Not Enough Hours In The Day...

[Wild Frank]

Good morning guys. I was sitting in my cellar last night listening to some tunes (Genesis - Lamb Lies Down On Broadway SACD).I became aware of how much music I had and realised I had brought so may albums this year that I hadn't given much time to. When I was a kid I could only afford one album every couple of months or so. I looked forward to getting it and really treasured it and absorbed it fully (The Lamb for example...lovely gatefold vinyl with story and lyrics). These days I seem to pick up so much music that if it doesn't grab me immediately it just goes on the shelf and is left to fester. In the past I have picked up plenty of records that haven't grabed me immediately (The Lamb being one!)but I would give them a chance because they were more valuable to me. So I've come to the conclusion that I have brought too many albums and not given enough listening time to most of them to allow them to enter my life. I have therefore decided to use the first six months of 2010 just listening to albums I already own. I will buy no new music for half a year. I will research and fill up my Amazon Wish List of albums I would like but I will not buy them until I have fully explored or re-explored what I already have.

 

Not sure why I am sharing this. Does anyone else feel the same?

 

WF.

[Vacant Horizon]

Gooed morning guys. I was sitting in my cellar last night listening to some tunes (Genesis - Lamb Lies Down On Broadway SACD).I became aware of how much music I had and realised I had brought so may albums this year that I hadn't given much time to. When I was a kid I could only afford one album every couple of months or so. I looked forward to getting it and really treasured it and absorbed it fully (The Lamb for example...lovely gatefold vinyl with story and lyrics). These days I seem to pick up so much music that if it doesn't grab me immediately it just goes on the shelf and is left to fester. In the past I have picked up plenty of records that haven't grabed me immediately (The Lamb being one!)but I would give them a chance because they were more valuable to me. So I've come to the conclusion that I have brought too many albums and not given enough listening time to most of them to allow them to enter my life. I have therefore decided to use the first six months of 2010 just listening to albums I already own. I will buy no new music for half a year. I will research and fill up my Amazon Wish List of albums I would like but I will not buy them until I have fully explored or re-explored what I already have.

 

Not sure why I am sharing this. Does anyone else feel the same?

 

WF.

 

i have posted similar things here. i'm with you wild frank. i was the same way in high school and college. waited for an album to come out and just LOVED it to death. it was a special thing to save up some cash, go to the record shop and get one album. these days there's just too much choice and so much garbage to sift through. i find myself revisiting my ultimate favorites because listening to music has become a chore to some extent. i think this is also because i'm getting older. who knows. look forward to hearing what others thought are.

 

btw-i've recently been making a list of just my favorite artists. the stuff i don't have to work at to listen to. so far:

 

neil young

gillian welch

tweedy

farrar

 

 

i keep thinking (and have tried) to add dylan, springsteen, townes van zandt, to that list, but i just can't get into those dudes like i do the others.

 

c

[nodep5]

I think there is just too much new music that is too easy to access. Also I have been lucky enough to have the resources to acquire new music. I have the same issue. I try to force myself to listen in the car to only one record per week, to really absorb it like I use to with records (this sometimes works, sometimes not.) Bottom line, I'm aware (and my wife reminds me) that it is more like an obsession to compile this huge record collection, but what does it mean? Am I emotionally connected to the music or the amount? This year I used my IPod Nano to only house new albums from 2009, and an hour before I go to bed I listen to a record from this year, and I can say I have spent a good amount of time with about 12 of the 22 albums I have from this year. We all need help with this I believe.

[people are leaving]

One thing I've discovered over the last year or so, is with so much new music readily available via download, purchase, or ahem, other means, it's ostensibly hard to play my old records. You know the ones I mean. They had the ability to be both moving and give some needed inspiration if that was what you were looking for. If you were lucky they'd tug on a memory and bring you back to that specific time or place when everything was good. I miss that. With little to no extra time in my day, I'll give a record a cursory listen, and if it's not doing it for me I'll move on to the next. The time spent giving a record a fighting chance of becoming transcendent has become less and less. It can take up to ten spins before a record comes together to make sense. It feels like I could miss out by blowing by things to quickly. Lately, just trying to enjoy music has given way to the business of computers, external hard drives and becoming an administrator of my own record collection. As my wife calls it, doing all that "music garbage". Going forward, I plan on taking a different approach. Have less, listen more, live life.

[tinnitus photography]

i totally agree w/ this. despite listening to music for a large percentage of the day, i can't give a lot of it the proper listening time it deserves. i should cut back, but that's not in my wired behavioral patterns.

