Listening Techniques?

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In one of the MBV threads, I just asserted that certain kinds of music sound better under certain listening conditions. In fact, music that you may hate under most circumstances can suddenly sound much immediate/intense/potent if you listen to it with a system and setting that matches the music.
Here are three examples:

For Shoegazer (MBV), Goth (Cure), 'Dark Metal' and Enya records: 3am in a completely dark room, through headphones at medium to low volume.

For 'Southern/Classic Rock' (Skynyrd/Stones), 80s Hair Bands (Bon Jovi) and most 90s-style country music: At twilight, going down the interstate at 70 miles an hour, through a car tapedeck (must be a worn out tape, not a brand new CD).

For Kitcshy Pop (B-52s), Retro-Synthpop (Fine Young Cannibals) or Silly stuff (TMBG): 4pm, overcast, doing dishes. Must be off a CD played through a cheap boombox.

So what other recipes of music-style/setting do you propose?

Lord Custos II, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Okay okay okay. Club music is best in dance Clubs, not in the PA loudspeakers in a grocery store.

Lord Custos II, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey! For all the junkies out there: What drugs go best with your fave 'choons.

Lord Custos II, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Country music must be listened to over an AM radio. Same goes for 60s/70s bubblegum.

Prog should be listened to on a $50,000 system, in a leather chair, with nothing else in the room. Thousands of dollars to bring a couple bucks worth of pleasure. And I think most of the pleasure comes from looking at the equipment.

Dave225, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)


Nope. Prog rock should be listened to on a crappy transistor radio. Or not at all.

Lord Custos II, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(lets see how many people chip in with "NOT AT ALL!")

Lord Custos II, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My best experiences of hearing classic rock = post-softball game parties in late '70s/early '80s. Drunken softball players/elder types hooting and hollering, kegs placed throughout someone's beaten-down backyard, kiddie pools filled with ice and bottled beer, bug zappers, noisyass big wheels, kids running amok, throwing lawn darts and nerf objects at each other. Specific stripe of classic rock in this case = Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, James Gang, Bob Seger, Steve Miller, BOC (not that BOC), the Nuge, ZZ Top, maybe MC5 and the Stooges.

Andy K, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Country: Semi-blaring out of pickup truck parked precariously on steep riverbank (4 wheel drive: optional). Listener must be either waist deep in water with fishing pole in hand, or tending whatever's on the fire. Note: there must be at least 6 Alan Jackson tracks in the mix somewhere for this setup to be executed properly.

Random Progressive Trance Mix Sets enabled me to achieve my bangin'est high score ever on SSX Tricky yesterday morning. That was hella appropriate.

Stuart, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

BOC (not that BOC)

*befuddled*...oh, Boards of Canada as opposed to the Cult. I was trying to remember some other seventies band referred as BOC. There was BTO, of course.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually, i dont like to hear club music in clubs, the best thing in clubs is synth-pop

Chupa-Cabras, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually, i dont like to hear club music in clubs, the best thing in clubs is synth-pop. teen-pop was made for mp3

Chupa-Cabras, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nah, shoegazing is best listened to through headphones on a minidisc walkman, while walking across Northampton at 3am, full to your eyeballs with drugs and booze and wondering if you're going to get murdered in Kingsthorpe.

Nick Southall, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I tried to do that here (Philly), some freak would see my disk player and I would be killed by verse 2 of track 1.

Lord Custos II, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jazz is best listened to at home, at night.

Hip-hop is best listened to on headphones walking around the city (unless it's on the turntable, of course).

Jordan, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

was filtered house invented by people who spent a lot of time standing outside clubs?

minna, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

dub should be piped into supermarkets. it's perfect ambling music.

Bob Zemko, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you are not indian and you live in america......hard bhangra blasting unbearably loudly in your just-detailed car with the windows down on a sunny day, on the most popular most crowded cruise strip in your town.....you will be such an beautiful anomaly it will all make sense to bystanders and yourself when you intentionally up the curb while trying to parallel, start visibly trembling, and then back into that CBR 1100 and knock it over.

Ramosi, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've found that a waiting/reception area iz the place for hardcore junglist headphone action. However you do need those big 70s-style DJ headphones to prevent bleedthru as reception areas are often very quiet places and half the fun is no one else knowing how mentalist you iz as you leaf menacingly thru Women's Wear Daily

Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bloody nonsense - half the fun is getting the weird looks from people as the renegade snares blare from your headset.

Andrew, Tuesday, 23 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)


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