There was an earlier post along these lines from Lodestone of Wrongness about an album always loved. There is also Christgau’s book title Is it Still Good to Ya which neatly connects to my theme.
About twenty years ago my one remaining childhood friend began a process of identity woodshedding – removing that which was of no use. He stopped being deliberate about listening to music. He began by selling his substantial collection of vinyl to another collector without much care for its worth. Then he dispensed with his CDs. He would still speak occasionally about music and so I became curious about what it was he was doing. He explained that he had a kind of self-loathing for the person he was who thought that there was any real meaning in the activity of listening to music as an art form. He wasn’t really denying the art form – it was simply associated now with a previous version of himself that he no longer connected with and possibly wished to leave behind.
Like most of you here, when I was at school each time I had ten dollars I would carefully consider which album to buy next. The discovery of a new artist to follow, to understand was identity forming. It’s how musical snobbery begins its life. Even the process of recording albums onto cassette because a long drive was forthcoming was a carefully curated process of self-formation.
It was exciting to discover relatively late that Al Green’s albums were sublime, that Sam Cooke’s records were rich, deep and affecting. I still enjoy that music. After Lodestone’s post I did play With the Beatles and Beatles for Sale. I enjoyed them. But I did so while doing something else; time was when playing music was its own activity. For me, now, it is never an isolated event but always as a soundtrack.
So the change is that I no longer look forward to a moment of adding to my collection and do not see music as a meaningful hobby even. This is partly because, I think, as a good amateur musician myself I am considering selling all of my gear – my drums, my bass, all but two of my guitars. I am kind of done with it all. I recall Paul Simon reflecting on his creative cycle and remarking that after the 2-3 yr cycle he isn’t even sure that he likes music very much. I once thought Aimee Mann to be an interesting songwriter but now there are so many Aimee Manns in the world, so many Tracey Chapmans, so many Los Lobos albums. Remember back in the early 1990s Dylan remarked that the world had enough songs. I agree. Stop now. Van Morrison’s constant releases surely confirm this idea. But of course, the artist has a right, a need to create.
But poetry and literature seem to be able to transcend this ennui. Listening to Kafka’s The Trial on Audible is to be moved into a remarkably contemporary satire about power and institutions. It’s not an easy read, though, requires attention and re-reading. For those of you who have read this far, I am surprised by those you of who claim that you have the same commitment to music as identity. For me, that is what it would mean to listen to albums today that gave me the same amount of pleasure in 2024 that even a relatively minor album like Infidels gave me in 1984.
There’s no output without input. Creativity is building on the foundation of what came before.
Do you do kids parties?
Listening to Kafka’s The Trial on Audible… this dude is partying pretty hard already.
“Hey – where the white women at?”
I still do solely listen to music – forty years ago it might have been done alongside reading about the act via a book or sleeve notes, now it is either that (usually on computer) or doing some other work on the computer. Right now, I’m listening to that quite rare entry in the Blues Collection series, the Ike & Tina Turner one, and I’ll go to wikipedia etc. to piece together Ike & Tina’s career in ’68 and ’69, my favourite period of theirs.
The freshness I feel towards the task is helped by:
1. Rarely listening to anything after the 60s (in my world, thank the Lord, there simply aren’t lorry loads of Beatles’ solo albums to consider) and 2. There being no record shops, meaning that any purchase is as notable, probably more so, as it would have been when I was 17.
Nope. Don’t get that one bit. I remain as obsessed, too much really, with music. I am constantly on the search for new or new to me, from any time or any culture. Sure, the majority doesn’t hit my spot, but I still religiously hoover up the comics and blogs for finding out what has been released or re- released. I hate to think that might end.
Oddly, it is reading that I have lost my traction for, which has proven disappointing. This I have put down to time available, hoping to pick up again what was an equivalent bug, now I am again retired.
I’m with you. In my world, it’s not possible to have too much new music. There are still just the two categories, music you like and music you don’t. Someone is in a studio right now making some music that I’ll like. My fear is that it’s never get as far as me! Spotify playlists help and I’m sure I hear new stuff today that I would never have heard on the radio so I get introduced to new stuff and new artists all the time. The advantage of that is that it means I can go and see the artists live. Although I always loved the physical element of music with LPs and CDs, I’ve been surprised at how little I miss them in the age of downloads and streaming. I can’t imagine ever buying a vinyl album again.
Reading is my “lost art” at the moment too – has been for about 6 months – just can’t settle into reading as I once did.
Brain to full of other “stuff” to focus
I have been pretty jaded for a long time regarding my old albums and listening much to anything really, but I found a solution!
Get new (or different) equipment to play it back on. Not necessarily super expensive, but a few changes, have been using new speakers, listening to vinyl on an old linear drive turntable that I fixed myself, likewise an ancient Bang and Olufsen CD player that I repaired and digitally listening to Hi-Res files on newer equipment.
