>Wouldn’t a music obsessive like yourself have loved having the same choices that listeners have now?
Again, I’m not saying mine was a better era, but a lot of the music I ended up really loving was because I spent nine bucks on an album and that meant I had to listen to it and figure it out.
This is one of the biggest changes for me. As a kid when I was a kid getting an album was RARE. I inherited a ton of cassettes and 8-tracks from my dad. And I listened and listened and listened until I'd heard and knew every minute detail of every track.
These days it's rare for me to give an album more than a couple listens unless it's something that REALLY stands out.
Agreed. I think the rise in sales of vinyl is a (small but visible) rejection of today's passive consumption of music. People still see value in actively experiencing albums, and are turning to vinyl for that.
I find a lot of new bands and albums through Spotify and YouTube (and last.fm before that), and I listen to them repeatedly just like the old mix tapes from friends that I started out with back in the day.
I think this kind of deep inspection of an artist or album is something that certain people do regardless of the availability of music.
I think the deep inspection of an artist or album still happens as you suggest, it's just over a more condensed time frame.
I'd have a single CD sit in my stereo for months when I was a teen and I'd listen to it over and over, but only when I was home. Now that I take my whole music collection and an internet connection with me wherever I go, I find I'll rinse out a new interesting artist while at work/home/commuting for a few days or weeks, depending on the amount of music they've published, buy a few of their best tracks, and then they graduate to my collection to be revisited occasionally.
In effect they get as much airtime as when I played a CD repeatedly, just over a shorter span of days thanks to how portable and accessible music has become. Music is so accessible I can even explore a sizeable chunk of an interesting sub-genre on Soundcloud over a period of days. I'm truly spoiled.
This is one of the biggest changes for me. As a kid when I was a kid getting an album was RARE. I inherited a ton of cassettes and 8-tracks from my dad. And I listened and listened and listened until I'd heard and knew every minute detail of every track.
These days it's rare for me to give an album more than a couple listens unless it's something that REALLY stands out.