2007: How many new records did you hear?

And, sadly, most of them Pitchfork-approved indie! Next year, my mission: broaden taste by stepping out of my comfort zone.

Probably somewhere between 2 and 3 hundred, if we're just talking minute long clips then about 2 to 3 thousand. Most of these are house or techno though.

It's about 35 right now. I'll probably search about 15 or 20 more thanks to year-end lists.

full 2007 records - 25, not counting some stuff i only listened to on luisterpaal or whatever

(x-post: unless albums like crazy ex-girlfriend keep winning)

Hmm, about 90 albums or so, and around 1800 individual tracks (I am very thorough with my iTunes year tagging and have a "2007" smart playlist which says 1948, but I'm knocking a few off which never actually got "heard" as such.)

you guys are organized.

haha this is pathetic for me. i think i bought about 12 non-reissue 2007 releases, plus about 5 2007 reissues. though i've probably heard many more, and that might number around 50 - this is through checking out a track here or there, short clips, myspace pages, free mp3s, etc. for most stuff that gets high ratings from critics, i'll check out some songs.

this year, 2007 releases accounted for only about 5% of my music purchases. 2006 and earlier accounted for the overwhelming majority of my buys, but this is how it is every year. i bought plenty of 2006 releases this year, and next year i wouldn't be surprised if i bought a lot of 2007 stuff.

Probably getting on for 100 full albums. No idea how many individual tracks.

Maybe 130 albums, probably around 1000 tracks excluding the radio

round about no albums whatsoever.

Including old stuff, 112 so far in 2007 (191 in 2006). I guess about 20% of those were new releases.

Wow everyone listens to way more than I do.

searched my sorted music directory for "2007" and turned up 87 records

theres probably at least 20 more in my unsorted folder too

I've putmyself through the trouble of doing a "top 100 tracks of the year" special on my Campus radio show, so I'm sure I must have heard at least a few thousand tracks or so, but then again I don't have any organizing software.

maybe 30-40 albums, 200+ singles

Tons. Just...I can't even begin to count. All the AMG review fodder scraped the surface. Add in things from Mutant Sounds and other older discs and yipes.

Four:
Underworld - Oblivion with Bells
Ween - La Cucaracha
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Kanye West - Graduation

I liked Graduation the most, La Cucaracha the least.

well, i own about 35 new albums from 2007 at last count, no more than 40 now probably. so i'd guess that i've heard about 55-60 new albums (from start to finish) including the handful i immediately sold back this year (here's looking at you, The Field, Justice, god those don't deserve the hype), as well as albums i've heard with family (Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Sugarland - thanks mom!) and the girlfriend (Aqualung, Feist...) that i definitely wouldn't have heard otherwise.

i also listened to clips of, oh, i'd say about 40-50 more record on itunes, 30-second clips of various songs from various albums of potential interest, and ended up not purchasing the actual CDs.

around 40

I probably heard 20 new records and saw 500+ live bands.

Half or more of 250-300 titles from 2007, probably more

definitely more than 100 albums, probably less than 150. year ain't over yet, though!

i didn't think it would be that many but i've got about 50 2007 albums in my collection atm that i thought were worth keeping around, probably gave a listen to around double that number, if not more

a v. good year for music

26

All of them!

Whiney wins.

By my count, 70ish.

A little over 50, I guess.

maybe 75 full albums. and definitely 1000+ tracks

definitely maybe

Four:
Underworld - Oblivion with Bells
Ween - La Cucaracha
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Kanye West - Graduation

I liked Graduation the most, La Cucaracha the least.

-- Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 13 December 2007 03:38 (6 hours ago) Link

How can you bitch so much about new music being shite when you've not heard any of it??!!

checked the blog.
i wrote up approx 120 new albums.
but suspect i will have listened to 50-75 (very conservative estimate !) more that i just couldn't be arsed with.
a lot more than i expected to be honest as i didn't feel as if i had listened to that much new music in 2007.

What's the MOST one could listen to sensibly? What's the optimum amount one could listen to? I think 100 or so a year, meaning two a week, seems about as many as I could comfortably absorb without them merging too much, but this may be nonsense...

I think 100 or so a year, meaning two a week,

this is what i expected my calculations to reveal re my own pattern this year as i agree any more as its getting out of hand.
2 new albums per week.
in fact i am tempted to limit myself to that in 2008 and sod the rest.

