I feel like music used to play a much more important role in my life. Most of you reading this will probably be old enough to remember a time when recorded music existed only as physical media. Whether it was in the form of CDs, cassettes or vinyl records, if you were going to listen to music, you had to own a physical copy of it.
That all gave way to the digital streaming model, which has been firmly in place for some time now. While I am certainly happy with many of the new digital streaming offerings, I find myself getting nostalgic for a time before all of the world was available on demand.
I now use Apple Music and can stream any song or album I like from a library of something like 90 million available songs. Spotify, Amazon, or any of the other services offer about the same. I can have absolutely any music I want to hear, at any time or place, instantly.
I kind of hate it.
It's a funny thing, but having the ability to conjure literally anything, any time, makes everything suddenly seem less appealing.
I was a kid in the 90's and a teenager in the early 2000s. We grew up on cassettes and CD’s and were around for the advent of the MP3 player, Napster, and the digital music revolution. But even with the ability to download any song or album you wanted (along with every piece of malware in existence) onto your personal computer via Limewire, you were still limited to what you chose to download. You had to deliberately seek out and acquire the music you wanted to listen to. I think the lack of that deliberate action is the key factor in the dissatisfaction with current models I am describing.
When all the world is placed before you, it sort of short circuits your brain's natural propensity to place value on anything. No scarcity? No reason to care about any particular resource.
We've seen this in other forms of media as well. How many times have you spent an hour flicking through Prime Video or Netflix looking for something, anything to stand out or seem appealing enough that you're actually willing to watch it? I've found myself spending more than an hour just dismissing movies I wasn't interested in, only to then end up not watching anything at all.
Building a watchlist becomes my primary interaction with these services, not actually watching anything.
For those old enough to remember video rental places like Blockbuster, do you remember ever feeling this way? Did you ever once go just to look at what was on offer and then leave? Would you have paid for the privilege? Why then do we have such a bored reaction to an infinitely larger amount of options?
Like Roman Emperors, we're having every form of entertainment brought before us and our reaction is to yawn and send for more wine.
I certainly didn't always feel this way. When I was a teenager working various jobs, I would cash my meager paycheck each week and head directly to CD Warehouse. For those who may not have had one near them, CD Warehouse was a buy-sell-trade used CD store. You could find new and gently used CDs for dirt cheap prices. I would usually find something I was familiar with and then maybe gamble a few dollars on something that looked interesting. Often it wasn't great, but occasionally you'd find gold and be turned on to a new band or genre and get to have the fun of exploring that new rabbit-hole.
Musical rabbit-holes were different then too though, as you could only proceed a little bit at a time as you collected more music in that vein and gradually developed your own musical taste. This model of discovery was rewarding not only because of the music itself but because it included the element of the hunt.
Hunting for the next piece in what felt like a puzzle that you were slowly putting together. That was a huge part of the joy of discovering and appreciating the music along the way.
The thing about being restricted to the music you owned physically, was that it forced you to actually listen. If you wanted to listen to anything at all, it would be something from your own library. The contents of that black faux-leather CD book were the beginning and end of your musical choices.
You would become very familiar with the albums you owned. Every track of every album was listened to dozens, even hundreds of times. For those albums you really cared about, every subtle note or phrase or fade into the next song would be something you analyzed and appreciated.
Your music would become a part of your consciousness in a very real way. You would be imprinting memories of a time period, a relationship, or a moment in your life onto those songs or albums. Hear the right song even now and it will transport you back to those moments in a way that can be so vivid and immediate that it is startling. There was power in it.
The attachment to the albums you owned wasn't purely in the music itself, either. With physical media came unique packaging. Album art, booklets with lyrics and photographs, occasionally a fold-out poster or some other novelty would be included. I cannot begin to count the hours I spent poring over the liner notes and lyric compilations in these booklets. Lame booklets without lyrics or cool pictures and art were a huge disappointment. It gave a new dimension to the music itself that you could touch and see in a tactile way that can't be replicated by any amount of digital dressing within an app. The type of associative memory that sticks with you long after the fact.
