Has quarantine changed your ears?

[Murphy]

Went through the first few page of the mix thread & found the Randall + Kenny Ken mix. “ Kenny Ken, Kenny Ken”. Quite a fuckin ride.

Def digging further back for mixes from this era. Not nostalgia, more getting out of old listening habits.

 

[kumar]

I’m thinking about a certain intentional, conscious and discerning approach to listening. Vinyl. Analogue synths. The important stuff! Format obsessed, sound quality obsessed. Music that’s not about anything. But good taste, refined. Studied reference points. Quality music for the heads who know. So much knowledge! Solemn appreciation, little dancing. Real music. Music. Music.

yeah, male grooming adjacent. one person i know who's quite like that, when ive been mean and pointed that stuff out theyve been surprised, its apparently just a no brainer to them, why wouldn't you want the highest quality sound on the highest quality settee.

very particular version of it though, obviously loads of other instances of music where particular formats and material extensions of the sound are important without conjuring up the kind of discerning refined thing youre thinking about. shaka wouldn't necesarily work if he used a serrato mixer at xoyo for instance.

 

[shiels]

Yes it’s absolutely a refined male and his cool stuff thing. All the right gear. these things aren’t bad, it’s just when I see “all vinyl set” I just think who cares, form over substance

 

[shiels]

Obv tasteful craftsmanship can result in great art and all that, just from the artisan consumer side it can get boring and stifling

 

[kumar]

seeing it advertised like that is annoying sure, but , colour me a reactionary teenage incel, sometimes it can make a slight difference in that you're not seeing someone whos just downloaded a baile funk mix that afternoon, theres a certain obsessive commitment to getting all those records etc which might carry over into the way they play, idk i can sympathise with the resentment felt by people who wasted their youth learning to be scratch djs

 

[kumar]

the artisan consumer side is irritating cos of the mass scale its on though right, if it was just you and your crew who knew then it might not feel so stifling. like nothing makes me want to make music less than tastefully edited youtube tutorials but that probably has more to do with me being a massive snob, people scrabbling for information from magazines or the library in the 90s might not fill me with disgust in the same way even if the impulse to obsessively learn some nerd stuff is basically the same

 

[shiels]

The mythology of the noble and dusty fingered crate digger. The true heads.

 

[kumar]

its just that all these personalised markers of good taste feel more mediated and marketed by the evil bastards who rule the world than they might have in a bygone era

 

[kumar]

as my dad would say previously people could happily go about their lives without having their face rubbed in the fact that the romantic artist figure has always been a cheerleader for capitalism but now its everywhere you look

 

[kumar]

The mythology of the noble and dusty fingered crate digger. The true heads.

i agree with you but i dont know if ive actually met any of these noble dusty self important blokes but then again ive only met 12 people

 

[Murphy]

The mythology of the noble and dusty fingered crate digger. The true heads.

What has this got to do with quarantine changing your ears? Equally, what’s so inherently “wrong” with crate digging, physical, digital, or otherwise? You’re not pilfering chart lists, it’s a life long quest just finding releases you like. If it’s taken to pretentious levels like the vinyl only line, by all means blast away. A deck or two, a cheap amp & speakers I’ve owned for 20 yrs is hardly cultural imperialism. Neither is finding records you’ve been hunting for a few decades that turn up on discogs from time to time. Maybe it’s worse finding a digital rerelease of a ltd run vinyl to some folks too.

Any form of listening is valid, but after a 12 hr shift of monstrous horrors, putting some tunes on, sitting back in a cheap, cast-off office recliner with headphones on really helps decompression, which in turn soothes inter personal relationships. Listening to music while preparing meals, particularly breakfast, is another useful way to interact. Reading & listening together are tricky as I tend to drift in & out of both formats if they’re running simultaneously.

 

[shiels]

I didn't say it was wrong, just that it's there, a mythology that trades on fidelity and authenticity, used to market events and experiences because it sells a way of listening that people can feel superior about. and yes, the right gear, the right environment will make stuff sound a bit better but that's not the only appeal here is it...

 

[luka]

I’m thinking about a certain intentional, conscious and discerning approach to listening. Vinyl. Analogue synths. The important stuff! Format obsessed, sound quality obsessed. Music that’s not about anything. But good taste, refined. Studied reference points. Quality music for the heads who know. So much knowledge! Solemn appreciation, little dancing. Real music. Music. Music.

