPI (2000-2006).
As an educator, he has lectured in music business, strategy and innovation at Henley Business School, NYU, BIMM, ACM, Belmont, Syracuse, Westminster and the University of Krems, Austria.