Do you let music 'grow on you'?

Streaming services + realization that I'm halfway thru my lifespan & have a finite amount of time left to listen to music is what spurred me to adopt an "on to the next!" modus operandi

Even artists I love who have deep catalogs, like Miles Davis, I stopped investigating after a point of diminishing returns. How many more times will I get to sit down and spin some Miles for a few hours? Why would I waste one of those sessions on some mediocre deep deeeeeep cut?? After going thru a hefty chunk of his discography I'm pretty confident I've found nearly everything I'm gonna love. Sure, there may be a truly hidden gem out there but it's not worth wading thru the rest of it to find it. Esp when there's literally thousands of songs that I love but haven't heard in awhile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1tFQMjc-IE

I mean, it's a confusing, nuanced issue. There are albums that are not on the internet. There are albums that used to be on the internet that are not on the internet anymore. There are albums that are only on the internet in very low quality formats. There's still a personal investment in tracking certain things down.

― Deflatormouse

sure, i spend a lot of time on the internet trying to track certain things down, things i am personally invested in to the point that they've become running jokes on this board. honestly, though, it's as much about the journey as it is about the destination. it's about the shit i find _while_ i'm looking for things, about the process, about the willingness to take detours, and if i find five good albums while looking for one "holy grail", should i care if the "holy grail" turns out to be a bit shit?

With Trout Mask Replica, a legendary album that frequently appears on "all time" lists and which countless artists have championed as a major inspiration, etc, there are other complicating factors at play.

there are "complicating factors" in all the music i listen to, whether or not i'm aware of them. the reason i give dee palmer's 2018 record a more sympathetic listening than i would a record by any other ex-member of jethro tull has nothing whatsoever to do with _aesthetics_.

I've discussed my approach to this before, but it boils down to this: I've been listening to music "seriously" for ~35 years, "professionally" for ~25. I know what I like, and I know what I don't like. There was a time when a clever or eloquent piece of writing could convince me to check out an album not in my wheelhouse, but no more.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

"cleverness" and "eloquence" are of some use to me, but are not paramount. if you listen to other music i like and you like a record, a lot, enough to talk about _why_ you like it, i'm more likely to listen to it again. just today a friend of mine was talking about how much they love pearls before swine. i've listened to pearls before swine a number of times before and have never connected with it, but i said, you know, i'll give it another shot, what song do you recommend? and she recommended a song, and i listened to it and i fucking loved it. i'll probably listen to a little more pearls before swine this weekend. so yes, happens all the time with me.

can we know what the song was

good thread btw, still deciding how to answer.

for now i’ll say that i think there’s something to be said about difficult or boring music, the fact that different types of music might require different kinds of listening / attention.

and moreover we should ask what we’re hoping to get from music, whether we want more than pleasure or comfort, whether there’s value in being bored, perplexed, terrified, uncomfortable.

music growing on me is usually a subconscious experience for me. i hear a song, don't think much of it or about it and then some time later it creeps into my subconscious and i have to hear it again.

I give every album I buy a minimum of 3 listens. If something is sufficiently interesting to take me to 10-12 listens but hasn't clicked yet, I'll spin it again a year or two later and sometimes that works wonders (especially for classical, since I'm a beginner; surely nobody gets into deeply unfamiliar genres if they skip around a lot and give up early?). Life is indeed short but I really believe challenges are necessary to grow into things and really really really pay off in the long term and will help you fight off the creeping rot of narrowing taste.
A possible alternative (I have no idea if it works) is listening strategically to lots of similar things in a new genre to help you break into it without listening to the same difficult pieces over and over. But would this ease you into those difficult pieces eventually?

But everyone has different priorities and it won't matter so much if you don't listen to much music. I watch a lot less films so I'm not eager to broaden as I used to be.
I think the rot of narrowing taste is deadly if you create some kind of art. Broadening your taste is your health food. But sometimes your favorite genres are so sprawling that it's hard to make time for anything else.

it would turn out to be precisely the unappealing aspects of the music which eventually turned into my favourite parts

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Saturday, March 28, 2020 1:31 PM

I used to regularly get this when I was young and I loved it, but it rarely happens now. I think that's why I'm interested in trying power metal and glam metal and loving Jim Steinman these days because I used to find that stuff really offputting.

Last classic album I initially thought sounded lousy but ended up agreeing with the classic status was Nirvana UK's Local Anaesthetic.