There's a lot,of carefully curated instagrams like that. https://www.instagram.com/the_hum_/

 

[luka]

I didn't say it was wrong, just that it's there, a mythology that trades on fidelity and authenticity, used to market events and experiences because it sells a way of listening that people can feel superior about. and yes, the right gear, the right environment will make stuff sound a bit better but that's not the only appeal here is it...

It's a generational divide. I'm right on the cusp. I never really got into buying records so I found it hilarious when the Internet democratised the playing field but some of my mates wanted to chuck themselves off a building. All that useless vinyl taking up floor space.

 

[shiels]

All that time and money invested for nothing. The boundaries have dissolved, access all areas. The fidelity fetish is partly a backlash against all that, new exclusivities. We're kind of talking about a similar thing on two threads now...

 

[Leo]

as a cheap bastard, I guess I'm a quasi-digger: I've always enjoyed flipping through stacks of used records, but I'm only interested in paying $1 or 2 each (MAYBE up to $5 for something great). I have zero interest in looking through record shops where they have amazing stuff but it's at collector's prices. an old Marshall Jefferson 12" on trax is an awesome find for $1-3, but of no interest when it's $25.

I also don't care that much about condition. sure, I want the record to sound decent but VG often is OK by me, not worth the $$$ to get a VG++/Mint copy.

 

[blissblogger]

as a cheap bastard, I guess I'm a quasi-digger: I've always enjoyed flipping through stacks of used records, but I'm only interested in paying $1 or 2 each (MAYBE up to $5 for something great). I have zero interest in looking through records shop where they have amazing stuff but it's at collector's prices. an old Marshall Jefferson 12" on trax is an awesome find for $1, but of no interest when it's $25.

The prices in shops now are ridiculous. Particularly the 'curated', minimally designed record shops, but across the board. when did $30 become a normal price for a record? it's not based on supply and demand with specific records, it's like a generalized mark-up - like the whole of the format now has a surcharge levied on it or something.

I went to one of those audio-deluxe listening bars in LA, a friend had a release party for his record. i couldn't say I noticed a huge leap in sound quality, but then again people were chit-chatting so it wasn't necessarily the fully-focused listen to bring out the details. The drink prices were painful and the overall vibe of the decor was tasteful but luxuriant, the finest of everything, a gentlemen's club vibe almost. Lots of wood.

Serious audiophiles are an odd lot, the ones I've met tended to have poor taste in music. One guy next to me at a wedding had a whole barn or outbuilding set aside for his stereo system which had cost something like 50 thousand bucks (this back in the early 90s). Another was my landlady in Streaham, a Norman Tebbit fan and owner of a Rega Planar turntable - she said derisively of the sounds produced out of my sad little audio set up in the lodger's room upstairs: 'I don't even consider that to be 'music'". But her actual records - i think she had about six in total and they were all things like Paul Young No Parlez.

Conversely people I've met who live for music and have amazing taste, often have really shitty playbacks. Rock critics on the whole seemed to have crappy little music centres, they'd tape something for me and it was really poor sound quality. I guess the focus of the passion was amount and range of music acquired, rather than the quality of reproduction.

 

[luka]

When you lose or break your glasses and you can't afford to get any more for a bit or you're too lazy to and you get used to being semi blind putting the new pair on is a psychedelic experience. This huge increase in information. They get a similar thing with even a fairly small improvement in audio quality. But in both cases it swiftly becomes the new normal. The thrill doesn't last.

 

[Leo]

I've wondered here before about who, exactly, makes the profit on those crazy prices. I imagine the retailer has to charge $30 because of what they pay at wholesale, but I don't know. there used to be many vinyl distributors, so maybe the few remaining ones raised their prices? or are pressing plants charging more? or is it the record labels themselves who have set higher list prices?

because artists sure ain't the ones pocketing that 100% increase in retail price!

 

[droid]

Im missing my commute. 1.5 hours every day on the bike which Id often use to to review stuff Id been working on. Now its just domestic listening, though i do try and get 30 mins in every day on headphones with my eyes closed.