Music listening issues...

[Vacant Horizon]

what up?

been wanting to bring this up for a while am finally getting around to it. my basic question to y'all is, do you ever get overwhelmed by music; what to listen too, what to buy etc. for me it's coming in basically 3 different directions, my ipod, torrents, and emusic. so i have enrolled and cancelled at emusic like 50 times because i just end up downloading all this stuff that i only having an ancillary insterest in (for example, i thought i was really gonna get into john fahey, but didn't) same with torrents. tom waits discography, springsteen, paul mccartney solo etc. so i get all this stuff on my 30 gig ipod excited, but ultimately overwhelmed and feeling a bit claustrophobic. first, the asthetics of having ALL of my music in one little box is hard to take after years of a tangible album, cd, tape collection. moreover, the bitrate issue, ahhhhhhhhhh! so i sit down to listen and i just can't decide. i end up listening to all this crap from emusic or torrents and ignoring the shit i love. (SBS for example). or, i put it on shuffle and just keep pressing the forward to button to 'see what's next'. so then i delete everything on my ipod, delete all the shit i downloaded b/c i feel guilty, and decide i am gonna go back to cds which becomes a hassle and so the cycle continues!

 

now part of this post is in jest, but also serious, as, like you, i am serious about music. so any kindred spirits out there? and please, let's dialogue. please no 'get it together' comments. just curious about y'alls experience with the new digital age and it's advantages and dare i say, disadvantages.

 

peace

craig

[Guest David Puddy]

i'm overwhelmed by the fact that i can't figure out this torrent shit. i bought a new computer just so i could start getting into this, and nope. i don't know what to do. everything i read is confusing.

 

oh, and get it together, man.

[cryptique]

Most of my listening these days is at work, where I maintain a playlist of every single track on my external hard drive. The playlist is over 16,000 tracks long (nearly all of it is full albums -- I'm not the kind of listener who downloads single tracks), and most days I simply shuffle it and listen while I'm doing my work.

 

I try not to skip ahead at all -- it's certainly tempting to do so once in a while, especially during a throwaway track from the end of someone's album, but listening to stuff I'd forgotten about is a great way to rediscover good music.

 

At home, I have no such playlist -- I don't keep very much music around as digital files, so it's down to me and my wall of CDs -- and that is pretty intimidating. I sometimes stare at those shelves for half an hour trying to decide what to listen to, and by the time I do I don't even have time to listen anyway.

[Mystik Spiral]

I very very rarely shuffle... I'm totally an entire album person. I listen to stuff that I download and if I like it I get it from eMusic or buy the album or CD. If I don't like it, I delete it. But I cannot possibly listen to everything that I download, so if there's something I know that's been on my iPod for a while and I never "got around to it", I'll delete it.

 

It's overwhelming, sure, but I don't let it get to me. Why stress about something that's supposed to be entertaining?

[Vacant Horizon]

i'm overwhelmed by the fact that i can't figure out this torrent shit. i bought a new computer just so i could start getting into this, and nope. i don't know what to do. everything i read is confusing.

 

oh, and get it together, man.

 

 

thanks-sorry about the torrent stuff. it is kind of painful. i suggest downloading azureus, installing it, going to btjunkie.org and pushing the download button on something you like. that's how i did it.

craig

 

Most of my listening these days is at work, where I maintain a playlist of every single track on my external hard drive. The playlist is over 16,000 tracks long (nearly all of it is full albums -- I'm not the kind of listener who downloads single tracks), and most days I simply shuffle it and listen while I'm doing my work.

 

I try not to skip ahead at all -- it's certainly tempting to do so once in a while, especially during a throwaway track from the end of someone's album, but listening to stuff I'd forgotten about is a great way to rediscover good music.

 

At home, I have no such playlist -- I don't keep very much music around as digital files, so it's down to me and my wall of CDs -- and that is pretty intimidating. I sometimes stare at those shelves for half an hour trying to decide what to listen to, and by the time I do I don't even have time to listen anyway.

 

 

dude, i am the same way with the cd wall. it's like i have to decide before i even look. i also am an album guy. i can't stand single tracks. they gotta be really good.

[poppydawn]

I just can't get into the torrent thing. That would overwhelm me. When there's a concert I want, I have my husband download it for me. I don't even want to know how to do it.

 

I go through spells with music. I've acquired very little this year, because I haven't had much time to get into anything new. The new Springsteen, Wilco, and White Stripes releases were givens. I got Andrew Bird and Ray Lamontagne after seeing their live shows with friends who were fans. That said, yesterday I uploaded five new CDs to my computer, all by bands that are new to me. And I'm totally overwhelmed!

 

As much as I love having a wealth of music at my fingertips (11,000 song on my ipod? Dreams really do come true!), there's a part of me that misses the rush that I used to get when I'd hear an obscure song that I loved on the radio or on MTV, and how much I relished it because I didn't know when I'd hear it again. As much as I love music, it turns out that the surprise was a part of the pleasure. I still get that a bit if I listen to my ipod on shuffle, but more often than not I find myself skipping over songs I have no interest in hearing, eventually returning to old favorites. Truth be told, I could probably whittle my collection down to 20 CDs and be happy.

