can you have too much music?

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i'm getting fed up. i get all these cds and its just dumb. i am swamped by things i never listen to and the things that i buy because i want i never get around to listening to.

it blows.

minor threat rule.

― doomie x, Friday, 5 August 2005 13:07 (twenty years ago)

i have been there many times doomie.

last time i suffered this type of noise fatigue one ILM'er advised :

reggae.

and they were very correct.

hopefully this nugget will be useful to you.

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

Been there. For what you already have, look at your collection, ask yourself 'what haven't I listened to in years?,' rip the CDs, sell them off and magically watch your visible music collection shrink while the mp3s or whatever are sitting quietly in a hard drive. Which makes it much easier to move, should you move.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:12 (twenty years ago)

yeah i'm getting a mp3 playinig for my birday.... looking forward to it! i've been just putting stuff into the straight to sell pile immediately (in the closet) ... but its just blaughghga.ga...

i have all these pr's writing me and i just feel like saying 'man, i'm just really into usa 80s hardcore punk at the moment and really don't care about zeitgesty type band a thus i'm not into writing about zeitgesty type band a'... i hope i am taken off all the mailign lists soon!

― doomie x, Friday, 5 August 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

the new warlocks album is awful. i think that is when i thought 'oh god WHY?? am i listening to this instead of flipper'

― doomie x, Friday, 5 August 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

Force yourself to not listen to anything for three days. If it doesn't help, well, uh... try sth else. :-)

― nathalie sans denouement (stevie nixed), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

"There was an old lady..." xpost

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

the music of Miles Davis sucessfully brought me through a spot like that in my life. By some Davis, dude.

Start with a few from entirely different eras and see which one sticks.....like maybe "birth of the cool," "files de Kilamanjaro," "bitches brew" and "kind of blue."

Amen,
-chadly con Queso

― buck rogers, Friday, 5 August 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

The number of things I want to hear and acquire is an order of magnitude greater than the amount of time I have to listen to them. AND BEIN ON THIS BOARD AIN'T HELPIN MATTERS. So it goes.

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

this is a bigger problem with books, because they take up more space and are way heavier. it sucks.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

Mail forward your promos to me.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

still, i listened to a cd been sitting there for 12 years without much love today and thought - wow - this is pretty good.

― bull bum gerry (bulbs), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:40 (twenty years ago)

xpost

I'm absolutely with Keith C. It's like I have to come here everyday because I am convinced there is eternally a world of music I will love as much as my standbys and yet so often it results in extreme music overload and burnout. And it's not that I feel like I have to keep up with everything so much as I've realized more through the years that things can slip past you so easily. I used to think "if it's good and I'll like it, I'll hear it eventually" but now I'm convinced I could make a new worthwhile discovery every day. I think it's the ilm/mp3 blog complex. Certainly the sheer volume of music is a blessing because it always keeps things fresh and interesting, but then some days (like today) I feel like there is never enough time or money to get to know it all as well as I'd like.

― matt2 (matt2), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

In the pitchfork interview with James Murphy he talks about overload, but it didn't really get discussed here. I think it's an important point. There is more stuff now. It's harder to keep up, and for those of us who want to be open minded and like listening to many genres, it's a damn near impossible task.

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

This subject has, unsurprisingly, been a point of discussion here and elsewhere for a bit. ;-) Tom Ewing, that wise man, came up with the idea of the 'beachcomber' model of enjoying music, wherein rather than actively and heavily scrounging all to heck one just wanders along and notices what one notices, enjoys what one enjoys, allowing yourself the possibility of random captivation. It's a healthy approach, as it steers away from the BE AWARE OF EVERYTHING NOW hothouse that is too easily adhered to by both individuals and larger constructs, for lack of a better term.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

I am, once again, selling a load of stuff. Including Miles Davis, if anyone will have it.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:09 (twenty years ago)

xpost

The thing is, Ned, I don't know how to just beachcomb with limits. I could just turn on the radio or look through a few blogs or check in here periodically. But what station and which blogs and which posts do I read? And what if I do find something I really like and want to look deeper and then looking deeper just splinters into a million other things I want to look in to. I guess I have a bit of a self-control problem with this thirst for music. So much so that I buy stuff and don't even listen to it because I'm online trying to find the next thing I'm gonna want.