[cryptique]

I have always suffered from this affliction. The silver lining is that every so often I pull something down off the shelf and listen to it as if for the first time ... and often in such cases, I'm blown away and have a "new" album to obsess over for a while.

 

It's rare that I sell off unwanted discs, so I have hundreds of dusty ones waiting to be (re-)discovered.

[Good Old Neon]

After resisting “free downloads” for quite some time, I caved, and started patronizing Pirate Bay and other similar torrent sites. And what I’ve found is that I don’t invest as much time and effort listening to freely obtained material. For me, it renders individual albums sort of disposable. Back in the day, I exhausted entire paychecks purchasing music, and as a result, I valued my investment – I had to work for it, and made an effort to listen intently, purposely and actively. Now however, I’ll listen to a piece of music, and if it doesn’t offer immediate gratification, it gets “shelved” – ignored. I don’t know if this is purely the result of getting stuff for free, or, if as I age, my music obsession is starting to atrophy, or, maybe the stuff being released today really isn’t all that good, or, maybe it’s all of the above.

 

Whatever the reason, it’s depressing.

[bleedorange]

I'm very thankful for the many new methods of discovering music (and the ability to listen at work). It has opened my ears to many new albums and artists that I may not have otherwise heard or listened to, and I have found many new favorites along the way.

 

If we were still in the pre-internet days, I would probably be discussing the new Wilco, new U2, and new Pearl Jam and call it a day; talking about how bad music has gotten.

 

However, as it stands now, my love and appreciation for great music has only deepened.

[LouieB]

I finally got around to listening to that John Carter CD I had to order used from Germany. It was really really good.

 

I don't even have enough time in the rest of my life to listen to all the crap I buy and stack up.

 

LouieB

[nodep5]

I think the whole money thing is right. I have a local library that gets in basically anything you'd want music wise. I find that I'm quick to dismiss something I checked out for free at the library due to a lack of investment.

 

Guys we have to stop this, we are missing out on enjoying this stuff by thinking we are missing out by not owning every album ever made (does that make sense). I just listened to the latest Hayden album from this year for probably the 10th time and you guys are right, it is really starting to click and connect. This was a record that I listened to a few times then put it on the shelf. Oh my.

[nodep5]

I'm very thankful for the many new methods of discovering music (and the ability to listen at work). It has opened my ears to many new albums and artists that I may not have otherwise heard or listened to, and I have found many new favorites along the way.

 

If we were still in the pre-internet days, I would probably be discussing the new Wilco, new U2, and new Pearl Jam and call it a day; talking about how bad music has gotten.

 

However, as it stands now, my love and appreciation for great music has only deepened.

 

 

I agree on a certain level that we are able to "discover" things we likely wouldn't have. However I mostly find I now own more albums that i deem Mediocre, and I use to own only albums that slayed me. So I wonder if the quanity is killing the quality.

[bleedorange]

I agree on a certain level that we are able to "discover" things we likely wouldn't have. However I mostly find I now own more albums that i deem Mediocre, and I use to own only albums that slayed me. So I wonder if the quanity is killing the quality.

 

Well, that's the nature of any art form. The more movies you see, the more crap you wind up seeing. The more books you read, the more books that don't seem that great. If anything, listening to all these mediocre albums only enhances how great the really good ones are. And the number of albums that slay me has greatly increased with the consumption of more music.

[people are leaving]

I just listened to the latest Hayden album from this year for probably the 10th time and you guys are right, it is really starting to click and connect. This was a record that I listened to a few times then put it on the shelf. Oh my.

 

I'm a fan, and was excited to hear he had a new one coming out so soon. I played it just a few times and other than Let's Break Up, which is great, I shelved it. How does it stack up against In Field & Town? which is pretty, pretty, pretty good.

[imsjry]

The problem I have is having so much music sitting on my IPod and hard drive, is that when I'm listening to anything I keep thinking about all the other stuff I can be listening to. I'm finding the inability to emotionally invest in one certain album.

 

I made a point last week to listen to nothing but the new Build to Spill for 3 days in a row. I actually fell in love with a specific album for the first time in a long time. I am going to make a point to stop the "shuffling" and block out the fact that I have 1000 albums to play and just focus on one thing. It really is hard but very rewarding. Getting back into vinyl has really helped with this.

[nodep5]

I'm a fan, and was excited to hear he had a new one coming out so soon. I played it just a few times and other than Let's Break Up, which is great, I shelved it. How does it stack up against In Field & Town? which is pretty, pretty, pretty good.