[mountain bed]

At home, I have no such playlist -- I don't keep very much music around as digital files, so it's down to me and my wall of CDs -- and that is pretty intimidating. I sometimes stare at those shelves for half an hour trying to decide what to listen to, and by the time I do I don't even have time to listen anyway.

I understand your predicament.

[tongue-tied lightning]

i'm on shuffle all day at work

 

I have 12,000 songs, but only a 20G ipod, so it's a pain pulling music on and off

 

it can be to much, but it's fun getting new stuff, old stuff too

[cryptique]

I very very rarely shuffle... I'm totally an entire album person.

i also am an album guy. i can't stand single tracks. they gotta be really good.

I've been a whole-album person my whole life, but that intimidation factor of "what the hell am I going to listen to?" is pretty hard to get past sometimes. At work, I have that easy, don't-have-to-think-about-it option of a huge shuffled playlist (which is currently playing me some Wilco, yay!), and I've found it to be a pretty interesting way to listen to a large music collection, so it works well for me.

 

Pretty often something will come up on shuffle that inspires me to stop and listen to that whole album. This usually happens when I hear an old Elvis Costello track, for example.

 

Oooh, Spinners. I really do love shuffle sometimes.

[dmait]

I've downloaded numerous shows over the last few weeks and am frozen deciding whether to burn them to cd or upload to the ipod. Some of the shows are for an intro to bands I haven't heard (I See Hawks in LA, Mike Stinson, Devendra Banhart), and if I don't care for it, there's no need to have it on cd. If I do, I'd rather hear in it great quality, not mp3 on the ipod through the car. As a result, apart from listening to a few tracks on the computer, I haven't listened to any of it. Ridiculous.

 

I also tend to keep searching for new shows to download without stopping to enjoy the ones I've already downloaded. I'm sure this all has some deeper psychological meaning.

[cryptique]

CDs are cheap. Burn 'em.

 

I probably have a hundred gigs of stuff on my drive at home that I need to burn off. Every so often I spend a Sunday just burning CDs ... but it seems like every time I free up some drive space, I just end up downloading more stuff.

[Vacant Horizon]

Truth be told, I could probably whittle my collection down to 20 CDs and be happy.

 

i am the exact same way. i have actually gotten rid of a bunch of cds and just kept the core awesome discs. wilco, neil young, zeppelin. those are the ones i just keep going back to. i can listen to them over and over again.

 

I've downloaded numerous shows over the last few weeks and am frozen deciding whether to burn them to cd or upload to the ipod. Some of the shows are for an intro to bands I haven't heard (I See Hawks in LA, Mike Stinson, Devendra Banhart), and if I don't care for it, there's no need to have it on cd. If I do, I'd rather hear in it great quality, not mp3 on the ipod through the car. As a result, apart from listening to a few tracks on the computer, I haven't listened to any of it. Ridiculous.

 

I also tend to keep searching for new shows to download without stopping to enjoy the ones I've already downloaded. I'm sure this all has some deeper psychological meaning.

 

 

this is exactly what i am talking about. before i can enjoy the stuff i just got it becomes urgent that i download more new stuff!!

[EL the Famous]

the accessibility to all this music is both a blessing and a curse...i think it's shortened attention spans (including mine), due it becoming more disposable in nature. i mean, if you took the time to go out and buy a physical album/tape/CD...most of the time, you'd give it numerous spins whether you initially liked it or not. sometimes, it clicked for you and becomes one of your favorites.

 

i find myself giving less time to certain albums that don't sound good to me from first listen...it's too easy to click 'delete' on an album i'm most likely test-driving to see if i actually want to purchase. plus, i don't mind single tracks...especially if the rest of the album is of little interest to me.

 

so, i appreciate being exposed to more music...but a good % of it isn't that good...but i likely didn't drop any actual $ for it initially and all i'm out is the time wasted listening to it.

 

so, yes, i'm overwhelmed sometimes.

[Guest David Puddy]

thanks-sorry about the torrent stuff. it is kind of painful. i suggest downloading azureus, installing it, going to btjunkie.org and pushing the download button on something you like. that's how i did it.

craig

 

i'll give it a try. thanks.

[quarter23cd]

Mp3 players are both a blessing and a curse. Honestly, I love having everything on one little box. My wife was probably going to divorce and/or kill me if I didn't do something about my sprawling cd collection. And I'll admit that it did get to the point that it stressed me out, too. The worst for me was trying to figure out what cds to take with me in the car and shuffling those cds in and out of my travel case. That guaranteed that there was always stuff lying around and I was always fiddling with that stuff. The ipod solved that problem for me and I love it for it.

 

It didn't, however, solve the problem of it being overwhelming to look for something. I have a (full) 60GB iPod, and when I scroll through the artists my eyes glaze over. I can't really browse for stuff that way--I still need to know what I am looking for before I start. And I can only do shuffle mode in small doses. I get the itchy "skip" finger a lot. I think the iPod has kind of killed my attention span. "

[cryptique]

i'll give it a try. thanks.

If you're still tripped up, there's a lot of info available here.

