YouTube and Spotify is generally how I listen to music. It’s free and easy. YouTube when I am at home and Spotify when I am driving.
I'm young so I can't say that I fully grasp how exactly music was listened to back in the day, back during the times of radio and vinyl and cassette tapes and CDs. But from what I do know, it was a time where consuming music was a far more active pursuit. If you wanted to listen to an artist to hear on the radio, or that you saw on XXL magazine, you would have to go purchase that music or go borrow it from a friend. It wasn't just something you could have at your finger times, nothing like today with the widespread influence and cultural shift brought upon by music streaming services like Napster, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YT Music, the list goes on.
This shift is a double edged sword: music is more accessible to those that may now have been able to purchase before or interact with it in a meaningful way before hand. It's also more accessible in a creative aspect as well, resulting in the creation of plenty of different sounds and genres. But with that ease of accessibility, that overabundance of talent and music, music recently has begun to feel less meaningful and this is where more of my personal thoughts come into the mix.
As I've begun to consume music more consciously, it has become less meaningful because there always feels like there is something missing. Music doesn't feel like an intentional choice anymore and weirdly enough that lack of restraint, of restrictions to what I can and can't consume makes it feel less impactful in a vacuum. If I don't like an album, there's probably something else I can find that I do and it leaves me to question what even was the point? If I can so easily jump to the next album, it feels like the experience I had with another, good or bad, was less than what it could be, like the choice I made ultimately didn't matter. If I were to buy an album, it would feel like there was far more weight behind that choice. I just recently purchased the first and last volumes of MHA, my favorite show/anime of all time and something about getting to make that choice, the financial restriction/limitation that kept me from buying more made the two that I have mean far more to me than if I just had the whole set. The feeling of choice was meaningful.
And so this leads into some questions: how do you choose to consume music? Do you simply listen to everything as you please? Do you limit yourself? If so, how? How do you feel about the role of streaming on your consumption of music?
YouTube and Spotify is generally how I listen to music. It’s free and easy. YouTube when I am at home and Spotify when I am driving.
i deleted streaming services and got an mp3 player. i buy music from band camp and buy cds and cassettes from flea markets. music is way more enjoyable to me when im being intentional about what i listen to, which wasnt possible for me with a streaming service
Hold on a second. You say you're consuming music "more consciously", then say it doesn't feel like an "intentional choice" which... means you're not actually consuming it more consciously? I'm not following the logic here at all. I just consume in whatever way I want depending on the situation I'm in. This isn't new. You don't listen to vinyl while you're driving your car. You don't listen to the radio to catch music you already own. You don't sit down for an entire album when you have to leave in five minutes. You don't stream via bluetooth if you actually care about audio fidelity.
Consciously as in thinking more about what the music means to me rather than with my brain turned off. And in being more conscious, it's felt more like my consumption of music is less of an intentional choice because regardless, there's always that option to just pick something else. Those lack of restrictions is what makes it feel like a lack of choice. When you have everything, you have nothing.
Records at home, Bandcamp and YouTube music on the road. I’ve been buying a ton of tapes from local and smaller bands on Bandcamp lately. Enough that I’m thinking of buying a modern Walkman so I can ditch streaming when away from home base.
We Are Rewind has a top notch one. Actual metal parts and housing. Bluetooth capabilities. Headphone jack. It's not cheap, but it's solid.
I handpick the songs I'm going to listen to and usually either listen to them on youtube or on spotify when I'm at home. I also have a collection of vinyls, CDs, and cassettes; CDs get the most attention out of these because my car has a CD player. I try to support my favorite artists whenever I can by buying physical copies of their releases. I listen to whatever I want for as long as I want, but when I find myself listening to the same stuff over and over again I try to explore new genres using custom charts on rateyourmusic. I also rate as many albums as I can so I know what to return to later on. I don't think streaming has fundamentally changed my relationship with music, probably because I still handpick what I'm going to listen to and don't rely on randomly generated playlists or anything like that. Having songs randomly presented to me sucks the joy out of the whole enterprise, honestly. If I'm feeling lazy I'll just put on a playlist I made myself.