Right now I'm really puzzling over why Beherit's Drawing Down The Moon is classic (sounds a bit amaterish right now) and doubting I'll come around but we'll see.

Also, we had a similar discussion a year or two ago and a lot of these factors involved contributed to less reading books.

On the other hand, I'm alarmed by how many hundreds of bands I've wanted to listen to for over a decade but still haven't begun and maybe I should be just a tad less attentive.

Genesis - Selling England By The Pound and a couple of their other albums taken a bunch of time for me.

John Peel said he was very aware of the threat of his mind/taste narrowing with age and actively fought against it but Mark Radcliffe said a while ago that he very calmly accepts that his taste is closing its doors and wont be able to understand much new music.

The thing is, there's a positive side to preemptively or summarily rejecting vast swaths of music, at least for me, which is that because I've focused on just a few areas, I have a much deeper understanding now than I did years ago of the music that I do like. I can pop the hood and see how the motor works. And there are still doors opening: for example, I've only recently started to develop a taste for big band jazz, after years of disinterest.

Yeah, there's huge areas of music I think I probably wont investigate much, but if I was a musician I think I would feel more of the need.

I find it quite refreshing when writers insist that writers should read as many styles and landmark books as possible, because too many writers are happy to be insular; but nobody can do it all.

Luckily for me, visual art history is easier to at least glance through and get something out of it. Those 1000 images to see before you die books automatically get you more acquainted than the similar books about music and film.

I very much doubt I'll ever get much into blues, hiphop, skiffle, swing, crooners, mod, country that doesn't have any alt rock appeal and traditional punk but I feel I'm missing out on dance, jazz and world.

can we know what the song was

― budo jeru

"raindrops"

The thing is, there's a positive side to preemptively or summarily rejecting vast swaths of music, at least for me, which is that because I've focused on just a few areas, I have a much deeper understanding now than I did years ago of the music that I do like. I can pop the hood and see how the motor works. And there are still doors opening: for example, I've only recently started to develop a taste for big band jazz, after years of disinterest.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

i'm not one of those people who smugly claims they like "all kinds of music". certainly there are genres i particularly like and genres i particularly dislike. i will grant that there is some theoretical benefit to my having an exceptionally in-depth knowledge of, say, 1970s progressive rock, and honestly? i hate most country music, and don't spend a lot of time listening to it. but for myself... i gotta ask what's of more value to me, being familiar with the 1977 s/t by hands, or being familiar with richard dobson's 1979 album _the big taste_? if i had to choose a record to never listen to again, it wouldn't be the hands lp.

I very much doubt I'll ever get much into blues, hiphop, skiffle, swing, crooners, mod, country that doesn't have any alt rock appeal and traditional punk but I feel I'm missing out on dance, jazz and world.

― Robert Adam Gilmour

there's this young person on rym who went through and did a cursory review of the top-rated album in every genre on that site. it's from that list that i discovered that "world" covers a lot of genres, and also that there are a _lot_ of genres i really don't have any interest in.

My listening habits have def changed. Now with lockdown I have way more time. So yes some shit is growing on me.

This thread may be interesting for some:

Can You Force Yourself To Like A Record Through Blunt-Force Repetition?

i discovered that "world" covers a lot of genres, and also that there are a _lot_ of genres i really don't have any interest in.

― Kate (rushomancy), Saturday, March 28, 2020 10:56 PM

Definitely, there's a lot of that music I wouldnt even know if it fell under a kind of classical or folk. I really don't have the foggiest of just how much Dance might cover either.

If I were to come up with two columns – subgenres I like/dislike – chances are the latter would outweigh the former.

i discovered that "world" covers a lot of genres, and also that there are a _lot_ of genres i really don't have any interest in.

Editing a world music magazine for two years taught me a few things:

1) People all around the globe love shitty pop, they just want it in their native language;
2) Music from hot countries > music from cold countries, BUT
3) Music from deserts > music from jungles

1) is true, but 2) and 3) are just... I hope you're being facetious. (Spoiler: there is good and bad music from countries hot and cold; also, some countries are both, some neither.)

i want to hear more world mixtures, like

black metal reggae

Here you go, kind of:

https://oranssipazuzu.bandcamp.com/track/dub-kuolleen-porton-muistolle

of COURSE it'd be oranssi

finland delivers

good, i'm not driving all the way over there for fucking carryout