music overload
 

I think it would be interesting to have a discussion on the relative advantages and disadvantages the so called "information age" has had on our listening habits and on our perception of art in general.
Lately I've almost completely stopped seeking out new music after going through a period where I would download several albums a day. Of course I learned a lot about music I wouldn't have ever gotten to know otherwise, but after a while it seemed like I was just sampling one album and then moving on to the next thing.
Way back when I was a beardless and hatless young lad (pre p2p/mp3 blog) and all I could afford was maybe one or two CDs a month I think I got way more out of music. I'd listen to something until I memorized every little nook and cranny of every song, and if I didn't like something I would listen to it until I did. I hardly ever give something more than one listen anymore if it doesn't immediately grab me. I'm of course much more patient with CDs and records that I actually own since I've invested many a pay check into them, but I still don't give each one the time they deserve.
Sooo... I've more or less decided to stop getting new music for a while and let what I already have sink in properly. And lo and behold I'm already enjoying music way more now! Who woulda thunk it? I love music and I love hearing things I've never heard before, but gosh darn it can really get in the way of appreciating music for all its worth. I guess I'm just going to have to start limiting my musical researchin' and start stepping up my musical experiencin'.
Blah blah blah blah. Anyhow, has the internet wrecked your ability to appreciate music fully, or has it turned you into a 24 hour music appreciation machine?
Sorry for my lousy writing. Too unsmart for to write good.

Amen.

and like you, i'm sure, i wouldn't want anyone to get me wrong when i say the following:
i am all into getting into new things and finding out about as much as i can as possible
but i've noticed, especially when looking for books to read at the library or bookstore, that there is simply too much good stuff out there
and I, considering my compulsive and intellectually voracious nature, want to take it all in at once.
and well, of course, that's just not possible unless you're a quiz kid or truly do have "encyclopedic mind".
i'm sure that there is a way to balance both without getting too overloaded, and i try to everyday.
but overall, it's best, like you said hat and beard (is that a Eric Dolphy reference? (which is a Monk reference)), to experience rather than research.

there's a line in a poem i wrote recently that speaks to that.

you try too hard
to use the time you have
to kill the time you need

I can't decide if it's good or bad.

I'll say that I've also noticed myself spending less time on records that don't pull me in on the first listen.

On the other hand, it's allowed me to parse the cream from the crap, and discover buttloads of artists and bands I would have never otherwise heard. I think overall it has added to my breadth of knowledge, but I can absolutey empathize with what you're saying... I won't be spending much of my time with a record that didn't floor me on the first listen because I've got 200 hours of music I haven't gotten to yet.

But a record that grabs me is still cherished and played over and over again... so I guess that means I'm just listening to less crap, or stuff that I don't hold in that high of an esteem.

I dunno.

Hmm.. I'm pretty sure I've weighed in on this a million times but..

I still impulse-buy records used if i think they might be good.. the internet has helped me discovered lots of bands I never would have heard otherwise.. etc.

Of course, the internet takes away the feeling of "I wonder what this band sounds like" or "Let's go see this obsucre band play at the club down the street." There's no more wondering, no more mystery -- anything you wanted to know about a band is a click or two away.

I don't think the internet is a bad thing for music, movies, television, etc. though... however, I think as the internet continues to get more popular (yes, it's GETTING more popular every day, believe it or not there are people with no internet, hell my mom just got internet for the first time last year), all of us are starting to get a bit more.. withdrawn... more inward, I believe... especially with shit like World of Warcraft... I see, in 10 years or so, all of us just living from a computer, working from a computer, doing everything, EVERYTHING, even more so than now. Because if you really think about it, you can accomplish all those things now: sex (cyber) is online, any kind of entertainment is online, you can order food/etc online, you can work online now.. look for that to grow and grow and grow until none of us ever leave the house anymore. That, my friends, could be a very scary day.

But oh well.

yeah, i suppose the internet has made being a music listener
more of a balancing act, but i don't really see a real downside to this.

the last 4 or 5 months i have been too broke to buy records and this made more of an impact on my listening habits than periods of time when i've not had the internet, it made me go back and relisten to older purchases that i maybe hadn't given sufficient attention.
things like downloads or myspace i only listen to a couple of times and if i particularly like something i'll add it to my ever increasing shopping list, but i don't feel under any particular obligation to listen to things in the digital medium a particular number of times, and when i'm not at the computer i have to listen to good ol' fashioned hard copies that a have bought in a "shoppe".
of course every once in a while i'll download something that i can't bear to delete until i have purchased so something do get rinsed before i actually own a copy. and the teenage panzer korps and castings myspace pages have received multiple visits from yours truly.

ultimately, there are wrong ways to listen to music, but there isn't a right way. so just do whatever.