Hundreds of albums. Probably like two or three a day. Of those, probably less than 200 were listened to with a specific aim to formulate an opinion, and a lot of the rest ended up, you know, being played in the office and ending up as background ambience. I probably missed a bunch of good aspects of records this way, but yeah Nick OTM: I don't think you can give many more records than that their full due. I probably *bought* a new album every two or three weeks; spent way more on old vinyl etc this year

I do think this also depends on how much you like 'em.

If you get something you fall in love with and listen to 30 or 40 times over the year, that's going to make less room for anything else.

I mean, does anyone have 100 albums they've listened to and actually liked this year? And do you then have time to listen to old music, either favourites or new discoveries. What if you rediscover some fantastic album and listen to that 30 or 40 times? Or get into someone new and work through their whole discography?

Also, whether you can listen to music at work (although listening to music IS work for many people here obviously) makes a huge difference. I can't. I listened to a lot of podcasts of mixes this year, probably most of my listening on the move, so I heard a lot of new music but probably only heard about 20 albums in full more than once, most of which I bought. LOTS more tracks, though. At home I don't really listen to stuff on the computer, only to records and CDs, so usually listen to a higher proportion of old stuff.

I listen to music at work all day, so I've listened to something like 1500 releases (i.e. including singles/EPs) this year. But only about 70 of those were from 2007. I'm not that bothered about being really up-to-date with music.

I'm not that bothered about being really up-to-date with music.

agreed. i end up finding my favorite new releases by combing a few writer's individual year-end lists, anyway.

complete albums start to end: 20 or so

Some of you listen to far fewer new albums than I would have expected, which makes me feel better with my estimate that I've heard no more than 20 (possibly even fewer) albums that came out in 2007. But it also makes me more convinced that some of the stuff I really like (in any year) goes unmentioned partly because it goes unheard, but then I guess I already knew that. But who am I kidding? How many lists is that Ned Rothenberg album going to make? It's only making jazz lists as far as I can see, although I'm not convinced it's jazz (not that I particuarly care).

I'd also say I feel I have enough of an idea of tens, if not hundreds, of albums, including a lot of titles that are making it big on end of the year lists, to know I am not really interested in hearing them, not even enough to download them for free from links on music blogs.

How long does it take to give an album its due? I think that would have to vary. Maybe this would make me a bad critic, but a lot of the time I feel like I only need to hear so much to know whether I like an album or not. Radiohead's playing sounds really good to me on some tracks I've heard, but Thom Yorke is still too big of an obstacle for me. Also, I think if something is in a pretty tightly defined genre, it takes less time to come to a judgment, because it's clearer what's going on. The problem with that is that I do frequently change my mind about things after first impressions, but then, a lot of the time I also kind of know which opinions are stable and which haven't settled.

I almost definitely heard over 1,000 new ones, though I sure didn't listen to all of them all the way through. A couple hundred sounded pretty good.

Maybe this would make me a bad critic, but a lot of the time I feel like I only need to hear so much to know whether I like an album or not.

That would not necessarily make you a bad critic, Rockist. Though I'd say, from experience, it's usually easier for me to verify I don't like an album after limited listening than to verify that I love it. (It's very easy to tell if I like it a little, at least. But frequently, with subsequent listens, I find out I didn't like it as much as I thought I did. The opposite happens way less often.)

200+. But in the last few weeks I've been checking out stuff that people've recommended as they put together those lists, so I feel like I'm listening more desperately/exhaustively now than between May and Sept. The promotional cycles of March and October really do my head in, to be honest.

xp(And by 1,000+ "new ones," btw, I mean 1000+ albums -- which is where most of the "tracks" I listen to are also located, though definitely not all of them.)

I'm not that bothered about being really up-to-date with music.

Yeah I've dropped out of the cycle of Important New Releases more than ever now. I did an ordered top 20 album list and it bears almost no resemblance to any mag/website's top 50 I've seen. I've made no effort to try and hear In Rainbows even though I can get it for free, and the descriptions make it sound like I'm gonna enjoy it more than anything they've done for a good while. It's not gonna vanish overnight.

xp (And actually, come to think of it, I guess that 1000+ would probably include reissues that came out in 2007, and 2006 and 2005 albums I didn't get around to hearing until this year. So knock a few hundred off that number, if you want.) (I may also be overestimating a little; I didn't keep count, and there's no way to know for sure. So it's just a ballpark figure. But given that I could easily work up a list of 200 or 300 I actually enjoyed listening to, at least for a week or two, and given that I hear way, way more albums I don't like than albums I do like, 1000 doesn't seem that far off to me. And honestly, even with that number, I'm not convinced I even scratched the surface of music in 2007.)