 

The title track, "Let's Break Up" and the final two songs "Never Lonely" and "Let it Pass" all instantly felt like good Hayden (also the instrumental "The Valley" is cool). The rest initially felt slight. However, like I said after repeated spins I think it hangs in with the last few Hayden records. It is worth the time, and is an album that can be easily overlooked because it isn't anything dramatic in stylisic shift. The fact that I can name almost all the songs says something, in context of this greater discussion we are having

[people are leaving]

The title track, "Let's Break Up" and the final two songs "Never Lonely" and "Let it Pass" all instantly felt like good Hayden (also the instrumental "The Valley" is cool). The rest initially felt slight. However, like I said after repeated spins I think it hangs in with the last few Hayden records. It is worth the time, and is an album that can be easily overlooked because it isn't anything dramatic in stylisic shift. The fact that I can name almost all the songs says something, in context of this greater discussion we are having

 

....unshelving.

....and thanks.

[tongue-tied]

You guys aren't listening fast enough.

[Moss]

Very few albums grab me on the first listen so I do need to step back and try to live with an album for awhile but it's so hard to do. I have a subscription to MOJO and they have about 50 new albums reviewed every issue and a large number of them sound interesting. I definitely get more music than I end up listening to. This board is very helpful in helping me wade through the huge amount of music so I do listen to people's opinions about what is good. Really enjoying the new Califone which is a direct result of what I have heard here. It is tough to not listen to something once and then move on to something else. Sadly I can't listen to music all day at work so listening time becomes precious. I should probably do something like Wild Frank suggested but it's very difficult.

[LouieB]

You guys aren't listening fast enough.

yea...turn up the speed...

 

LouieB

[Maggie]

From late August through late September I was doing a good job of limiting my purchases. I tried to give each album at least 3 listens before moving on to something different. I found I was actually appreciating what I heard rather than writing everything off after one attempt. In October I've gone back to my old ways. Way too many purchases, not enough time to give them all attention. I need to cancel my emusic subscription, but I can't bring myself to do it!

 

This morning my Beatles in Mono box set finally came in the mail after a month and a half of waiting. I'm really in trouble now.

[Vacant Horizon]

From late August through late September I was doing a good job of limiting my purchases. I tried to give each album at least 3 listens before moving on to something different. I found I was actually appreciating what I heard rather than writing everything off after one attempt. In October I've gone back to my old ways. Way too many purchases, not enough time to give them all attention. I need to cancel my emusic subscription, but I can't bring myself to do it!

 

This morning my Beatles in Mono box set finally came in the mail after a month and a half of waiting. I'm really in trouble now.

 

 

emusic is a constant source of anxiety for me. i had to cancel...several times. it was just my birthday so i got a bunch of stuff. i thought i had decided on what i really wanted, only to be disappointed. in don't want a visceral reaction anymore to music..well, maybe a little. i just want something that i WANT to listen to that not is a quick high or sludge to get through. anyway, i'm basically starting over, adding one side of an album to the itunes a every few days and trying to listen and enjoy at least something about it.

 

JESUS when did listening become a chore.

[Vacant Horizon]

i've revised my list of artists and i'm starting with their earliest stuff on the ipod.

 

Neil Young

Gillian Welch

Jeff Tweedy

Jay Farrar

Patterson Hood

Pat Metheny

 

...after these favorites, there's good albums that i'll likely add in at some point. prolly some from springsteen and dylan, random classic rock, def thin lizzy. i'm just a completist on the artists above and that's what i'm gonna focus on for now. it gives me some schema to listen to music and let it lie, rather than get so anxious about it these days:)

[Wild Frank]

I started this thread a while back but I thought I'd revisit as I have made a commitment to spend a year without buying new music in any format. I am going to spend my listening time with the thousends of albums I already have, including many that I haven't given enough attention to and discarded after a few listens. If new albums come out in 2010 that I want...I'll just have to wait and hopefully get them as birthday presents etc. This way I will actually look forwarded to getting new music which will in-turn help to restore that magical feeling I used to have before music was so readily available and affordable.

 

This may seem like a ridiculous idea to many but I feel it is an interesting experiment which will help to restore my love of music. Since the turn of the year I have revisited many albums that I otherwise wouldn't have picked out (Abacab by Genesis...much better than I remebered!!). I feel I should be able to last the year...unless there's a new Tom Waits record released!!

[LouieB]

I figure I am going to die before I listen to all the stuff I have that I have bought. My kids are going to have to listen to it for me.

 

LouieB

[Vacant Horizon]

i'm doing the same thing, but i'm buying one album a month. i'm also trying to focus on one cd every two weeks. currently, it's WilcoTA. next it will be american central dust. just need to digest albums i really care about before i buy stuff i have ancillary interest in.