Yeah, ever since I became a poor student, I haven't been searching new music as enthusiasticly as before, because I can't buy the stuff I want. and I was basically without computer for some months recently. It's a bummer but what can you do.
Nowadays I pick the records I buy a bit more carefully, and listen to my old junk more. I have probaby a couple hundred cds I haven't listened to in ages.

Interesting thread.

Some of my all time favorite albums are th ones that did NOT grab me upon first listen, the ones I had to listen to over and over again to appreciate them, mainly because my ear was not ready to hear it. case in point, Morphine's CURE FOR PAIN. One of my top 20 albums of all time, but upon first, second, and third listen I could not get into it. the sounds were too odd for my punk rockin brain.

I do not download anything. I do not use 2p networks nor do I download music from blogs. I will give things a listen to see what a band is about first but I never download it.

I have a lot of records and I like to be intimately knowledgable with them, and MP3's with no cover art no liner notes, no info about the band or where they are from etc are very boring to me.

I think however, that oftentimes a person like us, who tries to listen to all sorts of stuff, has to sit back and have a sabbatical from new purchases, and hjust take the weeks or months to re-listen to everything you already have, especially those albums you did not get into upon first listen.

This is a real problem. I too rarely give albums a chance to grow on me these days. Shit, I've bought albums that I've not even listened to all the way through. One of my fave albums is Elvis Costello's Armed Forces. Not a 'great' album and when I bought it I wasn't even that into it, but I had saved up to buy it so listened to it non-stop until I ended up loving it. Can't remember the last time that happened.

Everytime I seek out "new" music, I end up finding "old" music I never listened to.

i have never downloaded music because it is just not tangible for someone like me who is so tactile and likes to hold the cover and examine the artwork and read the liner notes etc.

I have the same feeling as hat and beard. For past 2 years (=time since I discovered yousendit, rapidshare, blogs etc) I've learnt a LOT about music that I'd normally couldn't find a way. But on the other hand, you just don't get enough time to get really deep with a single album, and there you have another one,...and another one,...and another one.

But yes, I just can be glad, because this procedure helps me buy the stuff that I really like after a couple of listens and hence not to make foolish investments.

yes slavo. yes.
that is why when I shwo people my record collection, they say "that's not all that many records" (cuz soem record collectors buy ANYTHING they come accross) and I tell them to look through it and then say "It's ALL GOLD BABY, GOLD. No FILLER records!"

Ha, nice!

yeah, but the point of listening to music isn't to have the "best" collection, who cares about that? sometimes it's good to take a chance and buy something because you like the band's name, or cover art, or it's from somewhere weird or the label it's on has delivered the goods before... or whatever.

the point of COLLECTING anything is to have what one considers the BEST collection.

yes it is. a non-selective collection is just HOARDING!

I never said I had the best collection out there, but that I have a damn fine choice selection in my collection.
I do not have enough money, nor have I ever had enough money to actually buy everything that looks interesting to me. I wish, but I have always had something else to spend said money on.

I don't think the problem is totally down to digital availability. When I was a kid it was OK to buy an album, then spend a month or more absorbing it. Adulthood comes with too many other distractions/pressures for such luxuries.

also, weighing in on this topic as a "musician"...

If I had JUST played shows and sent cd's for zines to review and such, I would have probably still sold a few copies, but with the availability of my music online, I've gotten tons of cd's sold (well, "tons" for someone like me) and people who would've never attended my show, did. So, I know that be a bit off topic, but it's like most people said.. musical downloading has helped the little artists...

The only worrying downside with all the downloading madness is that you get too many people carefully 'choosing' what they think their taste 'is meant to be', rather than what 'it actually is'. This means that you have a lot of listeners with 'cool' taste, 'cool' record collections, but ultimately a sterile approach to enjoying music, and not even a personality that has grown out of it to speak of. Why? Because they are constantly influenced by what they perceive as cool on the internet and certain medias by other listeners who have been victims of the same fate.

I agree with hat and beard, to some extent, in that the huge availability of music means that there simply isn't enough time for a person to listen to all the things that we might think that would be beneficial for us to listen to, but really, is it necessary for somebody to know 1000 bands and rarely get to absorb their music because of lack of time or funds?

The whole thing with the internet is that it ultimately changed some habits in the way music is purchased, distributed etc, but if yourself is the one who poses all these questions about the way your listening habits have changed, perhaps it's time to either go and play freesbee with your puppy or just relax around what your taste is and, perhaps, just stop listening to music in general when you simply are not feeling like it. The internet doesn't have anything to do with any of that.