(...including tons and tons of Important New Releases, from Radiohead -- whose album I have no intention of actually ever listening to, though who knows, maybe I will some day -- on down. But Important New Releases are not a reason I listen to music. And they're not what I try to keep up with.)

I listened to about 275 this year, which was definitely way too many. I was experimenting with things during 2007 and I know I listened to each of them at least three times through. It was way too many.

I'm tempted to say "Five" (you should have polled this!)

By meaning, five released for the first time this year.

Due to the 'curse of Fopp', i tended to buy lots of old albums on CD that were cheap there, and as a consequence now it's gone, I tend to resent being unable to buy new albums for less than £6 or so.

But I must have got more than five. But I couldn't claim to. So there it is.

Adding up my monthly promo playlists comes to around 4000 songs. Those are singles-only, so let's say singles average 2.5 songs per, that comes out to about 1600 singles. Add in several hundred more vinyl-only singles that aren't in my iTunes and maybe a hundred albums? Granted, I didn't listen to all of it. In any case, too fucking much music. However, I can't complain, as this was also the year I rediscovered the (albeit limited) ability to listen for pleasure, God knows how.

And honestly, even with that number, I'm not convinced I even scratched the surface of music in 2007.

?????

you heard probably the most of anyone here, in terms of sheer numbers, yet you haven't scratched the surface of "music" in 2007? wtf does that even mean??

i think he's just saying that, while he did listen to a lot of music, there's still tons of stuff that he didn't have time to listen to.

even if you decide to only listen to metal for an entire year, for example, you still wouldn't have time to hear everything released in that one genre alone because there's just so much out there.

you haven't scratched the surface of "music" in 2007? wtf does that even mean??

Wtf do you think it means? That even if I heard 1000 albums, there were thousands and thousands of others (many of them potentially worth hearing) that I didn't hear. (A few, off the top of my head, that I would have liked to hear, but didn't get around to yet {and still might}: Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Leann Rimes, Skye Sweetnam, the Veronicas, Kate Nash, Keke Palmer, Rihanna, Lloyd, Cupid, Manu Chao, Times New Viking, Rose Tattoo, Sir Lord Baltimore, at least a third of the albums that made Decibel magazine's year-end top 40...Not to mention music from plenty of genres that deserved way more attention than I gave them.)

does anyone have 100 albums they've listened to and actually liked this year?

Yes -- way more than that, in fact.

And do you then have time to listen to old music, either favourites or new discoveries.

Not as much time as I wish I had, obviously. I do listen to tons of music that's not new -- but most of it is reissued. Still buy used stuff, though, when I have time. And I somehow find time to listen to that, too.

What if you rediscover some fantastic album and listen to that 30 or 40 times?

It happens now and then. If it happened more often, yeah, it would be a problem.

Or get into someone new and work through their whole discography?

Didn't happen this year. And right, again, if it did, it would obviously affect how much new stuff I hear.

maybe 6

I somehow find time to listen to that, too

Actually, this is partially bullshit -- for instance, I've got a stack of used LPs, probably about 50 or 75 of them, that I've picked up over the past year that I've barely even found time to put on once, if at all.

x-posts: Not to mention a lot of international music that just doesn't necessarily cross your desk (pop/rock and otherwise, if you want to include otherwise).

(That's not a criticsm, just backing you up.)

I heard enough to come up with a Top 100 albums list, and I'm still thinking of albums I wish I'd had room for.

Not more than 15 whole albums released 2007, most of them quite good!

Although it's hard to compete with all the serious writer types here it's a bit sad, I should probably listen to more "new" music so I at least have something to get nostalgic about when I get older.

I wonder how many more albums I would hear if publicists actually mailed promos [digital or otherwise] and didn't just send press releases nonstop. More often than not I try to keep tabs on these titles to try to listen to them after release date, but usually there's too much that's already piling up! It's already 2008 for me anyway!

xhuxk-

i understand you're a music critic and all, but can't you prioritize at least a little bit? is it worth hearing 1000+ new releases in a year, only a few hundred of which you actually enjoy to some degree, when it doesn't allow you the time to put on a stack of 50-75 newly acquired LPs at least once? why won't you say to yourself, "well, it's 99 percent likely i won't enjoy, say, these 100 releases (based on my already extensive knowledge of music, and knowledge of these particular artists, their past work, etc.) out of my 1000+ things i want to hear, so instead of spin those releases, i think i'll risk the 1% chance there's something in there of value, and instead i'll have time to enjoy these 50 LPs i picked up, hear each of them a few times apiece"...?

not meaning to be difficult, or say you're doing it wrong. just an inquiry from someone who's not a critic, to someone who is. i've always just been baffled by the amount of listening for non-enjoyment that a lot of critics do... or do you enjoy listening to hundreds of albums you just don't end up liking at all, just to know you've heard them and you know *FOR SURE* that they are not any good?

probably a lot i don't keep count

an't you prioritize at least a little bit?

