Am I the only one?

[pauldo]

We all have little quirks.
Listening to an interview with Michael Manring and he mentioned how these days there seems to be less reverence for music.  In the ‘old days’ you would buy an album run home and listen to the whole thing.   You and you pals would get together for no other reason than to listen to music.  That doesn’t seem to hold true in today’s society as it did during my youth.


So here is the thing that I am curious if other people are strange like me...


At work I can listen to my own collection of music, I prefer listening to whole ‘albums’.  Recently I acquired a nice MP3 player so I have many ‘albums’ at my fingertips.  Anyhow - if I have to leave my work area for any reason I find that I need to pause the music because I do not want to miss any of the artist’s performance of that particular album... does that make me weird?

[edwardofhuncote]

I still buy hard copies of CD's and read the liner notes. As a musician, I can't imagine not doing that.

I do like the ability to put the smaller mp3/4 files on my phone and play them at will in my office and work truck. (which seems to be where I spend a lot of time lately...)

I haven't listened to that interview yet, but I don't think there is a blanket irreverence among musicians... I do think there is a prevalence of instant gratification everywhere. It's just the way of things. You don't have to wait for an album release anymore... click a app on your iPhone and *poof*, a couple hit songs appear in a playlist. I don't know if that's irreverent or even if it's what he means. If an artist sells a download, I doubt they care. Maybe some do.

I still like to read the liner notes. How else do you find out who played what? 

[growlypants]

To answer your question, Pauldo...no.  You're not the only one!  I also listen to new CDs in their entirety, and read every word of the liner notes.  Hope we're not a dying breed!

[lbpesq]

Warning, another “get off my lawn” rant ahead!

First of all, we listened to music.   Much of the commercial audio entertainment out there today is more accurately described as rhythmic poetry than as music.   And like plastic “silverware”, it is designed to be disposable after brief use.   The music we listened to growing up was a soundtrack of the times, tied to the social and political landscapes in which it was created.  It made statements. It reflected our personal experiences.  Today much of popular “music” is a soundtrack for the accountants to count money by.   


I also still buy CDs on the ever rarer occasions I buy new music.   And I listen to the entire “album” in order.   However, I must confess that when I’m listening to my Pono, (yea, I jumped on Neil’s Kickstarter bandwagon), which is loaded with about 200 CDs of my own choosing, I often put it on the setting to play songs from all the CDs in random order.    It’s almost eerie how often the “random” universe plays tricks on me, like playing two vastly different versions of the same song in sequence!   So, to answer the question, no, we are not weird.  We’re just old and have taste!  Yea, that’s it!

Bill, tgo

[gtrguy]

I still very much enjoy listening to my albums. I have a vintage Accutrac 4000 turntable that is able to go to individual tracks on the record and drop. It uses IR technology and works great. You can skip songs you don't like.

[cozmik_cowboy]

I have often said how sorry I am for today's youth, listening to crap on crappy earbuds all alone; they will never know the immense joy of sitting down with your friends, burning one, and dropping the needle of a kick-ass stereo on a brand new album! And discovering it together!

I still mourn the loss of all my vinyl in a flood in '96.  CDs are sort of OK, but not only does the music sound better on vinyl, but the album art & liner notes have a greater impact at full scale, too.  And while it's true that the CD of Live/Dead has the advantage of not having to flip it in the middle of a jam, the LP was a lot better rolling tray......

Peter (who still regards "listening" to be an active practice, and still prefers both burning one and listening to music to be communal events)

[Glynn]

Interesting - there is an article in the latest Bass Guitar Magazine (now incorporating Bass Player) by Michael Manring in which he says "Life is increasingly Technical and Globally inter-connected"  He says in his article that as an artist he tries to observe what is going on around  and respond in some meaningful way.  He feels this notion went out of style in the tumult of the 20th century and art became a kind of anything goes proposition.  He then talks a lot about the technical things he does.
Not sure where I am going with this but I don't think I can subscribe to knocking the youth of today (I am 70) and getting into a vinyl vs cd discussion.  I think good music is good music whatever medium it uses to get the message over - just listen to the music and the message not the format of reproduction too much.  I bought Bob Dylan's latest CD which had no lyrics as liner notes so I downloaded the lyrics to read as I listened!  There is always a way, I feel.  If the youth of today had to rely on producing vinyl albums and getting a producer to sign them then they wouldn't stand a chance - at least they can stream and YouTube their ideas without having to jump through the hoops we did.
Glynn   

[jacko]

Like David I listen mainly to vinyl on my elite Rock mk1.  To my ears it's far superior to any modern media including a lot of CDs. I much prefer the 'occasion' of getting the LP out, cleaning it and reading the liner notes.


