I'm really curious how uncommon my music habits are now. Sign up and leave a comment to let me know how you consume your music these days!
I remember the first album of my own that I ever got. My Dad bought an expensive for the time in 1991 CD changer to hook up to our absolute unit of a 70s Pioneer receiver (I believe it was an SX-1050, man I wish I knew what happened to it). We went to the local Sam the Record Man (may it rest in peace) to get some stuff to play on it and my Dad told me to pick something out. I didn't have much musical preference at the time so I picked the Wayne's World soundtrack, which is still a banger to this day. The first CD I ever bought with my own money was Billy Idol's Cyberpunk in 1993, a criminally underrated concept album that I plan to do a dedicated post on some day. I practically wore grooves in both from playing them so much and still own my original copies. And that's just CDs! I'm on the very tail end of Gen X so I grew up with records and tapes too. I would make a joke about "these kids today" not knowing what those are but now they're back in vogue again it seems!
After that, I evolved my listening habits to MP3s--Winamp really whipped the llama's ass!--having to find sketchy, ultra slow FTP sites on message boards to find the individual tracks I wanted and hoping they were actually good quality rips with a decent bitrate. Yeah, we put in work to steal music back then! Eventually, I found Napster like everyone else. I still have several gigs of MP3s on my server that I haven't touched in forever and can't bring myself to delete. I did have an iPod Nano once, but didn't use it a ton and relied on CDs in the car for many years, especially when I worked on the road. Eventually, I moved onto streaming, which is where the vast majority of music consumption takes place now.
About a month ago, I came across a video by artist Mary Spender that to my surprise, told me that the way I consume music is very unusual these days.
The title is awful clickbait, she's leaving Spotify as a listener, not an artist.
She reads a newsletter sent to her fans about why she was quitting Spotify as a customer because she thinks she can better support the artists she likes while also returning to a form of music consumption that gives it more value beyond background noise. Her fans responded in droves with their own stories and she groups some of them by their main reasons.
Many people are going through the effort of purposefully making the experience more complicated for themselves in order to try enjoying it more and I find it fascinating!
When I was growing up and digital abundance wasn't a thing, I listened the way most people did, one album at a time. I put the songs I really loved on repeat until I drove my parents insane and also made the occasional mix tape and later, compilation CDs that I was often rather proud of. New albums were between $20 and $30 in "back then money" so you had to do your research to make sure you weren't getting something with one good single and a bunch of duds. I was pretty good at this, but was super bummed when I missed.
My friends and I hunted for sales, sometimes spending entire afternoons on the bus in high school touring music stores. The more obscure european dance groups we liked often required buying expensive imported albums that you could only get at certain stores or had to special order. We loved cool album covers and would trade and lend CDs around, sometimes even agreeing to each buy one album we wanted so we could lend them back and forth.
There's no arguing that the digital availability of music and in particular the streaming revolution has diluted all of that to nearly nothing. You don't have to hunt for music any more, it's all right there in front of you for one monthly price or even free with ads. You don't need a compelling album cover to draw you to something because you can just play it and decide if you like it.
Many complain that this has eroded the value of music, but I'm not sure I agree with that. The record industry was making music near monetarily worthless to anyone but labels well before you no longer needed a physical object to store it. It's also not like said labels and their co-conspirators in radio and MTV/MuchMusic didn't widely dictate mainstream taste either. I'm not saying that's right, but it's been the case forever. The ability for anyone to put music on streaming services with little effort and the reliance on weighted algorithms to choose what to listen to has also made discoverability an arguably bigger nightmare than it was when you had to fight for space on a shelf. This in turn has allowed the streaming services to pay artists less and less, while their executives and shareholders get rich on their backs. And don't get me started on the AI slop that's now started to show up.
What Mary and many of her listeners said is something I've heard more and more lately. People are purposefully going back to listening to music "the old way". Dusting off old, offline playback devices, relying on physical media and the limitations it creates, taking in entire albums instead of only the popular tracks from a homogenized, machine generated playlist and actively searching out new music, rather than have it served to them. They said this has transformed the meaning and power of music to them and reignited their passion for the artform.
I think that's really cool, but it also made me realize that apparently the way I still consume music is very unusual and it kind of shocked me.
Though I almost exclusively use streaming services, I mostly listen the way I always have. I only have a handful of playlists, which are mostly lyricless tracks I use for background when I'm working. When I want to hear something, I usually either pick an artist or more often, one of their albums, hit play and just let it run until it's finished. I almost never rely on auto-generated playlists and the few times I've tried them, I've usually just ended up bailing out at the first song I like to try out that artist's wider catalog. The rare time I get analysis paralysis, I usually just pick a saved channel on SiriusXM or fire up Soma FM, depending on my mood.
If I find an independent artist I really like and want to support more, I'll usually see if they're on Bandcamp and buy their album there. You can stream purchases through their app and download everything DRM-free if you want. Many artists set a minimum price, while others allow you to pay what you want. In most cases, I'll usually pay over asking. I'll still often listen to the album on YouTube Music out of convenience, but try to add that extra support to people who are really putting in the work and don't have a label fronting publicity for them.
For discovering new tunes, I've never really found myself lacking in them if I'm honest. I'll take note of songs I hear on TV or in movies (or use my Google Pixel's amazing .0
function to name and note it for me) and try the bands out later. Even better, I've found the huge number of amazing "music story" YouTube channels to be a treasure trove of new songs and artists. Todd In the Shadows, David Hartley, Music Mongoose, Tank the Tech and Adjustment Day are just a handful of creators that either tell me about new artists I've never heard of, or reignite my interest in old ones through their retelling of their careers and how they made their music. I actually keep a note in Obsidian where I'll jot down any artists I've been meaning to get to or just listen to again and when I'm unsure what to put on, I'll pick one and just let it roll.
As you can see, there's quite a variety in there because other than most country and modern rap, I can usually find something to like in almost any genre or era of music. Music isn't just noise to me, it carries emotion and memories and what I hear can influence my mood, even if it's an older artist and recalling things tied to them and their songs from when I was younger. I don't treat it the way an art snob might, but it does have real impact that I do consider valuable.
It was quite surprising to learn that my way is so unusual now. It seems like I'm applying most of my old way of listening and finding new stuff, just using new tools to do so. It hadn't occurred to me that so many people just pick their favourite algorithmic playlist, hit play and have the music just kind of "be there" instead of taking it in. Even when I'm working, I play music that compliments what I'm doing and that I can actively listen to while also doing my other tasks, instead of just having noise. If I do need something more based in just sounds, I'll usually put on an ASMR video or use something like A Soft Murmer. I thought I was evolving my listening habits with the times, but it seems I'm more in the past than I thought. Not that I mind, I quite like it this way.
None of this is terribly difficult or time consuming either. If it required too much effort, I wouldn't bother but I find it easy to do and it only requires paying even partial attention to what I'm listening to and following the thread.
But what about you? How do you listen to music these days? Do you think the way you listen and find it has changed your habits for better or worse? Do you still place emotional value in music, or is it just background to your day? Sign up, leave a comment and let me know cause I'm really curious!
