I've been thinking about music today. A third of my degree is in classical music. I'm pretty good on Mozart, then I skip a bit until my knowledge gets a lot better with Berlioz and the late Romantics. I'm also pretty well clued-up on English music from Purcell through Elgar/Delius/Holst. But I've always had an artistic problem with classical music, and I've never quite been able to put my finger on it.

Today I realised: it's fucking boring.

Not all of it: the more populist bits of Mozart and Elgar, for example, are great. But most is dull, dull, dull. All these symphonies and things were written before recording was invented. People rarely heard music, and when they did they wanted a good, hour-long shot of it. Today we can listen to whatever music we like when we like, so it doesn't have to be listened to all in one go. Long compositions are dead - I've always struggled to listen to them anyway - I mean, who in the modern world can honestly say they don't drift off a bit in the second movement of Beethoven 5? I think the best way to listen to classical music is on those compilation CDs that offer "Best of" excerpts. You know, "I Really Love Wagner 5".

Perhaps there are a few people out there who genuinely like listening to full-length classical works. That's fine - let them have their Bruckner. The rest of us are waiting for the new Franz Ferdinand album, which, I need hardly remind you, is out next week.