It's not a bad thing to have a lot of music; quite the opposite actually. I think that music being more accessible through streaming services has been a net positive for the consumer. That being said, I can't say I'm satisfied. Not saying that I want to be spending 50 bucks on a vinyl, especially when I don't have the money for it, but it would feel like a lot more of a meaningful choice than just pressing play on Spotify. If I can just go to the next album after I'm done, it doesn't feel nearly as fulfilling
[removed]
Mouth open, eyes on some unfocused middle distance only I can see. Nude as hell.
To appreciate music in its truest state one must disrobe.
I like to find connections and stories. It makes the music more meaningful to me. Read up on a band uou like. See who produced their music. What else did they work on? Or check out the songwriter. Or see who has covered a song you like. Find a thread. Get curious. Off the top of my head, here's a few you might find interesting as starting points: Nile Rodgers, The Wrecking Crew (not a band, but a group of session artists), Johnny Marr, Bill Frizell.
Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do recently which is what has gotten me into music reviews. Just consuming music more thoughtful and trying to be more intentional. Imposing limits on myself no matter how tempting it may be to listen to something else. Get my thoughts down on paper or in a google doc. Talk to others about it, look at interviews. Understand the story behind the art and the artist. It's definitely been more fun, I can say that much at least
SoundCloud mostly, I still use Apple Music for the cloud library but I switched to SoundCloud for most general listening and now I get all the underground music plus the streaming music . I also love vinyl, I have hundreds of records atp of stuff I can’t find on streaming or just want to have physical, and soulseek is good to find even more obscure music
This is all testament to the insidious way capitalism conditions us to devalue 'free' experiences.
Couldn't agree more tbh, just didn't want to make this post that political (even though it absolutely is)
I stream, I use Roon, I've dropped all my music to a drive, I play CD's and once in a while I play records.
There are few bands left from my youth still making music (Tool and NIN honorable mentions.) So these days, I let the algo give me ideas. If I really like something, I'll find more of their music and listen to it in album order if possible. AI has also given me great options in the past. I still listen to old favorites, but not nearly as much as I go looking for new ideas. Examples of artists I discovered this way: Poppy, Amira Elfkey, Seas on the Moon, Adele, Curve, Pixl (Chinese math metal), Metric, Pale Waves and so many more.
The same Poppy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANPbOxaRIO0&t=86s
I am 55. When I started it was vinyl and the tail end of 8 tracks. That evolved to cassettes and vinyl. Then to CDs. I purchased quite a few records during the CD era because you could buy them cheap. Plus we had radio. Now I listen to sirius/xm, vinyl and CDs. I still have a component stereo (turntable, CD and Bluetooth) in the family room as well as a bookcase (CD and Bluetooth) in the bedroom. I also have 4 other Bluetooth setups: kitchen, basement, living room and sunroom. The sun room speakers are the nicest out of that group. The car is sirius /xm, they also have a CD but that is rarely used. The component sounds the best 8inch woofers can move air. I rarely listen thru headphones: airplane, exercise, mowing grass etc. My sons 22 and 15, listen to Spotify and mostly thru ear buds. The older uses Spotify in his car. If I am listening to vinyl or CDs it is rarely 1 song. It is at least one side. If I am buying music it is physical. Either vinyl or CD. I want the hard copy and I have the ability to play it. I guess with albums it is very selective and I commit to the whole thing or at least one side. Sirius is more passive than something like Spotify and much more like radio. I might be picking the style or artist but someone else is picking the playlist
I get where you are coming from. Having grown up pre-internet, investing in music changed the dynamic of how I listened. Even if I didnt like something 100% on first listen, I would listen again and again. Sometimes I was right, and the music just wasnt great 😆 But quite often the music would grow on me and I would appreciate things that maybe I dismissed first time round. We can get caught in patterns, only liking things that sound like things you already like - is one of them.
Yeah, totally agree, especially with your interpretation of first listens. There have been so many times I've listened to an album first time, hated it, then gone back and loved it
I mostly consume music through headphones while walking to work or the store. I mostly only actively listen to music at live performances. I think it's an important distinction. As far as where I get suggestions, I listen to several listener supported and public radio stations around town with a mission to bring listeners something they haven't heard, or maybe have, but isn't in service of selling Pepsi. I also read critics in the WashPo, Atlantic, and NYT, as well as local media, and then go listen to the recommendations. If I like it, it becomes part of my walking sounds. If I really like it, I show up at a performance to hear what it's supposed to sound like.
