Music downloading creates listener apathy

[Jason]

Music downloading creates listener apathy?

BULLmerda!

A good 25% of my music was downloaded (legally) and I like it just as much as my CDs. I'm sorry, but these people don't know what they're talking about.

[dogbreath]

It's the results of their research, not an opinion. Maybe if they'd included more people like the defenders of MP3 downloading posting in this thread, their results would have been different.

For me, the ideal went this way:

1 The Buzz. You heard something on the radio, or your friends talked it up, or you read something about it. Just the teaser to excite you. WTF was that?!

2 The Hunt. You tracked it down. Not always easy nor obvious. Whatever it was that I wanted was always, coincidentally, the hardest to get. I had to order it from someone who'd never heard of it.

3 The Wait ... maybe you read some more, heard some more ... the anticipation mounts ...

4 Carrying it Home. Yay! You could look at the sleeve on the bus, and wonder what kind of amazing the music was. Drool time. Looking at the grooves in the vinyl for clues, dead wax messages ...

5 The First Spin. Set aside an hour. Get some mates round. Slap it on the deck and let it spin ...

ALL of this was pleasurable, and had a real element of cultural definition and bonding (excuse my pretension - hope you know what I mean - something rich and resonant in addition to the music). If the music is just an idly curious click away ... I dunno. It's not the same, that's for sure.

I'm still playing albums I bought 35 years ago. I doubt I'll still be playing today's download (an interesting one, BTW) in five years' time.

[mark goddard]

i don't own a ipod either and very rarely download stuff..back in the summer i downloaded the new Ric Ocasek cd from a guy who recieved a promo copy. Played it for months and when the cd was released i bought it put it on my stereo and it was like hearing a totally different album. Much more depth and the bass was more distinctive i enjoyed it far more than the mp3 version.....i don't think people can download ' A Love Supreme " and listen to it as MP3's you are not gonna hear they way the album was meant to be heard. Rudy Van Gelder didn't engineer this album back in 1964 so future generations could compress the crap out of it and listen to it thru tiny Q-tip like headphones ?

[Matinee Idyll]

It's the results of their research, not an opinion. Maybe if they'd included more people like the defenders of MP3 downloading posting in this thread, their results would have been different.

For me, the ideal went this way:

1 The Buzz. You heard something on the radio, or your friends talked it up, or you read something about it. Just the teaser to excite you. WTF was that?!

2 The Hunt. You tracked it down. Not always easy nor obvious. Whatever it was that I wanted was always, coincidentally, the hardest to get. I had to order it from someone who'd never heard of it.

3 The Wait ... maybe you read some more, heard some more ... the anticipation mounts ...

4 Carrying it Home. Yay! You could look at the sleeve on the bus, and wonder what kind of amazing the music was. Drool time. Looking at the grooves in the vinyl for clues, dead wax messages ...

5 The First Spin. Set aside an hour. Get some mates round. Slap it on the deck and let it spin ...

ALL of this was pleasurable, and had a real element of cultural definition and bonding (excuse my pretension - hope you know what I mean - something rich and resonant in addition to the music). If the music is just an idly curious click away ... I dunno. It's not the same, that's for sure.

I'm still playing albums I bought 35 years ago. I doubt I'll still be playing today's download (an interesting one, BTW) in five years' time.

Beautiful post man.

[mark goddard]

That's a great post.......i have a client who comes over for Photo shoot's and he is alway's talking up his I-pod . He keep's telling me i should get one and download all my music onto it .I have over 3,000 cd's ...by the time i did this i would be dead. Also i don't find it very difficult to walk over to my cd's and search my collection , which is catergorized by genre and alphabetical !  I guess if i commuted on a train i would look into this , but by no means would i substitute listening to my cd's/ vinyl with MP3's on a full time basis.

[Fire Wind]

Does anyone worry about their ears with these things?  Like, I remember a news report not too long ago, saying how young folk are messing up their hearing for their later years.  That's one of the things that kinda puts me off.  Isn't there a difference between the volume of Ipods and traditional walkman's/portable cd players?

[Evenreven]

It's the results of their research, not an opinion. Maybe if they'd included more people like the defenders of MP3 downloading posting in this thread, their results would have been different.

Which makes it not that much better than an opinion. Research in areas like "consumer behaviour" and the like has been dodgy, to say the least. I'm majoring in media studies myself, and I tend to take what psychologists say about media with kilos of salt. It'd be interesting to read the entire report, maybe I'll do that.

