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Why we listen to new music

pitchfork.com

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Re: Why we listen to new music

#131

Post by kyleee »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #126
mattkevan wrote: post #25

Listening to new music is one of my favourite activities. Don't understand how people are happy to listen to the same old stuff - it must get so dull. There's so much good stuff out there, and it's so exciting to find an artist, genre or new combinations of sounds I've not heard before. Bandcamp is great for this – better than Spotify or Apple Music. You can explore by artist, genre tag, label, and by people who have…

> Don't understand how people are happy to listen to the same old stuff - it must get so dull. This is my perspective. For me it's like watching people enjoy chewing glass. I am genuinely baffled that the experience isn't horribly painful for them.

I highly doubt you're actually "genuinely baffled" about why people re-listen to music they love. Why the hyperbole?

Re: Why we listen to new music

#132

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

blakes wrote: post #124
paganel wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not even in the 80s Not the OP but personally some of most innovative music can be found in the mainstream Italian scene of the late '60s - early '70s (including music film), you've got former "musique concrète" composers (or people interested in that type of music) like Piero Umiliani, Piero Piccioni, Armando Trovajoli or Ennio Morricone himself now composing music for the masses, I don't think anything similar ha…

The Italians were also doing some amazing things in the 60's and 70's with electronic synthesizers and keyboards that made/make sounds that still can't be recreated.

Sensation's Fix comes to mind.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#133

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

kyleee wrote: post #131
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't understand how people are happy to listen to the same old stuff - it must get so dull. This is my perspective. For me it's like watching people enjoy chewing glass. I am genuinely baffled that the experience isn't horribly painful for them.

I highly doubt you're actually "genuinely baffled" about why people re-listen to music they love. Why the hyperbole?

I am genuinely baffled because - from my perspective - any song becomes painful to hear after enough listens.

This includes artists I loved beyond measure - the same artists that I can no longer stand because I've since heard them so. many. damn. times. (once they got added to every playlist in creation).

I believe it's reasonable to be repulsed by overplayed music. I'm somewhat puzzled why this would be controversial.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#134

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

freehunter wrote: post #128
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #121

Over 50 here. I was just discussing this with my sister, my lack of nostalgia for old favorites. What I feel is more like the opposite, it's repulsion to overplayed music. As in - I sometimes leave a store when I can't handle Clear Channel music playing overhead. The 5 bazillionth hearing of "Tears in Heaven" or of any artist beginning with 'Sir' triggers a fight or flight response. I'm not overstating my case when I…

When I was in elementary school (in the 90s) we all sang Beatles songs with the teacher in our “music” class. My parents didn’t listen to The Beatles so I had no idea who they were, I just though the songs we sang were silly nursery rhymes. Even later Beatles songs like “Bungalow Bill” or “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. Obviously not all Beatles songs are like that and the musical difference between McCartney and Lennon w…

> Don't understand how people are happy to listen to the same old stuff - it must get so dull.

It feels like being force-fed doughnuts.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#135

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

enobrev wrote: post #23
murat131 wrote: post #11

Listening to new music has got to do with openness and as we age we tend to be less open to new experiences. I think best way to listen to new music is not just about a new band or new albums but more about new genres. I used to not enjoy jazz, found it elitist and quite frankly I didn't even get it. About 10 years ago I started listening jazz and anything that's got mixed with jazz, like jazz-funk, or jazz fusion an…

I get what you're saying about openness, but I also think there's an immense matter of time involved. Music was an obsession for me from the age of 12, and I had time to be open for all of it. Thanks to a paper route, I bought my first turntable around then and my second a few months later. I was DJing parties within a year. I listened to music _constantly_. It was ALL new to me. It was the early 90s at the time so t…

> I sure would love to take a couple months off to catch up on the last 10 years worth of music.

Gnoosic is a band recommender - a quick & dirty way to get a few new bands to check out (Google & DDG point right to it).

Re: Why we listen to new music

#136

Post by renaudg »

xamuel wrote: post #58
rotoradiator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, you are fully missing out on the advances of music production. The sounds producers can create nowdays were not available in 18th century, not even in the 80s. If you consider as music only what you can write down as sheet music you are missing out on so much. Thats why finding new artists, who can make unique sounds, not just melodies, is so rewarding.

I used to think this way too. "How could the Beatles possibly still be relevant? There's been 50 years of progress since then! You wouldn't buy a PC from the 60s, why listen to music from the 60s?" And then I actually gave the classics a try. Not all types of technology obsolete themselves like computer technology. The Beatles have yet to be beaten in pop music, and Bach has yet to be beaten in music in general. But…

You do have a blind spot. It's not just about progress, "better pop" or "better music".

