playing records in your head

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Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips once described Pretenders II as an album that he loved but need never play again, because he knew it so well he could listen to it in his head. Sometimes I feel that way about old favorites, but then I wonder if I'm being honest. Maybe I don't actually *like* listening to it anymore. Is it possible to still love an album even if you never actually have a desire to listen to it? Examples?

― Mark, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was just thinking that today. i had to shut off my minidisc player on the subway cause it was too damn loud noise, but then I just listened to music in my mind. BTW, anyone knwo good noise cancelling headphones?

― Mike Hanley, Monday, 21 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dunno if this is exactly what this thread's creator is getting at, but here goes anyway ...

... During the summer after my freshman year in college when I was 19, I took a one-week temporary job at a local factory. Essentially, I had to strip extra plastic off of plastic containers coming down a conveyer belt. It was in a room full of very loud machinery, so I had to wear earplugs. It was only a week, but the only thing that kept me sane was playing entire sides of favorite records in my head.

Lesson -- stay in college, or else get a good record collection and memorize it cold so whatever job you get doesn't drive you crazy.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Big Star. I played to so much, I can't stand to listen to it again. Which is sad. I hate it when I hear people mentioning they just discovered Big Star. I want to be them listening to Thirteen for the first time.
As a solution I listen to bands that are influenced by Big Star.

― Stevie Nixed, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Playing music from memory can be more powerful than hearing the original, particularly in a situation where it's half heard: coming through a wall, or in another room. It allows for a stimulated reception as we fill in the gaps ourselves, put ourselves into the music, or remix according to taste. (i have a problem with Britney here, because I find Ooops and Baby One More time virtually indistinguishable when you lose the some of the range)
There's many records that sound fuller in my head than on record, which I avoid hearing as I'd rather not 'record' over my versions. Often they only sound as good as when I last heard them, but for some tracks, strong associations act as a 'read-only' tag.
Re: production line work, take the ear plugs out and get some of those jacking pneumatics; factories inadvertently bang out some serious sounds.

― K-reg, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I prefer imagining what Ludacris's "Southern Hospitality" sounds like, because I don't know what I'd do if I heard it again ...

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i find it very easy to play records in my head and have written about this very thing at length in the essay that accompanied my own personal 100 singles of all-time. whether or not you're suffice to only hear a record in your head is what determines a good record from a great one. "da doo run run" can play in my head; "i wish i never saw the sunshine" can too, but it's not match for the record in its full sonic glory.

― fred solinger, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm always playing bits of songs in my head, and sometimes if I hear said record, it doesn't sound as good as it did in my head!...

― james e l, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Stevie, I understand what you mean, but I think there's another phenomenon that kicks in in my head. Sometimes I think I know a piece of music inside and out, and that I really can't be bothered to listen to it again, but often when I listen to it with another person who hasn't heard it before, I hear it through new ears all over again, and I understand why I really liked it in the first place, and why I consider it important. Of course, this has a dark and evil flipside: if I'm listening to something I adore with people who I don't think are receptive (my parents, for example), then often I hear all of the potentially negative things about the music, such as the lack of playing skill (instead of the raw punk energy) or the explicit content (rather than the telling-it-like-it-is-no-punches- pulled thing). Dunno if that makes sense.

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Crystal, Sean

― K-reg, Tuesday, 22 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

To test this theory, I'm listening to Lazer Guided Melodies, which I should really, by all rights, never have to listen to again (or even, at times, I think be able to...)

If an album really *is* an old favourite, it still packs a punch, no matter HOW many times you've heard it. Yup, still doing it. Lots of "current favourites" fade with time and repetition. True classics just don't fade, no matter how you test them.

― masonic boom, Wednesday, 23 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

five months pass...

Funny you should ask. When I listen to Lenny Kravitz's lame version of American Woman, the only reason I listen to it all the way through every time is because I can hear in my head the version of the song that he should have recorded, the one that sounds a lot like Mama Said. Heavier percussion, fuller guitars, you know, A ROCK SONG, INSTEAD OF THE LAME SOUNDTRACK FOR BUTT FUCKING WITH YOUR DICK HALF HARD THAT HE ACTUALLY RECORDED.

Love, Jeff

― Jeff Guidry, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

True classics just don't fade, no matter how you test them.
I would like to confirm you masonic boom but I think you are not right. It is more the opposite. The more you love something in the beginning the higher the probability that you will hate it one day. Imagine being forced to listen to the album you consider the most classic for 24 hours for the rest of your life. There is no music which could survive that. Not even Johann Sebastian Bach. When I like a record and consider it classic I try (though quite often I do not succeed) not to put it on repeat or to listen to it every day. That is also a matter of respect towards the music I feel. But it should be possible to play a true classic in your head. And that is the way out of the dilemma I think.

― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

five months pass...

Well, yeah you can play it in your head - but if you really like it you gotta come back to it eventually. THE TEST: play it in your head for several weeks, then play it out loud. If that makes you feel really good, you like it enough to listen to it on a regular basis.

― Anna Rose, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If I've heard something enough I can play it in my head. I need to concentrate quite hard though and if I don't know all the words it kind of blurs a bit.

I know many times on the way home from clubbing I'll be at the back of the bus and the engine is growling and my head is creating all sorts of soundscapes and beats along with it. Engine techno.

― Ronan, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The other night I had trouble sleeping because I had every Beach Boys song ever made playing simultaneously inside my head!!! Cacophony? yup.

― dog latin, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

For some reason, every time I listen to a song in my head, I don't hear any percussion or drums. It's strange.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo, Saturday, 25 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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