Where did I say that I don't? The vast majority of CDs that come in the mail, I don't even put on once -- If it doesn't seem like something I'd like (whether it's supposedly an Important New Release or not, as I said above), why bother? But that still leaves hundreds and hundreds of albums that I might like. It's just all, really, a sorting process. And I'll get to that stack of used LPs someday, I'm sure. (I'm curious about how critics who don't listen to as many albums as I do sort out the ones they'll listen to differently? How can they not be curious about hundreds of albums every year? I honestly don't get that at all. But maybe it helps explain why so many top ten and top 40 lists at the end of every year look so boring, and so much alike.)

(And I'll grant that I may well get more mail than most critics do -- not bragging about it, it's just probably true-- though not as much as I used to! And it obviously makes a difference in what I'm curious about.)

hey xhuxk i must say i was kind of shocked to see that you hadn't listened to Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Leann Rimes, Skye Sweetnam, the Veronicas, Kate Nash, Keke Palmer, Rihanna, Lloyd, Cupid, Manu Chao, Times New Viking, Rose Tattoo, Sir Lord Baltimore (unless somehow i misread your post). a little relieved, i also must say. out of curiosity, would that have been different if you were still at the vxxcx? given your range, it seems strange to me that you'd not have made time to listen to some of the biggest pop and country records of the year. (this is not a criticism!) for the record, i haven't heard a single one of those either, though that will be far less surprising.

I'm gonna guess around 160 or so, just based on the number of promos that I've got kicking around right now, with about 80% of my listening this year being promos.

Aside from that, nearly everything I've bought this year has been old vinyl (because I'm building up my '80s catalog, $1.85 at a time).

I've slowed up massively around the end of the year; in the spring and summer I was on a massive binge, both in promos and in just buying (having a new job helped).

Still, I was looking at the Onion's AV Club lists and recognizing that I'd heard about 10 out of their top 25.

way too few. Probably not even 50.

Looks like around 95.

out of curiosity, would that have been different if you were still at the vxxcx?

I'm guessing, if I was still there, I would have gotten most--if not all--of those in the mail, yeah.

given your range, it seems strange to me that you'd not have made time to listen to some of the biggest pop and country records of the year.

Well, there is only so much time. And money. And I only have so much energy when it comes to actually tracking copies of all of them down! (There are tons of other "big" pop and country albums I didn't hear, either -- but most of those other ones, I probably don't really care that I missed them. And with a lot of them, even if I was still at the Voice, I wouldn't necessarily have played all of them if I had actually received copies.)

xp (Of those, 31 were albums I don't actually own in any format. I just streamed them somewhere [usually Luisterpaal] and in most cases only listened to them once.)

i believe i am clocking in somewhere right around 100, because i'm probably forgetting a few. i'm also not including the myriad demos and EPs from local bands that i've heard.

xhuxk - thanks!

i guess it's easy to be more selective when you're a regular listener like me, not a critic, and thus not receiving promos of any sort. i'm sure i'd check out more records too, if i had a bigger budget or a bunch of promos every day in the mail. for me it's enough to choose about a new album every week to hear - and of course, some weeks two or three new releases, other stretches of several weeks with nothing that interests me.

and that's not to say it's all Important New Releases, just a lot more genre-specific than you seem to be. i don't do a lot of top 40 pop/rock, hardly any country, and still have a lot to explore in plenty of genres, such as hip-hop and jazz. whereas i'd like to think i'm pretty well-versed in post-punk, new wave, lo-fi, electronic, ambient and other related genres/subgenres, and therefore, i would more easily lend an ear to new releases that are more "influenced" by those genres than others.

not to mention, you know, my bias as a listener. i don't care if the new Britney album sounds like Trans-Europe Express, i don't want to hear it cause it's Britney fucking Spears, you know? and i think you're better than most critics, if not all, at looking past any sort of bias and just hearing the music. and so in that way, you're perhaps a better listener than i am. or maybe i'm better, because i'm not listening to Britney. who cares, really?