Graeme

[StefanieJones]

My daughter prefers going through the vinyl and finding a cool cover and checking out what's inside. We'll sit together listening.

Most of the time lately I just stream music changing stations depending on mood. Or, youtube on the laptop... when I'm not playing.

[peoplechipper]

I mostly listen to music in my workshop, doing stonesetting to Mastodon which seems crazy as I should probably pick calm music for things like that, but yeah, I listen to whole cd's and buy them regularly; I don't do streaming and while I do have an Ipod, I never put it on random, I'd rather hear an album.

[hammer]

I have to agree with everyone that at least for me there is something special about having a physical copy of the music in hand whether that be vinyl or a CD. I hate it when someone releases only on iTunes and I'll never do Spotify.


It's not the entire younger generation, however who is into instant gratification commercial crap listened to on ear buds. My son, a carpenter/musician, still has my old Thorens turntable with a 19 lb platter and JBL L100 speakers which I gifted him when he went to college (they also got me through college in the 70s). His idea of a great Saturday afternoon is to go to the Electric Fetus, an old time record shop in Minneapolis, and spend 2-3 hours looking through the used record bins for treasures that others have discarded. He's picked up a myriad a classic albums ranging from original Dylan, Dead, and Quicksilver vinyl to a whole series of recordings from the library or Congress and the National Recording Archives of some of the original blues greats including Lighting Hopkins, Robert Johnson, the Rev. Gary Davis, Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt, etc.


And yes, I also listen to entire CDs and albums in the order in which the artist intended and have always hated playlists and the random play functions of personal players,


What I miss the most is unpeeling the plastic covering of a new album, putting it on the turntable and then sitting with friends, listening to it the first time together (not through earbuds but through speakers we could all hear together) and then talking about what we had just heard. Today, if your at a music listening session with friends, everyone's plugged into their own MP3 players and no one is talking to each other (they might be texting but I'd nevertheless know).

[Glynn]

We still have our Thorens iron turntable that we bought in 1970 together with HUGE Cambridge Audio speakers that we bought at the same time (before we bought lounge furniture actually).  And then again I use Spotify Premium at £9.99 per month which I use for listening to tracks that I am asked to play in a band - I also have built up a "free" library of stuff on it including one of Buddy Rich's last performances. I intend to get the new Deep Purple album "Whoosh!" on Spotify to check it out and then I will probably order the CD jewel case.  My point being that I try not to eliminate any type of music or way of reproducing it.  Hope I succeed!
Glynn

[Glynn]

......and The Thorens still works with the same cartridge.  Do you remember how we used to do loads of research into what was the best cartridge?  They could cost a shedload and I am sure a lot of it was hype - hence ours still working after 50 years - it was a Sure of modest cost.
Glynn

[dannobasso]

I listen to music a great deal and enjoy the ease of use and clarity of digital music. I can't abide noise. Tapes To each his own. Apple has a subscription service I use and it enables me to encounter recordings of artists I don't have and to be introduced to new music by very talented artists. It is worth it for me as I download quite a lot of albums. I have just gotten back into cover band mode and do buy singles on iTunes quite a bit so I'm still feeding the machine.

Back to the original point of the discussion, yes the ritual of discovering an album and pouring over the sleeve and liner notes was a very positive and enriching practice. Even the dishwasher cleaning brush and destatic gun use before listening were all part of the process. I still vividly remember discovering Gentle Giant's Octopus album in a head shop in my town in the 70's. I can still recall the black light posters and smell the incense!

[gtrguy]

I found an Audio Technica limited edition cartridge at the Goodwill Outlet store year and a half ago which turned out to be some kind of holy grail type cartridge. I sold it on EBay for a good chunk of change! I had also found Bugle Boy, Mullard, Genelex, RCA, Sylvania, Westinghouse, etc tubes there, which I now own!
Last year I bought a used PC at the same store that had every song I had ever heard on it, plus a zillion more. The previous owner had several music subscription services and downloaded thousands of songs.
Youtube is a good source of tunes, if you have a good mp3 converter. I switched Macs and can't remember which one I used to use. Can anyone recommend one to me?

One day at that same store I came across an album from a group I used to be in there in the bins. I was pictured with the group on the back cover. Talk about a weird feeling. Like I had died and come back to earth to visit, is the only way I can describe it.

Anyway, I am rambling on...