[Mitchell]

Actually, I recently was in a crisis situation where my iPod was unavailable, my portable CD player was unavailable, and all I could use was my trusty old walkman, er, portable cassette player (good thing I hadn't thrown it away or I might have had to go unentertained and *gasp* face the public for a change). Well, let me tell you, the sound was garbage because there was so much hiss. In order to actually hear the music I had to turn it way up, which just made the hiss worse. As for iPods, well, I imagine that if people play them too loud (I can see this being a problem with the tinny bud headphones) they could cause a problem, but this is the same as anything concerning music. To quote a weezer slogan: If it's too loud, turn it down!

[dogbreath]

"Which makes it not that much better than an opinion."

Well, I dunno if it's better or worse. It's something else. Research tries to be objective, and an opinion can only be by definition subjective. Non?

[Evenreven]

"Which makes it not that much better than an opinion."

Well, I dunno if it's better or worse. It's something else.

Well, both bad research and hidden agendas are worse than opinions.

Research tries to be objective, and an opinion can only be by definition subjective. Non?

Emphasis on "tries".

I see what you're saying, it's just this particular branch of research has been full of hack researchers - often very conservative and with slack definitions of what is valid and reliable. Of course that the media often takes what is called a "tendency" or similar in the report and call it  "conclusive evidence" doesn't really help.

[TV Forces]

Just like some of you fine folks, I don't own an iPOD and have no intention of getting one.  My collection consists of maybe 900 cd's and I don't have a problem finding what I need.  I drive 80 minutes a day (total) with work and if I had 1,000+ songs at my disposal, I'd be all over the place.  Now in the morning I take a disc or two with me, and return it to it's alphabetical slot on my shelf when I come home.

I know people that really care less about music.  iPOD's are about collecting.  My friend downloaded something like 30,000 mp3's, burned them to discs, and put them in the garage!  He never listens to anything.  It's about shocking people with an absurd number.  My friend Jason bought an iPOD for what I will deem a good reason.  He's in the navy and was taking a 6 month tour of duty.  Poor guy is stuck on a navy ship from September to this coming March.  So him getting one makes perfect sense.  But I can't justify such a purchase just because it's what everyone else is doing.

[Fire Wind]

As for iPods, well, I imagine that if people play them too loud (I can see this being a problem with the tinny bud headphones) they could cause a problem, but this is the same as anything concerning music. To quote a weezer slogan: If it's too loud, turn it down!

Yeah, they were talking about ipods in particular, but newspapers can be fuzzy on the details.  The weezer quote makes sense though.  I put my fingers in my ears sometimes when the tube train gets too loud, which is also what the news once suggested.

[dogbreath]

"Well, both bad research and hidden agendas are worse than opinions."

That's your opinion, of course.

As to MP3s, I think it's the lack of something tangible that can lead "one" (not saying "you", see) to undervalue the music., rather than the ease of acquiring it.

And that's my opinion.

[Jeff Mason]

I have an IRiver MP3 player with 500MB flash fixed memory.  And I use it for one thing -- listening while exercising or doing chores.  When you have kids, you get listening time in when you can.  MP3 files are great for that.  I would not want to see my whole collection reduced to that, though.

And I will hang on to my DVDs even once we get into movie downloads on demand as well.

[Boxer Monkey]

Just like some of you fine folks, I don't own an iPOD and have no intention of getting one.  My collection consists of maybe 900 cd's and I don't have a problem finding what I need.  I drive 80 minutes a day (total) with work and if I had 1,000+ songs at my disposal, I'd be all over the place.  Now in the morning I take a disc or two with me, and return it to it's alphabetical slot on my shelf when I come home.

I know people that really care less about music.  iPOD's are about collecting.  My friend downloaded something like 30,000 mp3's, burned them to discs, and put them in the garage!  He never listens to anything.  It's about shocking people with an absurd number.  My friend Jason bought an iPOD for what I will deem a good reason.  He's in the navy and was taking a 6 month tour of duty.  Poor guy is stuck on a navy ship from September to this coming March.  So him getting one makes perfect sense.  But I can't justify such a purchase just because it's what everyone else is doing.

