Music Listening Habits

[shaolinsoul]

nice quotes woops - think I need to remember this sorta thing more often. What sorta microsound stuff is he talking about - stuff like Raster Noton and Touch? I still try and listen to ambient music as often as possible, as it rewards attention and headphone listening. Same goes for Autechre's stuff, as Slim's blogpost puts well.

I definitely share that yearning for the excitement of waiting for a tune. I really like the way Mala keeps his tunes under wraps and makes efforts to keep that excitement and effort/patience to access the music. There isn't quite that same excitement any more, I remember the excitement of waiting ages for a release and the only way I would be able to hear it properly was to wait until the release date and then get home and put the CD on. It would become a proper event, last time I remember that same kinda buzz was for untrue.

feel ya bredrin.

Its like the internet has made music so abuNduntly available to me, ive become desensitized to the whole music listening experience. Although I wouldnt take it back there was so much charm back looking back at my younger days trying to catch Weekend rush/kool fm on a saturday night after playing outside even rinsing my old dreamscape tape packs and fast forwarding to my favorite parts. I heard those tunes a billion times but they never got old for me..never.

Then a few years later the internet comes along and im saying raah that track was by Wax Doctor/Photek/Rufige Kru...I didnt even know all that time I just liked the beats..what a badman.
(Yeah I couldnt go raving in 1994 because I was only 9 years old, but if I could I would )
Fastforward to 2010 its like I have to keep with new music. Its an addiction. Every morning check the same sites I like, Boomkat, Hardwax, Rush Hour. Youtube some Krome & Time bits while im cleaning my house investigate the Basment records back catalog.

 

[slowtrain]

(this may relate to the toop quotes) But I've found this as well, going from having like 50 CD's that I knew back to front, to literally thousands of albums in MP3 format, and I just can't really remember the music all that well.

It bugged me for a bit, but nowadays I've just kind of accepted that I might only ever get an hour of enjoyment from one album I've downloaded, and will never listen to it again, but hey, I still got a good hour out of it, right?

I suppose its a more Cageian approach in that, I just listen... Doesn't really matter if I don't fully 'appreciate' it, just listen to it..

 

[DannyL]

I think part of this comes out of the fact that we are process-driven ie. we like to manipulate objects and explore environments purposefully, rather than being "designed" for passive consumption. Thus the act of looking for new music is one thing, the actual listening another. A lot fo music culture valourises the former (rihgtly so as well) - digging, road trips, sourcing artists for obscure recordings etc etc. but it's a very different thing to actually listening to music.

 

[Dunninger]

I think it's important to find some good sources you can trust and don't think much about the rest, not only for music but for any kind of information. No need to check the new arrivals of 10 online shops and a long list of mp3 blogs that only give you a copy of the promo text and a rapidshare link. The good stuff will come to you sooner or later. The fear that something great passes by without you noticing it is useless, because it happens anyway, you can't do anything against it.