The 20th century has seen 3 true revolutions in music technology that have changed the nature of music itself (photography went through similar paradigm shifts)

1. Recorded music (straight to wax then vynil records) was the first one (before that there were only live performances) : it made music ubiquitous, created a new industry and business model.

2. Multitrack recording to tape was the second, as you could now edit, tweak, refine after recording. Skilled instrumentists still mattered, but less so. A crucial new artistic role was invented : music producer.

3. Digital music production is the 3rd and largest one : for the first time in history, music is not limited by a human's ability to play an instrument, or even by the law of physics governing the sounds a physical instrument is able to make.

Anything an algorithm or AI can output as series of 16/24bit values going through a digital/analog converter around 44100 times per second and ending up in speakers : that can now be music, or at least an instrument.

Electronic musicians can still record and assemble familiar sounds from physical (acoustic or electronic) instruments if they choose to, but they can now also be their own luthiers and introduce one or 100 of their own never-heard-before instruments in a single song.

They can still play music live, they can do so through new human-machine interfaces driving software, they can assemble sounds in a UI, or through code, and they can code the sounds themselves, or do a combination of all that.

There is now absolute freedom to produce anything the ear can hear, only limited by one's imagination and ability to procure (or code) software instruments and effects. Of course, this has had a massive impact on the art of music itself, much like CGI has enabled telling stories in movies that could never be told before.

Virtually all "interesting" new music being released (i.e. not country music, not rock :) ) takes advantage of this new normal.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#137

Post by viklove »

spunker540 wrote: post #127

I still like exploring “new” music, but new music that I’ve fallen in love with over the past year is Elvis, Judy Collins, James Taylor, and Curtis Mayfield/The Impressions. It’s hard for me to justify giving modern music a chance when I haven’t even given the established greats a chance. The modern music will still be around in 10 years. Hopefully by then it will be more clear what’s standing the test of time, at wh…

Music is culturally contextual and temporal in many ways. Think of Floyd's The Division Bell, an album which tries to capture the feelings and emotions that resulted from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Or think of RATM's self-titled album, which was a reaction to the police brutality and race tensions that were churning in the late 80s/early 90s. Or even MGMT's Little Dark Age, which is filled with opinions surrounding our modern affection of social media and smartphones.

You're living in today, and there's music being released that touches on the common struggles we're all going through as human beings in today's world. If you wait 10 or 20 years to listen to modern music, you're purposely removing yourself from this conversation.

If music is just nice sounds to you, then that's totally fine, but for a lot us it's much, much more than that.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#138

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

smoe wrote: post #62
tayo42 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny I'm the same way I think. I used to be so into music, I was always listening to something. I had a massive collection of pirated music lol. Always looking for something new to check out. When edm and dubstep blew up I was always out at shows, festivals, random dj nights. Tried writing a lot of my own music, even had small release Then idk I got my first job out of college around 24 and stopped searching or even…

> I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more? There are plenty of music scenes, but I do think they are not as big and influential on overall youth culture anymore. What subcultures revolve around changes over time and we might have had an oddity in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s were the subject was primarily the music genres that evolved during that time? When I was a teenager, pretty much everyone th…

> "I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more?"

> There are plenty of music scenes, but I do think they are not as big and influential on overall youth culture anymore.

I think what changed is that gate-keeper, hyper-promoted acts don't hook as much of the youth as they once did.

We have this one local music festival that's made up of hundreds of acts playing in dozens of small venues. The audience is huge but it's dispersed over 10 city blocks so you don't really get that crushing mob feel.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#139

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

chantelles wrote: post #119

I grew up with boomer parents (one went to DJ school) who blasted only Beatles and yacht rock, explaining anything made after their youth was not even music. It spawned in me a lifelong curiosity and dedication to new music. I do on rare occasion reflect back, but never to The Who, who was my unfortunate childhood alarm clock and constant soundtrack as I played/gardened outside. (The DJ wired the yard for Who sound).

> I do on rare occasion reflect back, but never to The Who, who was my constant soundtrack

I opine that any song can be weaponized thru overplaying.

This may be an unpopular opinion.

Re: Why we listen to new music

#140

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

kitotik wrote: post #114
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're doing keto ....

Which seems unhealthy and extreme when looked at through this lens!

IDK. K has a promising therapeutic future.

That doesn't change that you and Henry are absolutely correct, tho.

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