playtimes of good recording

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Been listening many old, previously listened recordings - as opposed to tons of yet unplayed releases. In some cases, you listen release once, and even if it feels great, there doesn't seem much urge or need to return it. At least not immediately. This goes to quite a lot of music.

The sheer volume of output of a lot of artists and the massive capacity of releases (like huge box-sets) makes you wonder have things changed during the years? Is a lot of noise already designed to be listened merely once - if that? Like sets of multiple CDR's, with playing time of several hours. Like in case of wall noise. How many times it can be listened, and is it supposed to be good only once, but perhaps no reason to go through it again when the goodness perhaps lies on the surface level which is absorded on first take?

I hear a lot of metal bands I consider pretty good. But fail to remember any of their riffs. Some older releases you remember every turn what songs make, and even the solos from first to last note. Many noise releases what sound like guaranteed job for noisehead, yet recollections of release are vague and distant, unless I have seriously sat down and wrote something about it. Then there are recordings which I return much more frequently. Or atleast give them multiple playingtimes instantly since it sounded so good.

Is once or twice enough? Is good release really good, if it won't lure you for another listening?

I have a friend, who's way of keeping his CD collection in order is that on regular basis he goes through every disc of collection. If he feels like he doesn't want to listen some disc today, he'll put it for sale. Meaning, collection consist only items what he could listen any day, any time. To me, it seems pretty harsh measure (considering my own listening habits based simply on mood. And certain mood may happen only once a year..), yet also logical. Only recently, I have finally come to terms of actually starting to sell away items of my own collection. Looking at release (predominantly CDR) and thinking is this good, and if it is, will I listen to it. When such decision is made, it's also easy to be much more critical in first place. Do I need to own item, if I'd only listen it once? Do I need to hunt some limited item, if it's something that'll be absorded fully in first 5 minutes of playingtime and rest feels good- yet giving nothing "special" (referring to for example drone or wall noise).

[tisbor]

Some old stuff you listened since forever maybe just feels more secure and comfortable - so you keep going back to it , as it always strikes a chord .
You just need time and more spins to get used to new "classics" !

No doubt that these classics are rare to come out now as ever before  , though .

[catharticprocess]

There are very few releases I own that I think are really good and I don't listen to often. The Hafler Trio is one of them. So is Nurse With Wound, and older Dave Phillips and other Schimpfluct Grupe stuff. Most other stuff either gets many repeat listens or is in a big box of stuff I'm selling. Most releases I've heard that have come out in the last decade weren't even worth the first listen, and definitely won't ever be listened to again.

[ConcreteMascara]

It's funny I was just going to start a thread related to this. But I'll post first in regards to the issue it hand.

I'd agree with Tisbor that many releases that you have the longest tend to become comfortable and you develop sense of knowledge and base of experience around them. In that way they provide more than just music, at least for me. I think also when getting into a new genre or even subgenre/style there's a tendency to sort of revere and return to the albums you first really enjoy or that at least peak your curiosity. As you hear more and more in that style I feel like it becomes easier to digest the music but also it makes much of it less memorable. It's like constant submersion in a style sort of makes you more numb to it.
But I think that's also why the really good releases stick out so much more. Sort of jolt you from your expectations. Then again some things take time to reveal themselves. When I return to electronic groups like Autechre now I can hear a whole new range of sounds and melodies that had just blended in previously.
So I think as collections expand, its harder to get back and re-examine something that could reveal itself as gem after a while. So I try not to be too hasty in picking things up or selling them. I feel like its worth missing out on limited cassettes/7"s/cd-rs etc if I get to spend more time with what I've already got. Personally I'm not into downloading so it can be frustrating when you miss things and have little chance to get them again, but if you've got records you love already its not so bad.

[Max]

with many noise records - i regret to say - much of the punch is lost after one listen. i don't know what it is, but many times i've picked an album from the shelf remembering it to be fucking intense, then putting it on and wondering what happened: why am i not getting the same "kick" out of this as the first time? it's still okay, but i'd rather pop in some actual classic release or give something new a spin.

maybe it's the same effect as with porn (relationship) ? the same piece of video (ass) doesn't get your dick hard the same way after a few times?

[Zeno Marx]

I wrote something about this on the other board in December of last year.

... recordings I've listened to once or twice, but one or two dedicated listening experiences that yield great satisfaction are fine for me, ...

Excellent point.  I feel the same way.
Some albums are like a live experience for me.  Since you really can never relive (fully) a live show, does it lose value?  I know it's not not exactly the same, but in a way it could be.  Sometimes a piece is perfect for one specific moment and then it's gone, left only for memories.

This is how much of my music listening today plays out.  I don't know if it is because I listen to an enormous amount of live recordings, so much so that I can't always listen to them more than once or twice, or if my attention span has changed.  I tend to think it is more greatly related to the former.  I've always had recordings that the listening experience is so coveted that I "save" them.  I don't want to over-listen to them inasmuch as the number of times heard.  Not only can these recordings create such special moments in intensity, so they resonate clearly for great lengths of time, but also because I've listened to them intensely, leaving me with a clear memory.  I think it matters how you listen to music as well.  I key into atmospheres and tonality moreso than anything else.  I don't need twenty listens to meld into that atmosphere, though it can certainly change over time.

So, yes, listening to recorded music has become like a live listening experience in many ways.  My processing, relationship, and recollection of recorded music definitely closer resembles live listening than it ever has.  It's interesting that other people feel similarly and describe their listening as such, not that what I do is so unique, but because I've wondered for a couple years now, for various reasons (limited time, number of releases, shortening attention spans), if listening has changed in this way.  Certain musics are more readily adaptable to this idea, obviously.  It's such a great difference to the days of listening to an album over and over and over again, studying every nook and cranny.  The listening was almost like a studio process.  Having lived in both environments, I don't find the processes, or results, to be just a matter of semantics.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I guess this have also something to do with mp3 (or other files), am I right? I would think availability of listening files online is like radio or live show. You listen what is available and that's it.