That's basically how I operate, too. I have a LOT of music already. I think if I had all those titles via an iPod, I'd be overwhelmed. It's enough of a decision-making flummox for me to spend the 20 minutes I usually do to grab the one or two albums I take with me in the car.  (Women have left me over this!) But I like the fact that I settle in with just those one or two albums. It's not about constantly shuffling. I can't consume music in bulk. It's just ... excessive to me. But if I were commuting to the coast on a regular basis or something -- I mean, there are definite virtues to owning an iPod. But I take umbrage with the hyper-prevalent and continuing insistence that I *NEED* to own one or that I'm somehow less serious or "pro" or not modern enough about my love for music by not having an iPod. From pod people to iPod people, the addition of that slender letter isn't much of a stretch for me.


"You must ... own an iPod ...  essential consumer item ...you are incomplete without one ... "

[Chris D.]

It's enough of a decision-making flummox for me to spend the 20 minutes I usually do to grab the one or two albums I take with me in the car.  (Women have left me over this!)

Haha, yes!  That's me.  No one ever left me over it...I've actually gotten more positive comments.  I know what you mean, though.

That picture is fucking hilarious, thanks to your caption, of course.

[Toby]

My daughter "roots through" my iPod the same way she would root through a stack of vinyl. Finds cool stuff, listens to it over and over again, just like in previous generations.

There isn't the LEAST bit of luddite crankiness involved here, is there? 

I agree with the folks above -- there's no difference. About 50% of my music right now is purely downloaded and I still have a major emotional investment in it. I still love to buy things at the store, I still shop at record stores, but I do a lotta downloading, and I've found plenty of gems that have become staples of my listening collection online.

Oh My God - - - Jon made a smiley!

[sugarandspice]

  Me personally,  being able to  download music has made if possible for my hubby and myself to hear all kinds of sh*t that we might not nessescarilly hear ptherwise.. Plus I am more apt to buy the records, or go to shows and support the artists I love that way, and  download sh*t to listen to on cd... TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR VINYL!!!!

[Matinee Idyll]

I know people that really care less about music.  iPOD's are about collecting.  My friend downloaded something like 30,000 mp3's, burned them to discs, and put them in the garage!  He never listens to anything.  It's about shocking people with an absurd number.  

Same with a friend of mine, he's got upwards of 5000 songs on his computer in mp3... I checked the playcount, and roughly only a quarter had actually been listened to.

[dogbreath]

While we're all here, you might as well open a new window, click through to here:

http://azfad.blogspot.com/

- and download the Outsiders' album CQ in all its headbursting glory. (Then you can download the Beefheart gem, if you don't already have it).

It's not like owning the vinyl, but it's the next best thing!

[Don't Back Down]

Does anyone worry about their ears with these things?  Like, I remember a news report not too long ago, saying how young folk are messing up their hearing for their later years.  That's one of the things that kinda puts me off.  Isn't there a difference between the volume of Ipods and traditional walkman's/portable cd players?

I'm sort of worried about my ears after getting an iPod Nano w/a hard case. I guess I just have to be careful of the volume range.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

You can't go deaf *just* from listening to music via those things. You probably could if you sat there with it blasting every single day. You'd not go deaf but probably lose some hearing and develop some nasty Tinnitus.

I agree somewhat with the article. I know personally that I have a different relationship between something i've bought with earned money, and something i've attained without any effort at all.

If quality music is made then it will be appreciated in any format. Though, holding something in your hands always feels better to me than opening a folder on a computer with an album.

[Mitchell]

Same with a friend of mine, he's got upwards of 5000 songs on his computer in mp3... I checked the playcount, and roughly only a quarter had actually been listened to.

That's me, too. One reason is I'm still obsessed with the Beach Boys, Spector and other 60s stuff and listen to the same songs/albums over and over instead of always playing new things I've not heard before (i.e., all the music my friend gave me).

[GP1138]

Naysayers, just remember. For every ten people that own an iPod because it's a status symbol and to collect music and never listen to it, there's that one guy who collects as much music as he can and actually listens to a good majority of it, like I do. It's rather insulting to be told that I don't know how to listen to music properly.

[Evenreven]

Naysayers, just remember. For every ten people that own an iPod because it's a status symbol and to collect music and never listen to it, there's that one guy who collects as much music as he can and actually listens to a good majority of it, like I do. It's rather insulting to be told that I don't know how to listen to music properly.

Word. Thanks, John.
There's a lot of reactionary overgeneralisations in this thread. Can we please stop this "a friend of mine has one trillion songs and never listens to any of them!" crap? Please?