Am listening more to old (and new) music than I have in a few years probably. Enjoying playing stuff that has been gathering dust for a long time. Still plan to prune my collection but not just yet…
Agreed. Think you’ve played an album to death? Listen to it on big headphones and learn all over again.
I listen to music all my free time. The music I listen to has changed. There is less Pop and Rock and more Jazz and Classical, less Reggae and more Dub, but the human voice still gets a look in and Dance still lifts my spirit.
I’ve embarked on a project of listening to 100 of my favourite songs 100 times. Melody Gardot’s Once I Was Loved has just stopped me in my tracks but I’ve given up on Stay With Me by The Faces.
It’s a solitary activity these days. No-one else cares to listen with me.
Sorry, Tigs – have to take this call …
Another point connected to the original post… not only have many acts released a lot of albums, but those albums are now sooooo long. Check out the duration of Van Morrison’s recent output.
If an album clocks in at over 40 minutes, it needs to have a bloody good reason so to do in my house, like being “Smile” (48 minutes)… very much an exception to the rule.
Also, with Ace compilations, say, which do have 30-odd tracks, I’ve started playing them from track 15 or 16, as it’s logical I would have heard the earlier songs on them far more than the ones at the end.
Why don’t music players all have a simple way to just play an album backwards to be used once in a while. My most played tracks are always track 1 of an album not through choice, just ease.
I’d use that – like flipping over a reel to reel tape?
Never a fan of backwards guitar solos, so I doubt Id like it all in reverse.
Try Discreet Music or (no pussyfooting)…
I rather like backwards things, particularly in Twin Peaks.
Listening to Country music backwards can be quite rewarding. You quit drinking, your dog gets better, and your wife comes back.
!frA
Your truck starts when it ought to, you don’t shoot that man in Reno so you don’t have to go to jail.
Don’t even need to forgo honkytonkin’ and praise the lord. Hallelujah!
Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. is designed to be enjoyed in reverse order as an option. Steely Dan’s Everything Must Go is excellent in reverse order, too.
Who’s Next would work too – an epic at both ends, but it does go against the supposed Lifehouse narrative. Oh well, never mind.
There’s a narrative?
In the sense that Pete Townshend declares Baba O’Riley as the opening and Won’t Get Fooled Again as the close *
The rest of the sequencing is still rolling around Pete’s head
* some argue The Song Is Over as the true closer
Logical.
The thing about Tommy, and Quadrophenia, and Lifehouse, is that the narratives are there, just not easy to get into. They’re like binge watching a TV series at high speed and missing some scenes because you had to make the tea or feed the dog or whatever. Pete’s narratives make a lot more sense (and are much more interesting) than opera, or any superhero franchise, yet he always gets a ticking off for lack of coherence, like we have to be led through everything one simple step at a time. There’s more than enough in Tommy for an epic novel, and it’s crammed into a double album (with ten minutes pissed away on the ballsachingly boring “Underture”). Pete’s a much, much finer writer than he’s generally given credit for. Just my ten cents worth IMHO TBH ectect.
PT also edited books for Faber and Faber. Something you’d never have guessed from reading his piss-poor autobiog
‘Edited’ might be stretching it a bit.
Just this morning I bought a Glenn Miller best-of on CD. The night before last I made a 250 mile round-trip to see Ninebarrow play in a small church on Dartmoor, and last week I bought the latest Fergus McCreadie album and the recent Kula Shaker album, both on CD. So I guess I’m still enjoying stuff.
Was inspired by your thread to seek out my own Best of GM CD.
Sadly, it seems to have gone missing.
Lost in the mist of time.
Too soon, mate.
@jaygee on the off-chance that you were being literal, I’ve PM’d you 🙂
I’m connected to the music being made by people about 5-15 years older than me who were young and happenin’ when I was about 12-22. So we are talking 1978-1988ish when post-punk, ska and the New Romantics were about. I enjoyed every trend that happened in that time apart from Stars on 45. Those were my obsessive pop consumer years. The last great zeitgeisty music thing I really liked was the House stuff of 1986/7. By the time we got to Madchester and Britpop I just felt that I didn’t really care about new music. Some of it was fine, but I felt I had immersed myself so much that I didn’t want to do it again, really.
I keep in touch with favourites of the era that still produce things, but I haven’t attached myself to anything since then apart from the odd song that breaks through.
Listening to the least amount of music since I was but a wee boy. I have always hated music as background, friends with Radio 6 burbling in the background are now shunned, so it’s all or nothing. And more often than not these days as far as music is concerned, it’s nothing. Never want to hear, for instance, The Beatles or Dylan ever again. Ella, Lana and Taylor do me fine. Virtually every time I get a music recommendation I think “This is it, the flame will be relit”. The flame flickers and dies.
