Your relationship with the music you listen to

Lately, I've been thinking quite a bit about the difference between my relationship now with the music I buy, and how it was as a kid.

I really feel like it's lacking. Sure, my iPod is full of thousands of songs. But I really feel like they are not as close to me as those five cassette tapes that I wore thing playing over and over when I was young.

As a kid, I knew all the liner notes by heart, new the names of all the band members, everything. And of course, the music was just tattooed on my brain from constant listening.

I used to absorb my music. Now I basically just consume it.

Obviously, most of us have way more money to spend on music than we did as kids. When I was in middle school, I could not imagine going out and buying 10 albums at one time. I was too busy saving lunch money for a few weeks to buy one cassette. So that album had better be one I was going to love the hell out of.

I plan to try and re-kindle a bit of that relationship. I want to try and start buying less and listening more. Some times I buy an album, spin it once, and then shelve it. Not intentionally...it just happens. Maybe two days later, I bought another CD and wanted to listen to that one more.

So yeah. No point to this post really. Just sharing my thoughts.

I try really hard to not consume... firstly, I can't afford it... but I also never want to get out of the habit of absorbing those albums for nothing else but what they are. Thankfully I'm still there because I'm still obsessed with music. I can do it effectively with say 2 albums at once, but 5 bought at one time is gonna take a month or so..

I try not to buy in bulk, like I used to. I recently bought a mess load of albums, while I enjoyed them as I listened to them, it will be a while before I revisit some of them.

I prefer to buy an album or two at a time and live with them for awhile.

manny wrote:

I prefer to buy an album or two at a time and live with them for awhile.

That's what I plan to start doing.

I've been going on like it's a race to hear as many albums as humanly possible.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

manny wrote:

I prefer to buy an album or two at a time and live with them for awhile.

That's what I plan to start doing.

I've been going on like it's a race to hear as many albums as humanly possible.

Same here but last night, saw a bargain and could not resist, cool albums but I know I will file a majority albums away and it be awhile before I revisit them.

I got tired of the "mass consumption" of albums a few years ago for the same reasons you guys have mentioned. I made a conscious decision to only purchase records that *really* hit me and listen to them more intently. I tend to wait and listen to records on Spotify or Youtube a few times to make sure it's something I really need to have in my collection prior to purchasing. Not counting some used LPs I only bought about 15 albums in 2012 and about 5 of those were reissues.

These days if I don't like an album all the way through I most likely won't buy it. The days of picking up records for a few good songs are long past for me. It has made me much more selective but I don't think that's a bad thing.

I'm too broke to buy mass quantity like I used to. And like S.D., I try to listen a few times before pulling the trigger.

My music and I are "just friends." We've never taken it to the "next level."

Fat Freddy wrote:

My music and I are "just friends." We've never taken it to the "next level."

If you do decide to take that next step, hopefully it is not with a Hateplow record.

It's a sad fact that I'll never love a record the way I loved Blizzard of Ozz, Highway to Hell or Ride the Lightning but music still has the ability to blow me away and that's enough.

I know pretty quickly if a band push my buttons and I want to invest my time and very limited cash and it's pretty rare that I end up with a 'What was I thinking?' look on my face. That's the beauty of the internets, you can actually hear the whole thing before you buy.

For me, it's just having less time and more responsibilities than I did as a kid when I could spend time absorbing myself in an album, sit on the floor and study the album cover and insert, listen to cassettes over and over on my walkman, etc. Lately, I've been converting cassettes into mp3s and that has reacquainted me with albums I listened to a lot years ago. It's brought back a lot of memories.

Unlike most of you, I rarely buy music anymore. Hardly any new stuff. Maybe 5 a year and of them, probably not more than 1 or 2 new albums if that. I don't get excited for new releases anymore. I remember when albums like Iron Maiden's Seventh Son... and Frehley's Comet's Live +1 were about to be released. I couldn't wait. I'd keep calling The Wherehouse to see if they were in yet (it wasn't as easy to know release dates back then). If an album by a band I like comes out now, I'll wait for it to be available on Spotify, listen to it a few times and, usually, that will be it unless it just blows me away which doesn't happen too often these days.

Seriously, there are albums I consider "old friends" that I might listen to from time to time if I get down. None of these albums came out after the mid 1990s, though. I don't think I ever found an album friend since getting a job and becoming an "adult." Just the way it goes I guess.

I don't absorb music like I used to, that's for sure. I don't look through the booklets like I used to either. I might give them a quick scan, just to check out the artwork or lyrics, but never "study" them the way I used to.

I used to read all the "thank you" lists, looking to see what other musicians or bands I recognized for what reason, I don't know. Sometimes using them for reference. "Hmmm, Anthrax thanked Overkill. They must be pretty cool. I'll have to look for them next time I'm in Tower".

I pack a 24-sleeve cd holder for the workweek, so I never have the jewels or booklets to look at when I'm listening.

Having the funds and the easy on-line access has made my collection grow in leaps & bounds obviously, but I do try to limit "blind-buying" as much as possible.

I feel like I can relate to every post here: I was consumed by my music as a kid. Now I consume it. I have less time and more responsibilities as well. And I "try" to be more selective in my music buying--not always successful in my restraint. I think being able to buy music from my couch rather than sifting through flea markets and second hand stores makes it too easy to overbuy. I don't have the knowledge about the bands as I used to seem to (probably b/c there are just so many bands and so much info. Plus, I don't seem to care as much).

However, I still love when I come across a cd that I can tell from the first listen that it will stay with me for years.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

"Hmmm, Anthrax thanked Overkill. They must be pretty cool. I'll have to look for them next time I'm in Tower".

I discovered so many bands this way.

