always hearing new things: C or D?

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i don't see how it could be a bad thing per se, but praising records by saying you hear new "things" on every listen almost always seems beside the point to a degree. i feel like hidden details and intricacies and things are added bonuses, not major determinants of quality in any way, but in some reviews (and accounts) they're like the ultimate stamp of quality.

― ryan kuo (ryan kuo), Monday, 15 March 2004 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

it's always fun to notice something new but i wouldn't say that would be in any way my major indicator of quality.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 March 2004 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

or "ultimate stamp of quality," as i just realized you put it

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 March 2004 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

One way a recording can remain fresh is that you can always hear something new in it. Isn't that at least partly why it's valuable: that it retains some sort of freshness?

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 15 March 2004 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

i think ryan specifically means "new sounds you hadn't noticed before," not neccessarily new meaning per se.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 March 2004 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

(if that makes a diff)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 March 2004 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah that's what i meant, literally new sounds and etc. does it really matter?

― ryan kuo (ryan kuo), Monday, 15 March 2004 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean, do they really matter

― ryan kuo (ryan kuo), Monday, 15 March 2004 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

They do matter, but are not major determinants of quality. Rockist is OTM.
I also think of them as bonuses, because I normally notice such things with records that I already love (which is why I'd be listening to them so closely and discovering these new sounds in the first place).

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Some of this exists only in our heads. Mine, anyway. There are many variables. In speech, we sometimes hear only what we want to hear. I see no reason to not apply this precept to music, as well.

I focus on different instruments at different times. Maybe I haven't heard a piece for a while. Format and environment make huge diffenences, too. CD, tape, vinyl, party, in the car, etcetera. State-of-mind tends to alter perception even further. And I'm not necessarily talking about inebriation here. There's a lot for the brain to remember in even the simplest of music.

My favorite way to explore has always been solo, with nothing else going on and using headphones.

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 05:37 (twenty-two years ago)

i worry that if this is the ultimate value in records, it would make yankee hotel foxtrot the greatest record ever

― Sym (shmuel), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 06:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't worry, it's actually just one of the reasons why Trout Mask Replica is the greatest record ever.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

"Hey, you can hear someone ironing in the background of this one... (turns around) Oh sorry, I'll take over for a bit.."

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I will always remember the first time I heard Keith's guitar in "Brown Sugar". I had heard the song millions of times and even played it it garage bands, but one day I really heard the rhythm guitar and it changed my life. I mean this literally. That so made a difference in the way I played guitar, and I feel like I went from a run-of-the-mill hack to a really interesting guitar player because I heard the possibilities.

― Speedy (Speedy Gonzalas), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 09:59 (twenty-two years ago)

What did you hear, Speedy? If I haven't heard it yet I'd like to have it pointed out.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

It can be inimportant. In the Joe Arroyo song "Mary" there's an instrumental passage but if you listen closely you can hear someone saying something in the background. I got excited when I heard it, mostly because I had listened many times without noticing it, but it's hardly a major reason to like the song.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I think there's a huge difference between a record in which you're constantly finding new musical features, like another guitar part or backing vocal or (as with Trout Mask Replica) a new point at which two instruments are momentarily in synch / tune / harmony with each other; and a record in which you're constantly finding new non-musical features, like the sound of the assistant engineers's dog barking at the next door neighbours cat, causing it to run down the garden and jump on the bins and knock one of the lids off with an audible clatter in it's attempt to escape.

The former is a fantastic reason to love that record; the latter isn't - although it might possibly be a good reason to love your hi-fi.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

fifteen years pass...

there's a whole-ass synthesizer part on bjork's 'hunter' that it took me 23 years to notice

― j., Saturday, 22 February 2020 05:23 (six years ago)

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