 

The "Port Forwarding" link can be very important, if stuff doesn't work automatically for you. It's all pretty confusing, but if you follow the instructions you can work it out.

 

I use uTorrent, and it's super-easy once it's all set up. I used to use something else (I don't even remember what any more) and it sucked by comparison. I know there are also a lot of fans of Azureus here too -- those two are probably the best/most popular torrent utilities.

[bjorn_skurj]

About two and a half years ago, I got an XM radio and a spiff new laptop, and both have revolutionized the way I listen to music. It's all about playlists, either my own in iTunes or XM's. Rarely now do I put a CD on and listen to it all the way through, and the satrad (and the YSI mix program here at VC) has exposed me to music both new and older that I would never have heard otherwise. So it's kind of been like a renaissance or accelerando.

[ZenLunatic]

Yeah I understand the overwhelming part. I think the key is to take things slow. Dont download too much at once. Try to download an album or two and listen to it for awhile before getting more. It's easy to get turned off when you have everything at your finger tips.

 

I still buy cd and listen to cds and vinyls cause its the best way. I keep my cds in booklets so it doesnt take up alot of room. You can easily store a hundred in a regular size book.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Since you asked:

 

* For gift-giving occasions, I obviously tend to receive single albums. When I buy, I buy full catalogs, regardless of whether I've heard the artist or not (Jandek/Sleater-Kinney/Silver Jews were all artists I'd never heard before I purchased, and I had no Neil Young or Dylan before buying everything but the 80s portions of their catalogs).

 

* I have 15 major playlists (bands I enjoy, bands whose catalogs I've just purchased, a general playlist, and unplayed songs); on Sundays, I use a random integer generator (random.org) to generate an integer between 1-15, and that is the 'general listening' playlist for the week. Of roughly 16,000, I have 5900 unlistened tracks.

 

* I have a playlist exempt from the prior system, in which I will randomly select 10 albums/live shows from my inventory to listen to, each uninterrupted, in entirety (Jeff, Lounge Ax 2000-01-04 now playing, New Town by Jandek up next). I currently have 198 left in the queue, and of course it keeps growing. Once it is exhausted, I will start again. I get through about 2 a week, maybe 4. When those 10 are played, I generate a new 10.

 

* Every two months, on the first of the month, I purge my iTunes of single songs I have downloaded (from blogs, etc.) that I don't like anymore or don't need to keep.

 

So, there's a system you didn't need to hear about.

[Mystik Spiral]

[Guest Speed Racer]

You should see my sock drawer.

[Mystik Spiral]

[Vacant Horizon]

Mp3 players are both a blessing and a curse. Honestly, I love having everything on one little box. My wife was probably going to divorce and/or kill me if I didn't do something about my sprawling cd collection. And I'll admit that it did get to the point that it stressed me out, too. The worst for me was trying to figure out what cds to take with me in the car and shuffling those cds in and out of my travel case. That guaranteed that there was always stuff lying around and I was always fiddling with that stuff. The ipod solved that problem for me and I love it for it.

 

It didn't, however, solve the problem of it being overwhelming to look for something. I have a (full) 60GB iPod, and when I scroll through the artists my eyes glaze over. I can't really browse for stuff that way--I still need to know what I am looking for before I start. And I can only do shuffle mode in small doses. I get the itchy "skip" finger a lot. I think the iPod has kind of killed my attention span. "

 

 

a kindred spirit. i have been know to delete my entire ipod in a fit of rage. of course, putting it all back on over the next few days.

[Vacant Horizon]

the accessibility to all this music is both a blessing and a curse...i think it's shortened attention spans (including mine), due it becoming more disposable in nature. i mean, if you took the time to go out and buy a physical album/tape/CD...most of the time, you'd give it numerous spins whether you initially liked it or not. sometimes, it clicked for you and becomes one of your favorites.

 

i find myself giving less time to certain albums that don't sound good to me from first listen...it's too easy to click 'delete' on an album i'm most likely test-driving to see if i actually want to purchase. plus, i don't mind single tracks...especially if the rest of the album is of little interest to me.

 

so, i appreciate being exposed to more music...but a good % of it isn't that good...but i likely didn't drop any actual $ for it initially and all i'm out is the time wasted listening to it.

 

so, yes, i'm overwhelmed sometimes.

 

 

yeah, i kept trying to listen to all this new stuff and it really wasn't that good to my ears. i also have a hard time allowing cds to become 'growers'...i have been trying to get into tom waits for a year now and it just isnt happening, even though i really like the idea of him and see him as an american treasure...go figure.

craig

[poppydawn]

Mp3 players are both a blessing and a curse. Honestly, I love having everything on one little box. My wife was probably going to divorce and/or kill me if I didn't do something about my sprawling cd collection. And I'll admit that it did get to the point that it stressed me out, too. The worst for me was trying to figure out what cds to take with me in the car and shuffling those cds in and out of my travel case. That guaranteed that there was always stuff lying around and I was always fiddling with that stuff. The ipod solved that problem for me and I love it for it.

 

That's the main reason why I finally bought an ipod. I got so sick of my CDs being in transit, getting beat-up, not being able to remember what was where, etc. That part, I love.