So now we have instant access to almost every piece of music ever recorded. Surely we've entered a golden age of music appreciation?
You'd think so, and maybe for some people that is true. Myself? Not so much.
I try to convince myself that I'm going to start broadening my horizons and sampling new and interesting music. I'll follow or create extensive playlists that explore genres I'm unfamiliar with. I will carefully craft playlists full of songs I'm sure I will want to listen to on my commute or while working on something time-consuming. I will spend a significant amount of time putting these playlists together. Carefully considering which songs deserve inclusion and which should be dismissed.
I will never actually listen to any of it.
I have one rolling playlist I inevitably choose. It's full of the same stuff I've always listened to. I'm tired of every song on it.
To give you an idea of how that looks in practice, I'll give you a quick play-by-play of a typical morning drive.
My current morning routine:
Get in the car, get settled and head out for work...
Music connected via bluetooth...
OK...Shuffle.
Skip...
Skip...
Sigh...no...Skip...
Skip...
Skip...
Good song, not enough energy...Skip...
Skip...
Skip...
The weather isn't right for this one...Skip...
Skip...
Too much energy...Skip...
Skip...
Skip...
Getting close to work now...
Haven't actually listened to a full song yet...
...
Alright I can skip three more times and that's it...
...
After that, whatever plays, plays...
Skip...
Skip...
Skip...
Of course it lands on this...
...
Fine...whatever...
...
Park.
Go inside.
A very rewarding listening experience, no?
I think the endless supply of literally everything ever recorded has me caught in some kind of customization loop. I now have the ability to curate the perfect listening experience for any situation.
Unfortunately due to my internal wiring, I now feel obligated to curate the perfect listening experience for any situation. So now, if a song or album isn't exactly what I want at that moment, something is wrong. Now there's a problem, or at least an annoyance. I can't just relax and let it all play as it will. No, I have to make an adjustment, and another and another.
This has all made an oddly anxiety-inducing chore out of something that used to be effortless and fun.
Imagine you have just gotten out of a stable and long term relationship with someone you were intimately familiar with and who you loved and accepted despite their flaws or shortcomings. Now imagine yourself in a new and confusing relationship with someone who is definitely impressive and beautiful, but whose neediness and high-maintenance demands are making you miserable and driving you insane.
This is how modern streaming models have made me feel about the things I once enjoyed.
The ready availability of literally anything and everything we want is not a natural state of being for humans. Adapting to this in a healthy way may be a central issue of our time. When entertainment options have become a cause for stress in our lives and not a welcome distraction, we have entered new and confusing territory.
I think discipline and a deliberate approach to the choices we make in our media consumption will ultimately be the solution to the endless vacillating over infinite choices. I have not yet been successful in developing that discipline.
I'm left wondering if we were better adjusted when these forms of media didn't exist, or if we would have reacted the same way then as we do now. Did streaming media change us, or has this abundance simply enabled something that was always there? Either way, we've lost something special.
Oh, I love CDs, I miss CDs. I had so many…fake black leather albums full, their well loved cases lined up on shelves. I digitally copied all my music and then stupidly got rid of the hard copies due to lack of space in my home. I can’t tell you how often I’ve wished to have them back. They were a whole experience, just like you said, the art, the lyrics, the order of the songs. I used to save my money to spend on music, too. I treasured them. I do not treasure any newly downloaded music the same way.
I agree with this:
“When all the world is placed before you, it sort of short circuits your brain's natural propensity to place value on anything. No scarcity? No reason to care about any particular resource. “
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one feeling this way, thank you for sharing.
I think another factor is that our ears (or our brains) get tired listening to digitally-compressed music. It just makes me feel *weary* sometimes.
I enjoy Spotify, but sometimes the algorithmically-picked choices get monotonous.
One of my favorite ways to hear music is good old-fashioned terrestrial radio. I’ve been exposed to so much amazing music listening to my town’s college radio station. I even fulfilled a dream and DJ’d my own show for four years.
When a knowledgeable, enthusiastic human being is picking out the music, it sometimes is pure magic.
Deregulation and automation started taking this magic away from us years ago. Does anyone really *like* Jack FM?