Also, I discovered many a band based on the t-shirts guys in bands I liked wore. I bought the Sex Pistols ...Bollocks in 7th grade, based on Slash wearing a SP t-shirt. Opened a whole other door of music.

I listen to most before i buy and i do not buy too much but since i love so many different genres it sure comes across like that.

Well since I am a DJ I have to consume and absorb metal.

Metalwagod

I wasn't super into metal until I was 12, when my dad started playing a lot of Stryper. Basically every stryper album is burned into my memory, and I loved it. The solo's, the vocals, the killer riffs and I always said "I want more of THAT!" So I looked for more. Through my searching I found Bride, Sacred Warrior,Rob Rock, Impellitteri (who's lyrics in most of the Rob Rock material are "kinda" christian) and a ton of other bands my little nappy headed christian self loved. I'd just drift off into the music and would have to get snapped back into reality if someone wanted to talk to me.
Now, between 12 and 15 I had gotten into a lot of the metalcore and death/black metal scene since after the christian heavy metal classics, not much is left aside from those in terms of musical style. I burned pretty much every Mortification album into my head, then Believer. I was really digging all the heavier bands in the thrash, black and death metal genre's, the dark imagery of the album art (Really loved the album art to "Relentless" by Mortification), the in your face lyrics (when they weren't sunday school levels of cheesy). But I was slowly running out of things to listen to, since my dad restricted me to christian music up to that point, and there's only so much "Scrolls of The Megilloth" you can take.
At around 15 my dad took off the musical restrictions and I explored even more things I didn't have the chance to before. Girlfriend at the time got me into Rob Zombie, and I can't imagine how many times I played Hellbilly Deluxe. Then Primus came in, and I fell in love with Les Claypool's Bass playing. Got into the more popular death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under, Suffocation, Behemoth, and loved every second of soaking in the new material.

But, over time it all just kind of faded. Lost interest in old favorites (Don't even enjoy Scrolls of The Megilloth anymore), and eventually music just kind of turned into background noise while I sort of thought about things. I got the new Suffocation album, rocked out to two tracks and then promptly lost interest in a band I used to be in love with. Yeah, there are times I can pull out an album and really love what I'm hearing, but nothing compares to what I felt in my teenage years when everything felt fresh, and new, and exciting. I often look back and thing "Why cant I get into music like I did back then?"
Kind of depressing when you think about it.

I like this topic.

I got into really bad habits, and by around 2010 or so, I had hundreds of CDs which I only had vague impressions of. Around that time I decided that I hated being like that, so I went through my collection and separated out everything I was not already sure I wanted to keep. I put hundreds of CDs in boxes and started listening through them. My listening time is mostly limited to about 60-70 minutes per day in the car on the way to and from work. I listen some at work, and some here and there also.

Since then I have been listening almost exclusively to "new" music. That is, music I don't already know. I listen until I can decide if I want to keep it. It usually takes between 2 and 10 listens. I sometimes take a break and switch between a few new CDs, but , I make myself listen until I figure it out. Then I either put it in the sell box(es) or the collection box(es).

I have slowed down my buying, but not enough to finish this project. I am thinking about stopping it, and mixing the listening of new stuff in with the rest of my collection.

There are times when I can't tell if I like an album enough to keep it. It's like, I can leave it playing over and over and I am fine with it. It doesn't bother me, and seems enjoyable, but it also doesn't necessarily move me. In some cases I will put it on repeat, and play each track over and over, 3-10 times each, to attempt to have it sink in (I like a lot of prog-death metal).

The Faceless, in particular, ended up paying large dividends with their last two albums. It took some time, but once I really heard the music, I really fell in love with them.

Sometimes I wonder if I am getting dense in my old age.

I need to start selling my sell CDs.

A couple of years ago it realized that listening to and processing all the music I bought was starting to feel like a job- so like many of you I've cut down to maybe two new ones a month or less. Part of the problem was the internet, being exposed to so much old music that I'd missed out on all of a sudden, and being able to just order it right away. It was fun, but like any binge behavior there was a downside.

I can totally relate to what you guys are saying, and it is starting to bug the hell out of me. It's been a long time since I truly got to know an album the way I know all the Stryper albums, the Vengeance Rising albums and the early Maiden albums. But I could still enjoy new music, and I was thrilled about new music up until a few years ago.

Now it gets harder and harder to enjoy new stuff, and I even find it difficult to get into new albums from bands I already like alot!

kmorg wrote:

I can totally relate to what you guys are saying, and it is starting to bug the hell out of me. It's been a long time since I truly got to know an album the way I know all the Stryper albums, the Vengeance Rising albums and the early Maiden albums.

I've noticed that as my music colletion has increased. When you have just a handful of CDs, it's easy to listen to them over and over again and get familiar with them. When you buy 5 or more CDs a week one listen is all you really have time for or you get a bunch of CDs that don't get listened to that you just bought. This happens to me too often, I need to slow down my consumption. Unfortunatly, I'm addicted to CD shopping and growing my collection. That's why a job where I could listen to music would come in handy. Luckily, my job doesn't make me much money to grow my collection which will force me to get more intimate with the CDs I buy. This year I plan on cutting my CD buying down to 1/3 it's recent growth.

Metal is very limited and hard to acquire around here, so i make sure to listen quite well to an album before buying it, as i cannot afford any bad surprises.

I have no choice but to do massive shopping, when i am abroad, and i come back after each trip with at least 40 cds. It is such a great feeling to spend hours going through records at the metal section (it is a luxury i cannot always afford).

I make sure to stock a good reserve for the next months to come.

I remember having bought as much as 25 albums a single day!!!! But not any more. I am kinda "choosy" now.

My relationship with music has always been based on my mood and that dictating what I listen to. Certain activiites make music embience/ambience, while others place it as an integral part of what's happening.

I used to buy 25 albums a day, but then I took an arrow to the knee.