Read a lot but my main pastime is watching tv – thanks to the wonder of the internet we can watch whatever we want whenever we want. Every movie, every TV show ever made – what a time to be alive!
Who needs music?
I often think that growing up without a TV was one of the defining influences on my life. Firstly tons and tons of reading which stays with me – just the 4 books in the go, two book groups, confirmed Netgalley-er etc. Secondly though I love lots of tv, with the exception of live sport, I could never watch another series or episode again and not miss it. Music and films however….
Who needs music? Me apparently. As the wind hurls torrential rain through The Languedoc, Hard Nose The Highway is just the ticket. Sing wee man, sing….
I listen to probably more music nowadays than I did as a young buck. I don’t tend to listen to rock and pop very much anymore and I haven’t any inclination to listen to the music of my teenage years terribly much. It’s not that I don’t like it anymore It’s more that I know it so well hearing it doesn’t hold any interest for me. The one exception being jazz. Even jazz albums I have known for years can still take me by surprise on occasion. I started today in a manner that has become a habit namely wearing a set of headphones and relaxing into the morning with a couple of albums. Today it was A New Beat from Ulysses Owens Jr and Generation Y and Endless Planets by Austin Peralta. Both Jazz albums. Both excellent. The first new to me the second I discovered some time ago.
It’s a similar story with reading. I always have a couple of books near at hand. I can’t remember a time in my life when that hasn’t been so. A deep and abiding interest in the arts is in my DNA. I can’t imagine that will ever change and for that I am truly thankful.
I think I probably didn’t enjoy music when I was young as much as I might think. It’s just that there’s a false impression of the past caused by nostalgia. I appreciate it more now if anything because I understand it better and I am more open minded.
I listen to a lot of music and let shuffle surprise me, but find that I go back to 50s and early 60s jazz by preference. I agree that for so many acts, their producing an album has diminishing returns, and so i find myself thinking “oh guys, you shouldn’t have…”. I do not need a Stevie Wonder after “Hotter…”, a Who after “Quad”, or a Bowie after “Heroes”. Add your own favourites here. Various good tracks may sometimes make for a compilation of passable stuff over a few decades, but, really? If I was still hearing the great, I’d be more appreciative, but I don’t think I generally do.
I am reminded that the UK Subs have released 50 albums. Rick Wakeman over 100 solos. At one time we were impressed by folks who had everything by an artist, and we are those people. Now I think, “compulsion”. Smaller, perfectly-formed outputs are better. or keeping to eras. “True Fandom” encourages consumerist acceptance but you don’t have to like it all. Maybe this is why Steely Dan and Prefab Sprout keep their reputations, even if their own later work was just good rather than stellar. Jazz is different, if only because it’s about the playing rather than “new songs”.
This whole exclusionary and discriminatory thread reeks of deafism. Asking the hearing-impaired if they still enjoy music! Would you ask a deceased person if they still enjoy tiramisu? I doubt you would. Really people, we’re better than this.
Come again…
The last time some bloke did that, it caused a whole load of grief.
Still seeking new stuff and buying more than is probably healthy for dwindling storage space.
But listening habits have certainly changed and I’m not finding the same time (or compulsion) to listen to new stuff as deeply as I should.
And with unerring regularity I find myself staring at the shelves trying to find something I want to listen to.
I will be retiring in the next couple of months. I listen to very little music to be honest. When I do it tends to be a few old favourites. I know if I tried I would probably find some new (to me) stuff that I’d really like but I never have the time. Rather than start listening to more stuff though I’m going to have a proper go at making music myself. I’ll finally have time to focus on what I’d wished I’d chosen to do 30 years ago. I’ve been collecting a few synths and other recording paraphernalia which has been patiently waiting for me to be done with corporate America.
Just need to decide what my oeuvre will be. I’m thinking ambient D&B or lounge music. Air meets LTJ Bukem.
If you want to make money from your music, I think Beat-Based Drivel seems the most popular oeuvre at the moment.
@bingo-little
Whoa!
Don’t come the innocent with me, you sloe-eyed minx.
I have blue, quite squinty eyes.
I thought it was your ears that were squinty.
My ears are deranged, my eyes are attractively blue and squinty. Like, imagine if Lawrence of Arabia and Josey Wales had a child. Only neither that blue nor that squinty.
I was thinking about when I first took notice of music.
Probably when I was about 9-10 years old, which was 1961-62. Radio Luxembourg and The BBC Light Programme. American sanitized rock and pop and the many UK cover versions of that time. My listening/appreciation was completely indiscriminate and pretty thoughtless.
Moving into my teens there was the Beat Boom where British groups and singers began to dominate, though by the mid-’60s Motown and Stax were also factored in. At that point guitar group pop was beginning to turn into rock music. Ska and Blue Beat were around, but they were for skinheads, not greebos like myself. It was a few more years before I realised they, and reggae, were worthy of attention.