I've lived in the age of vinyl, cassettes, CDs, mp3s, and streaming. I like music of all kinds, back to 1923. I want to listen to music in my own order, without using my hands to skip songs I don't want to hear, and sometimes I wanna hear that song 800 times in a row. In my earphones so I don't drive anyone else crazy. Mp3s/iPod is the way to do this. I shop for music online by listening to a lot of stuff. Albums, YouTube music channels (trip hop, chillout, Django Reinhardt, Georgian chants, whatever), I'll buy songs I think I'll want to listen to multiple times. I come across a lot of music unintentionally, like on social media, in movies or TV, playing on the radio or speakers in a store. Soundhound it, find it, buy it, listen to it. Mine now.
I’m not super old but when I was younger, I would hear a song on the radio or on MTV and if I liked it when I went to a store like Walmart or FYE or something like that, I would go to one of the devices, they had by the music section and scan the CD and listen to parts of it. At Walmart when you scanned it only let you listen to previews of each track so like 30 seconds but FYI and other places you could listen to the entire album if you wanted to. So sometimes I would just listen to the previews and if it sounded good enough for me, I would buy the CD and crazily enough. They rarely check for ID on parental advisory and I was able to purchase M&M‘s first two albums without showing ID at target when they came out. A lot of the times you might even blindly buy a CD or a tape just because you liked the single that you heard on the radio or MTV and sometimes that turned out really good and other times it turned out pretty bad and then you feel like you wasted your money. Once Napster and everything kicked off, I really started to download a lot of my music and burn CDs and what I usually did is I would download an album and if I liked it enough, then I would buy the CD to support the artist Nowadays, I still occasionally buy a CD or a vinyl if I like the album enough, but mostly I stream my music off of Spotify and honestly I use TikTok a lot to discover new artists in the past couple years. I have discovered several bands just on TikTok, including bands, like die spitz and model/actriz which are now both gaining a ton of popularity. I would say right now is honestly the best time to be a music fan because so much of it is right there instantly at your fingertips but at the same time I do reminisce about going into the store and holding the CD in my hands and reading the tracklist and pre-viewing it if that was possible at the store then buying it, taking it home, opening it up, listening to it while I looked at the booklet, either reading the production credits or the lyrics. It was just a whole experience and before cell phones and a lot of other distractions you could put the entirety of your focus on listening to that new album you just bought and it was incredible.
I use friends or streaming services to find new music, and then buy the albums I enjoy a lot physically. I also have a CD player and a turntable I use so I can play my favourite albums. Picking an album out and putting it on feels very conscious in that moment. Though I also copy them digitally so I can listen to them on the go like on long car rides. So I have the choice to listen to music in whatever format I like, and still it feels meaningful because I get really into albums and bands and they stick with me when I replay them plenty of times regardless of how I do that. I'm going to see one, maybe two (depending on how support turns out) of my favourite bands later this year again, I love their whole discographies and I probably know too much about them.
I'm older so I'm part of the generation that listened to radio (when it was the AOR/Album Oriented format). Consuming music was much more of an investment in time like you said, spending time to buy the physical music. And when we listened to it, we listened to full albums and read the album jacket and liner notes while we did it. I still buy vinyl and CDs and listen to full albums at home and in the car. I'm always looking to discover new music (and new to me music) but I don't use streaming services like Spotify for that because their algorithm sucks. I listen to radio stations and subscribe to YouTube channels that target people like me. KEXP in Seattle is listener supported, indie programming with human DJs. They play everything from straight Jazz to Portuguese Electronica. When something I hear speaks to me, I'll go look for more. Same with NPR Music. I watch their Tiny Desk concerts all the time. If I like one of the featured artists, I'll go look for more. For me it's still an activity.
This is not my experience. Some of this might be to do with my age and lifestyle. When I was a teenager it was radio, cds and a tape I may have recorded on to. I lived rurally and didn't get much money. Radio is less intentional than streaming really and certainly fewer options of music. Plus, the signal wasnt always the best. I think the suggested playlists were better in the past on my streaming service than now, but I have lots of playlists and have discovered all sorts of music. Sometimes when I bought albums, I didnt like a fair amount of the songs on there and I would play cds while doing something else sometimes and wouldn't always be able to get up and change the track. I have now discovered all sorts of music, listen to what I enjoy and can skip a track with one tap. I dont really listen to albums like you generally. I listen to different genres in different playlists.