But I didn't listen to Britney either, that's part of my point!

And I've got plenty of biases, believe me...

For every great record I heard this year, there are three promos on my shelf that I haven't gotten to yet. But a sixth sense does tend to tell me which packages go right to the top of the stack...

There are still a whole bunch of records from this year I want to listen to but haven't yet. So much music.

i heard too many bad records this year. though i will say that the last 2 months or so have seen more good records than any period i can remember going back 3-4 years.

couple hundred i suppose; front to back, probably two hundred.

But a sixth sense does tend to tell me which packages go right to the top of the stack...

so many factors make this process much easier than it should be.

weirdly, in recent months i have spotted my promo flow slowing down.
though to be honest, i'm kind of glad.
i think a lot of PRs/labels are becoming a lot more selective in their mailouts due to the increasing costs and knock on cutbacks.
then again, seeing as i aint writing up crappy no-mark indie guitar gumph, its only to be expected. hopefully this will make 2008 a lot more focussed meaning i will be able to invest more time in albums/genres i really want to listen to. ie i hope to reduce the number of albums that i listen to in 2008, and get back to enjoying the music on a deeper level.

"i hope to reduce the number of albums that i listen to in 2008, and get back to enjoying the music on a deeper level."

i hope to do this myself.

Albums: around 60-70, I think, which is more or less my average based on the past few years. Singles: I honestly have no idea, but it was a down year for me in that I didn't really concentrate on keeping track of singles. There were a lot of songs that I heard semi-regularly on the radio or on MTV but I never bothered to hunt them down properly via album, download, etc. So I heard plenty of tracks, but only 10-15 singles actually resonated with me, which is kinda sad (*plenty* of songs resonated with me, but they were mostly album tracks, remixes ... but not too many actual pop singles, unfortunately).

let me also just say this: anyone who can come up with 100 albums that are worth listening to has no critical faculties. i'd be hard pressed to come up with 100 albums worth listening to since '00. even when you go back to old LPs and whatnot, i know i've bought a large amount for just a couple tracks as opposed to loving the whole damn thing. finding a truly great whole album is possibly one of the most difficult things to do in music.

I could probably procure a list of 100 good albums from this year, but probably only 15 to 20 that I consider great through-and-through, and from those only one or two stone-cold classics - sometimes none.

I think it's possible to derive a certain amount of enjoyment from a large number of albums while still being critical. After all I heard many albums this year that I just plain hated.

"Albums worth listening to" =/ "loving the whole damn thing" necessarily (and obviously).

of course there is a difference between "I enjoyed it" and "it's worth listening to". I see no point in being prescriptive anymore.

x-p

Also, though you'd think this would go without saying but I guess not, 100 good albums obviously doesn't mean 100 equally good albums.

this is also (of course) true.

although now that I think about it, out of my top 100 songs of the year (I am doing this for a radio show) many of them are off of not-so-hot albums.

"I could probably procure a list of 100 good albums from this year, but probably only 15 to 20 that I consider great through-and-through, and from those only one or two stone-cold classics - sometimes none.

I think it's possible to derive a certain amount of enjoyment from a large number of albums while still being critical. After all I heard many albums this year that I just plain hated.

-- Simon H."

i dont know, i would rather listen to an older great album than something that is only "okay" or whatever. when i make year end top X lists, the singles is usually 10-15 long and the albums usually 3-5. last year IIRC there were only 2 albums! and i work in a record store and listen to a pretty huge amount of music.

On the other hand, maybe you're right -- there are definitely only two or three '07 albums worth hearing (total) on these threads (which explains why they're so short.) And the people writing about more than those two or three albums clearly have "no critical faculties"):

Rolling country 2007 thread

Rolling Metal Thread 2007, Part II

Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

"On the other hand, maybe you're right -- there are definitely only two or three '07 albums worth hearing (total) on these threads (which explains why they're so short.) And the people writing about more than those two or three albums clearly have "no critical faculties"):

Rolling country 2007 thread

Rolling Metal Thread 2007, Part II

Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

-- xhuxk"

its funny, i dont need to read 5000+ plus posts to tell you exactly how many great albums there were in 07 in those genres. people talking a whole lot does not make albums sound any better.

^^Especially that one dubstep album.

Shit troll.

Shit poster.

(That wasn't aimed at you.)

(nor mine at you)

How much of it do you have to hear for it to count?

96.3%