I had discovered pot and other illicit substances and was an enthusiastic partaker. That was in my late teens to mid-twenties.
I found Punk interesting but having been exposed to psychedelics I couldn’t embrace it’s puritan aspects. I was still a drug-user, though more careful than when I was younger.
Sometime in the mid-’80s I lost a lot of my enthusiasm for music. I had some favourites I still bought albums by, but computers had become more of an interest around then. Bulletin Boards, then Usenet and IRC were how I spent my time. In the mid-’90s I’d given up smoking pot and tobacco.
Round about the turn of the millennium my pleasure in and desire for music seemed to return, but I’ve found since that it waxes and wanes. Live jazz or folk, old-school funk/soul/R&B and ambient/electronic recorded music are what interest me most, currently. Thoroughly bored with Americana and guitar-based Indie currently.
Completely Beatled-out, I have no desire currently to listen to or read about The Fabs. See also Kate Bush and David Bowie. Not that I dislike them, they’re just too familiar now.
The difficulty I’ve always had is with music as background. I struggle with it – find it hard to focus on conversation if it’s on; can’t listen to it properly if I’m in a conversation. As I’ve got older that simply means I listen to it less because it’s as a result a reasonably solitary activity and I get very little time to myself. And what little time I get to myself is more likely to go on reading than on music.
I have to say, I do find that I’m less interested in pop now. Increasingly going back to the original loves of my life in classical (hate that word) music and reading, with a newly developing interest in opera. Don’t know why: I just find it rewards that kind of attention better, and that’s the attention I’ve got to give.
I just listened to a 17 minute version of MacArthur Park by Donna Summer. Cheered me up no end.
If you listen in reverse, the cake is wonderful!
*pushes retropath in chest with both hands*
You giddy, GIDDY fool!
Mind me Shatner’s
🙂
In order of preference
1. Music
2. Books/Magazines
3. Podcasts
Albums and singles are how I make sense of the world and I’m getting endless enjoyment from them. Streaming is everything I ever dreamed of.
A recent deeper dive in XTC made me realise how much I have left to discover in a variety of discographies.
I dunno, listening to music is just so abstract and transportative and I’m still fascinated by it.
Reading is transformative but I have to force/remind myself to do it, it’s always rewarding though.
Podcasts – it’s thrilling to hear present day conversations with my favourite musicians but it can be overdone – less pods, more music methinks.
Movies/TV aren’t grabbing me these days, just seems noticeably artificial and they make me passive and melancholy and life’s too short for that.
“Streaming is everything I ever dreamed of”. I think that’s a good place to start in my response to the OP.
There is now so much music available via the internet in different forms, that I don’t feel the need to ‘own’ it any more. Like a cactus, I grew up in the desert, but now find myself in a rainforest and have learned to adapt a completely different approach to music. Not to relish the few drops of melody that used to pass my way, but to divert a small stream of the mighty and unceasing flood, recognizing that there’s no point in getting all Pokemon (gotta catch ’em all) about it.
I love discovering new music that I like, particularly from a living, breathing artist – as that keeps me in touch with modern life. But I’m also happy to dive into the past, explore foreign shores, hear music from other cultures. There has to be a net with pretty big holes, to let all the music that doesn’t appeal go past, but when I catch a great specimen, it is joyful to hear.
A lot of the time that is soundtracking other activities, but when something stops me in my tracks, it goes straight onto single track repeat and I stare out at the world, entranced.
There’s also something special about going completely on random play – for some reason, my device frequently selects tracks that are completely right for my mood, that I have never heard before, and that make me completely reevaluate an artist I had previously had lazy stereotypes about, unlocking the door to hearing them in a completely open manner.
I’m a little sad that my musical tastes cross over with almost nobody on this site, (except maybe New Order, Chumbawamba, Neil Young and the Sisters), but it’s a mighty compensation to enjoy your enjoyment of other music. Long may you all carry on banging the drum for your personal favourites!
“I’m a little sad that my musical tastes cross over with almost nobody on this site”
Don’t be sad! Ironically, you’re not alone in that – we have a badge!
If there’s one thing A-Worders have in common it’s nothing. Everyone here has appalling taste in music except me. Gary has the worst, though.
Steve-T available for each-way betting.
With Lodestone Of Wrongness to place.
I think streaming has completely changed how I appreciate music.
Now I can listen to what I want when I want wherever I am.
And I can discover an infinity of variety.
It’s a complete game changer but there’s no broader discussion of this change because it immediately gets bogged down in arguments about how much the artist is paid and sound quality.
Talking of random, Roon doesn’t do shuffle per se, but I often play an album in the knowledge that when it finishes Roon decides what I might want to listen to next that’s in the same general area as that album, and keeps on going. That’s often very illuminating.