That's kind of what I was trying to get at. For compulsive 'have to know everything' types like myself (and I presume many others on this board) the internet provides way too many opportunities to go overboard with this compulsive sampling of everything under the sun. That's not the internet's fault, it's my fault and I'm well aware of it. I think the internet is a wonderful thing, it's just that people, especially me, need to step back and let all the good things the internet provides sink in every now and then.

Some of my all-time favorite records are those I picked up on a whim, knowing little or even nothing about them. Of course, it was easier once upon a time to know not much about a record or a band, but I also think that made the record buying experience more fun, more interesting, and more rewarding. If you were curious about a record because of the cover or the name of the band, or maybe just because you'd heard other people talking about, you pretty much had to just buy the damned thing to find out what it was about. You could sometimes also talk to a record store owner who was approachable and knowledgeable, and some places even would put the record on for you to listen to in the store, if they'd opened a copy for themselves.

I try not to get too caught up in reading reviews and such these days for that reason. It's much more interesting not to let the critics, or even the fan buzz, influence you, and just go with what catches your attention in the store. Sometimes I can look at an unknown record in the racks and just get a gut reaction. Most of the time, I'm right, too.

Some of my notable prizes purchased with little or no fore-knowledge (keep in mind, I bought many of these "in their time," around the day they were first released):

New York Dolls first LP (It was the cover!)
Patti Smith (again, the cover--she looked like someone I'd want for a girlfriend)
Ramones (again, the cover!)
Never Mind the Bollocks
Talking Heads 77
My Aim is True

and a bunch more from that era.

It's difficult to know how much is the person, and how much is the music. I think it's genuinely amazing that 14, 15 year old kids are able to listen to a million more records than I could at their age. I had a fairly broad taste at that age, but kids these days are sick with their breadth. That's definitely a positive thing.

Personally speaking, I got tired of 'new' music a few years ago, and have given up on seeking it out - if it comes, fine, but it's not a pathological condition any more. At the moment, and I hope for the foreseeable future, I'm looking at getting a record collection that is full of stuff that is interesting or good, or challenging (and good). I still like the odd new-ish rock-ish record, but I listen to them for a fortnight and then they sit on the shelf for the rest of time. I don't listen to all of my classical records all the time, but you better believe if I'm sticking on something special, that motherfucker's getting listened to with two ears, two balls and a cock.

Even when I was in college, my record collection didn't grow much past 100 LPs or so. I bought fewer but appreciated them more, I think. There were times I'd buy maybe 1 or 2 albums every few months, but they'd be ones I loved and play to death.

that's exactly where I was 7 years ago when I REALLY started to put together my vinyl collection.

http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman--five-things.html

Great topic, hat and beard. Socrates tells us that "the unexamined life is not worth living."

Information is becoming less and less meaningful. In the computer age, people don't want information, not really. What they actually desire is to feel informed. Thus, information gets disposably consumed rather than internalized fully.

It's my feeling though that "Information Age" is a slogan concocted by computer corporations.
After all, who doesn't feel that they want or need more information?
I prefer the original tag: the Computer Age. Its direct predecessors being the Space Age and Atomic Age.
__________________
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." -Don Marquis

yes. information age means nothing. the Enilghtenment could very well have been called the Information age. Hell, the start of written language could have been called the Information age.
I too prefer the computer age, as computers are fast entering each and every single possible thing there is to purchase.

"Computer Age" is good enough for Neil Young (and for Neil Postman).

Thanks for posting that. I think the following quote speaks perfectly to the point I was trying to make with all this.

The information age has had a major impact on the accessability of music and allows people to consume, share, and cause the industry to drown people's heads in a plethora of artists. Quality over quantity. And by quality I mean spending quality time with the music, and it should really be a matter of moderation between familiarization with the artists and the amount of artists you have. The human mental environment for (us) music consumers is continuously being pressured and convinced into consuming more music; similar to the advertising industry convincing to consume more commodities. It's really a matter of resistance and spending time with what you currently have. It's better to be a less wealthy person appreciating a sandwich than a rich person having 20 sandwiches and not taking time to enjoy them.

On the contrary, it's nice that we have any music available to us due to technology, and as rational human beings we can choose what to and what not to listen to.

Thanks for bringing this up.

well, the technological advances we have are great for people who are looking to get into a certain band without wanting to blow $10 for an LP or $20 for a fucking super deluxe edition enhanced CD (gag) and then hating the band. and i think it's great because bands that people ordinarily never would have known about are reaching a wider audience. but i have records that i love that i bought based on the art alone or it was on pink wax or something like that. if everything is available 24/7 and nothing is spontaneous and everything is calculated and cold and callous then it's no fun!