― matt2 (matt2), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:20 (twenty years ago)

In that case, all I can say you should take the time to enjoy what you have. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

Ned the problem with the beachcomber method is the fear of missing the naked volleyball game consisting of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders circa '79 way down the beach, out of sight. Yeah maybe it doesn't exist, but experience has proved me wrong. All the time I'm saying to myself, "How the hell did I miss this for so long??"

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

But yeah, all in all I agree the beachcomber method is the best possible approach, the only one that won't lead to financial and mental ruin.

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

Yes, and even worse, musical disinterest as a result of overkill. I'm gonna keep combing on my mind going forward.

― matt2 (matt2), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

I prefer the deep-mining approach. Get obsessed with one sound, track everything down, spend your nights draeming about it, and give in to a life of diminishing returns. (oh yeah, i own 73 Wu Tang + family albums).

― paulhw (paulhw), Friday, 5 August 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

seven years pass...

I have 59 days of music in itunes. They break this down as some 2000 albums. I'm sort of pining for the days when I had 12 cassettes with missing liner notes.

― The Homeless - WHY THEY HIDE THEIR BODIES UNDER MY GARAGE? (how's life), Saturday, 19 January 2013 12:02 (thirteen years ago)

We were poor but we were happy. We knew the value of things. We never wondered about the value of valuing things.

It's a shambles.

― Local Garda, Monday, 25 August 2008 20:04 (4 years ago)

― things that are jokes pretty much (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Saturday, 19 January 2013 12:31 (thirteen years ago)

sometimes I think "yes" but then I think what if I quit before I find the one album that makes everything OK and that's how it came to pass that I ordered 4 new cassettes today. fuck yes these tapes will rule

― too many encores (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 19 January 2013 14:03 (thirteen years ago)

I can only have too much in the sense that I no longer have physical space for it. But my friend once said to me, "At the rate you're going, you'll only listen to your favorite album 8 more times before you die". Which may be true...

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 19 January 2013 23:08 (thirteen years ago)

i suspect i will die and there will be albums in the archive that will never have listened to ...

― mark e, Saturday, 19 January 2013 23:16 (thirteen years ago)

a music collection that comprises the entire mass of the observable universe is probably too much music

― Influential Acid Jazz Pioneer (crüt), Saturday, 19 January 2013 23:26 (thirteen years ago)

It's only too much if you can't sort it. Otherwise saying there's too much music is like saying there's too much time.

― glenn mcdonald, Sunday, 20 January 2013 03:26 (thirteen years ago)

"All My Life", by Ornette Coleman (from Skies of America)

― fiscal cliff racer (bernard snowy), Sunday, 20 January 2013 04:09 (thirteen years ago)

imagine this song slowed-down so that it was playing throughout literally all of your life. or Ornette Coleman's life. or the omniscient narrator's. or something

― fiscal cliff racer (bernard snowy), Sunday, 20 January 2013 04:11 (thirteen years ago)

'music'! what the heck even is 'music'!? sometimes I switch on the radio, thinking to hear some 'music'... and instead, I receive a firm kick in the very teeth of me, practically! rate they're going, I don't think ANYBODY alive today is in danger of hearing 'too much music', I can tell you that!

― fiscal cliff racer (bernard snowy), Sunday, 20 January 2013 04:16 (thirteen years ago)

We were poor but we were happy. We knew the value of things. We never wondered about the value of valuing things.

It's a shambles.

― Local Garda, Monday, 25 August 2008 20:04 (4 years ago)

― things that are jokes pretty much (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Saturday, January 19, 2013 6:31 AM (15 hours ago)

― j., Sunday, 20 January 2013 04:23 (thirteen years ago)

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