The Changing Ways We Listen To And Collect Music

Friday is music. And a playlist. Today there's a guest playlist too - by my son, Oscar.

The way you listen to music – the way you receive it, and maybe collect it – has changed so many times already. You’ve changed formats, the formats have changed on you. Do you stop to think about that? Do you have fond memories of how it used to be, all the while happily moving on to check out new and old music in new ways only?

You might be sitting on a pile of old CDs (don’t sit on them, they’ll crack?!) or you might not ‘own’ a single thing – but your world is full of music. Do you ever stop to think about how you started consuming music and then how that has changed…

I would buy tapes based on what I heard on the radio, what I read about in music magazines – Shake, Rip It Up, Real Groove, Rolling Stone. Then I was on to Modern Drummer and Guitar World and I would get some tips for new things to try from those magazines. Friends at school would share music, and I learned about music from some of my friends. And some of them probably learned about some bands and albums from me. But it wasn’t always new music – and that’s still the case. Sometimes the best new music you hear is something that has existed for a long time but it’s new to you. That still makes it fresh.

My older brother introduced me to the ‘cool’ things, in the way that older siblings do. And of course my parents were really into music. They got me hooked on some good foundational things – jazz, blues, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Split Enz. And from there all sorts of things – from Tears For Fears and Hall & Oates to Santana and Steely Dan.

One of the ways I discovered new music was having to learn songs to play in a band – anyone who has learnt covers for a band will know that it can be the quickest way to kill a song; you like it the first time, then you really like it when you play it live and feel the reaction it gets. It’s very quickly over for you, nothing more than a chore. You do your job, people still like the song but the thrill is gone for you. There are some songs that become a real joy through playing, though; you simply cannot overplay some songs. But that’s rather rare in the learning-songs-for-a-band world.

When I started working in a music store as an evening job while at university, the record companies were keen to provide advance copies of new albums.

I started reviewing music in the very late 1990s/early 2000s. An interesting time, changeovers galore: tapes were out, vinyl was almost out, then it was coming back, but only for dance music. DVDs were replacing VHS; CDs were still huge but the internet culture was growing. Fan-forums were (briefly) fascinating places. Then they were very, very frightening. That happened quickly too.

So, a big way for me to discover new music was simply from reviewing music myself. And I continued to read music biographies and music magazines. I was still playing music in bands, so learning songs occasionally, chatting with other musicians.

I remember in the late-1990s coming home one day to find out that a friend of a flatmate had helped himself to my computer – it was sorta “the flat computer” and had installed something called Napster – he was playing Eminem remixes. More than we ever needed…

I started buying LPs in the mid-90s, on the back of inheriting a collection’s worth. I was running tapes (in my car only by then) and thousands of CDs. I was buying music every week…

Then the advance copies really slowed down. Even for reviewers. It didn’t take long – 2002-2006 – and the reviewer was not among the first to receive the album. Music stores still got some advance copies, but that had slowed down too. Sometimes reviewers got the jump still, but more often it was about playing catch-up. Particularly, living in Wellington. The music industry in New Zealand, when there was one, was run out of Auckland and the record companies never cared about Wellington. Auckland would get the first crack – a reviewer in Auckland might be invited up to the record company’s building to listen to a special advance. In Wellington we would be sent it after it had been in the shops.

Streaming kicked in big time – at first I was uninterested, beyond the advance-copy links I would be sent. I was uninterested not because of any moral stance, because I was still receiving more music than I could work through.

But then that stopped.

Spotify is evil. People tell you that on Twitter and Facebook. Sometimes they stop to point out that the platforms they’re shouting from are also evil. It doesn’t tend to stop many.

I was corrupted long ago – receiving more free music than I could ever know what to do with, and driving myself slowly mad by still attempting to process almost all of it. So I’m not the right person to have the big moral stance here. I love Spotify’s ease and availability. But it’s not the best.

YouTube is my favourite site, my favourite place for music.

And I’m becoming more and more a fan of Bandcamp. Now that I’m not that much of a music reviewer I do really love paying for music. Of course I was always buying it – in stores and at gigs – but I also love the curation of making a collection; even an online collection. My Bandcamp selection of music is a specific thing. It’s for me. And it’s largely things I’ll never find elsewhere, or its digital copies of favourite albums I already own on vinyl.

I’m now able to actually organise my record collection, according to genre – and then chronologically within artists. It’s small enough, now, for me to have it in some shape, some order.

Tapes are gone. I’m giving up. The hipster revival of the cassette tape – or the attempt at it – misses the point so enormously that I’m embarrassed to be any sort of cassette owner. So I gave away my tape-player and ditched my tapes.

I have happy memories of making tapes, of collecting music on that format. But I don’t need to dial up that memory through pantomime. I can just access the music in any other way and remember happy times with good tunes.

CDs – as I said recently have been making a comeback in my life, but only because I’ve gone gaga for soundtracks.

It's never been easier to get music – to have it, regardless of whether you actually ‘hold it’ or not. But my favourite way – still and always – is the recommendation. And the ‘mixtape’ or curated playlist.

This week my son Oscar (he’s 10) made me a playlist of Kanye West’s greatest hits (Oscar’s own selection). He was worried I wasn’t giving Kanye enough of a chance; enough listening time. So he offered to make me a playlist. Sure, I said. Go for it. I listened – and…well, it’s very good. A nice reminder to me that Kanye used to be great and sometimes still can be. But he’s so thoroughly unhinged and unlikeable as a person that it’s hard to care. He doesn’t feel like someone deserving of fandom.

I love that Oscar is introducing music to me – or reintroducing. I did point out that I’d actually seen Kanye West live.

“Dad?! Why didn’t you say?! How was it!?”

I walked out before it finished. I couldn’t take the lecture via autotune. But it had a couple of moments. And a banging opening set by Nas.

I also got one of them fancy advance copies of Kanye’s debut. Way back in the early days of being a freelance newspaper hack.

But I love that Oscar’s language for music is already there, a total facility in fact – as he’s now looking to hook people in. Just as he was hooked. Just as I was. I love that so much. When I was his age I was still taping music off the radio, listening back to it – with all of the ads and news-readings included. No hope of turning anyone else onto any real discoveries.

I was reminiscing with a friend just this week about how making tapes still feels authentic and legendary. Whereas burning CDs feels dirty and weak and strangely every bit as dated as making tapes, maybe even more so - somehow. It’s weird how that happened. The ripped CD being loaded into iTunes and all the track info coming up. It was such a revelation.

And then it wasn’t.

Let me know what you think of the Kanye playlist.

And let me know how you’re listening to music these days? What’s your preferred medium? Maybe chuck in the comments an artist for me to listen to. And I’ll check it out. (And probably report back).

I’m also well pleased with this week’s entry into A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good! (But then I always say that). We’re up to Vol. 77.

Happy weekend to you and yours.