Can You Still Love Records That You Never Play Anymore?

I think we've done this topic before.

And I think it was you that started it last time, as well, Tom.

Because I distinctly remember talking about albums I actually no longer *need* to listen to because I can sing every word.

(It probably has been asked before and probably by me Kate! It's the sort of thing I fret over.)

*Unless you're Geir, haha.

Basically, I'd agree but I think this should be taken into consideration too. It's a weird (Catch 22) - like, it's different music for different people and somewhere along the line, you can become a different person.

Anyway, I personally reckon musical change/growth does raise your discernment and opinions and really forces you to consider what's 'good' just as much as what's 'bad', though this has a bit to do with my experiences really. Even now, I've started reasessing the 1st Rae and Christian album again, especially after we talked about it on Wednesday.

That has to be a relative function (relative to the length of time you've owned the album more than anything else I guess) rather than an absolute, doesn't it?

No matter how much you love an album, I think you're inevitably going to listen to it less and less often (unless maybe you like it so much that it immediately fills your every listening requirement in perpetuity and just stop buying any more records from then on?!).

For example, I'm sure I've listened to The Decline Of British Sea" Power more often than I've listened to Trout Mask Replica in the last 6 months but I'm pretty sure that if we could fast-forward 10 years you'd find that I'll still be listening to Trout Mask Replica fairly regularly whilst The Decline Of British Sea Power probably won't have seen the light for a couple of years!

The issue that Kate raises about not needing to play an album any more because you know every single word and every single note on it is also an issue (I can't remember the last time I actually sat and listened to Damned Damned Damned through from one end to the other - probably 2 or 3 years - but I'd be prepared to bet that if you put it on right now, I could listen to The Captain's bass riff at the start of Neat Neat Neat, walk out of earshot, play the first side of album in my head and still be in synch with the echoes of Dave's last gasp of "... pain" at the end of side one!).

Of course I would argue that one of the main reasons that I love Trout Mask Replica so much is that even after all this time I'm still managing to hear some new little nuance or piece of interplay between the musicians that I hadn't noticed before - but I still can't deny that there's a law of diminishing returns at work and that it certainly no longer has the impact that it had the first time I heard it, any more than does Damned Damned Damned or (just off the top of my head) High Land Hard Rain, In The Flat Field, London Calling, The Shape Of Jazz To Come, Three Imaginary Boys, Kind Of Blue, Live At The Witch Trials, The Soft Bulletin, Unknown Pleasures, Killing Joke, Real Life, Ah Um, Doolittle, Cut, The Smiths....

Incidentally, as regards this, I'm sure Oops has a point too - although I strongly suspect that if I had sufficient will power and strength of character to be able to prevent myself from playing my favourite records whenever I wanted to ".... for fear that I will grow tired of them" then I also wouldn't have a living room where you can't see the walls for CD's and wouldn't have needed to join this support group in first place!

Surely these fickle human factors about diminishing returns about familiarity breeding contempt are also the reason that when ever the music mags. etc attempt to compile any sort of list of "The Greatest Albums Of All Time" by soliciting votes for their readers, they always end up getting ridiculously high votes / placings for a bunch of albums that were released in the preceding couple of years, most of which probably won't even register when the exercise is repeated a few years later?

As a side note, the albums that keep cropping up on these lists, years later are basically what forms our notorious "canon" aren't they?

By the same token I'd say the ones each of us individually keeps voting for are our personal favourites.

Certainly, if I was asked to name my favourite albums of all time right now, I know Trout Mask Replica and Damned Damned Damned would crop up a long time before The Decline Of British Sea Power got a look in!

Yes. There is a limit to the amount of times i could play ANY album (no matter how good it was) - once it reaches a certain level of familiarity, it can never quite have the same effect it did the first few times. So obviously it will be played much less. BUT I'd still call it a favourite, because i remember the effect it had when i first heard it.

there is definitely a 'familiarity breeds contempt' factor at work here

and "i'd rather listen to something new" is the other explanation. so many great records out there, so little time left to hear them.

Sure, I guess. It comes down to whether you think of your old records as:
-friends (in which case you can always have love for old friends, even if you never see them anymore),

-toys (you might have a sentimental attachment to them, but don't really have any actual interest anymore),

-or just a part of who you used to be (wherein your opinion of the record would be bound to how you feel about yourself during a particular period).

So what do you see as the distinction between "friends" and "toys", apart from the former being animate / sentient beings with feelings and emotions and personalities that can grow and change over time and the other just being posessions?

What does it say about us psychologically if we regard some of our records as living creatures and others as mere objects I wonder?

Of course, personally I see all my records as something between the two - sort of like tiny people who I have enslaved against their will and forced to do my bidding.

What about films? Would we even ask the question "Can you still love a film you don't watch anymore?"; or would we think that nonsensical and always leave the option open e.g. "Can you still love a film you haven't watched for a long time?"

Or is that just me?

(x-post)

For now 'though (to tie in with discussions on a couple of other current threads) how do you think the urge to file things in alphabetical order (the sort of thing we might do with our toys but most of us wouldn't attempt to do with our friends, unless we've got some pretty deep-rooted psychological problems I wouldn't imagine!) and / or to sort our collections into categories (might this even represent some sort of effort to distinguish between "toys" and "friends"?) fits in?

What about those people who regularly sell-off piles of stuff they're not listening to any more (a horribly alien idea to me I must admit - which probably means I see my records more as friends than toys!)? Are some of your records "friends" who you would never get rid of under any circumstances and it's just the surplus "toys" that get sold off; or are they all potential E-bay fodder to you, you horrible, insensitive, unfeeling bastards?

There again, I guess the likelihood of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "Eraserhead" being shown on TV (so I would have the opportunity to watch them again even if I didn't actually possess them) is quite substantially larger than the chance of me finding a radio station playing the whole of "Damned Damned Damned Damned" or "Trout Mask Replica" right the way through any time soon - so I guess that probably explains that.

Well, personally, sorting my CDs (I do it alphabetically) is just an easy way for me to find what I'm looking for. Kind of like having a big rolodex (but better, because I have access to the actual CD, instead of just a link).

Are some of your records "friends" who you would never get rid of under any circumstances and it's just the surplus "toys" that get sold off; or are they all potential E-bay fodder to you, you horrible, insensitive, unfeeling bastards?

I think I have CDs that I would never sell (or at least not in the foreseeable future) because of an emotional attachment. I haven't heard Abbey Road in who knows how many years, but that record was something of a support system (does that count as friend?) for a while.

Ultimately, CDs *are* products, even with an emotional attachment. The day will probably come that I realize it isn't the CD that I am clinging to, but its emotional value to me, and that I can interalize whatever it is I get from it whether I have the object in hand or not. Pre-our generation (and our parent's generation), I doubt this kind of relationship existed often because *consuming* things wasn't yet a sophisticated, viable option for people looking for spiritual (for lack of a better word) answers/comfort/companionship/fulfillment.

I suppose the central question is closer to "would/shoud" rather than "how", but not sure I'm ready to tackle. :)