This was partially the question, and perhaps the more important part: I think many people now record "jams". They capture some mood/performance/sound diary. Something knowingly "imperfect" and spontaneous. What others will take a listen. Once. Or perhaps twice. Exactly like live experience. It can be good, but many times after you've seen same set played several times, it's not interesting anymore.

And I would think most of old noise wasn't just a jam, but "album" with more to it? Perhaps with higher aims.
If there is availability of cheap one-time-experiences, it would seem like good thing. The point of actually owning something you will never listen would be small. And perhaps even more so, if it's complicated and expensive to do?

I do struggle with this question, but in the end, I know that during my life when I sold stuff, very often I later wanted to hear it again. And regretted selling things away. So if I hear something very good, I tend to like to keep it even when possibility of new listening is small - at least in near future.

And MAX - you got it all wrong. Great porn is great even when it's watched multiple times!

[Human Larvae]

many a times have a stumbled over some old song I hadn't heard for years remembering it being fucking great, getting goosebumps alls over. Then I listen to it and it hardly feels as good as back then. Which made me wonder if there was such a thing as the "best song in the world" that just never lost intensity. Probably just a myth.
And when ever I sold a cd in the past, I always regretted it at some point, wanting to listen to it again, even just to see if it was really that bad. So I stopped selling stuff.
Good noise tracks that really stick are harder to come by, than any other music genre. I could name 3 spontaneously:

Incapacitants - yellow silk buddha
Merzbow - cannibalism of machine
Bizarre uproar -      Ei Enää Äpäriä

the last two tracks are opening tracks, where I can't remember what the rest of the tracks sound like, but those stuck with me.
Mp3 files do play a role as well. Since nearly everyone has tons of albums they downloaded, it waters down the listening experience.
I definitely prefer constructed, theme based albums to "jams". I find them much more captivating.

[Zeno Marx]

I guess this have also something to do with mp3 (or other files), am I right? I would think availability of listening files online is like radio or live show. You listen what is available and that's it.

This was directed to whom?  Or just everyone?

[Andrew McIntosh]

A lot of this comes down to the way an individual listens to music/Noise; the circumstances, the reasons, the reactions, etc. And you'd have to really not know yourself to think your tastes wont change over the years.

My own method, such as it is, is to really give as good a go as possible to something new in the hopes that it'll be something I like. I don't like to deprive myself of pleasure and I feel that at least one, decent listen is not too much to ask for, for any new project/recording I encounter. This comes from doing reviews over the years. So, it's very seldom I'll piss something off after a few minutes; it'll have to be really bad, to my ears, for me to do that. Because of this, I like to think I can honestly say I don't care for "X" project or recording, because I've given it the time of day.
But, unlike other people on this board, I'm not inundated with new material every week. I don't run a label so I don't get parcels of every new project trying to establish themselves (I'm pretty much in that category myself, anyway), and I try to be as selective as possible in purchasing because I don't like to waste what little money I've got and I don't like the idea of buying something I wont want later in life. So, I can afford, perhaps, to be more lenient with material that's new to me.

[mystikum]

for me, right now, it is really only a monetary issue.  Generally, I try to keep those releases I like to listen to, and sell what I don't listen to so often. 

In the past I would say I was a bit of a pack rat, never wanting to let go of items.  But, for example, just the other day, I was going through my collection and realized I had records I had not listened to in 3 years, pretty silly to keep it.

I think I maintain a decent library of music.  If I had better cash flow, I might not be so concerned with it.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I guess this have also something to do with mp3 (or other files), am I right? I would think availability of listening files online is like radio or live show. You listen what is available and that's it.

This was directed to whom?  Or just everyone?

It was most of all to you, although anyone can reply if they feel like it. Not attached any moral about should one or shouldn't one listen files, just pointing the lack of physical format may give it more of the radio or live show feeling, and allows to be experienced that way?   ... while for example investing XXX$ to SPK LP box-set wouldn't really be wise if it's just for going once through?

I do have shitloads of boxes, which I think are meant to be pretty much listened once. And in many cases, I have yet to do even that! This consist also many big names, from Merzbow to TG to Haters..

[Max]

And MAX - you got it all wrong. Great porn is great even when it's watched multiple times!

GREAT porn perhaps is, but GOOD porn isn't. great doesn't stop being great, but good can drop to being just okay.

for example: "tapes" by HIJOKAIDAN is always superrior, could be compared to your favourite video piece of nasty assflogging which always excites you. the new GOVERNMENT ALPHA tape ("soft drugs", i think was the name) can be good, but after maybe two listens you'll rather go back to "sporadic spectra" than the new tape. just like after the first sensation of "new" is gone in a mediocre porn, you'd rather watch something new or go back to a classic.

[ConcreteMascara]

I'd like to agree with what Zeno Marx that there are definitely some recordings I save to give them that added impact. Some things are just too special to listen to everyday or even every week.

[Zeno Marx]

I guess this have also something to do with mp3 (or other files), am I right? I would think availability of listening files online is like radio or live show. You listen what is available and that's it.

This was directed to whom?  Or just everyone?

It was most of all to you, although anyone can reply if they feel like it. Not attached any moral about should one or shouldn't one listen files, just pointing the lack of physical format may give it more of the radio or live show feeling, and allows to be experienced that way?   ... while for example investing XXX$ to SPK LP box-set wouldn't really be wise if it's just for going once through?

What I wrote applies to all my listening, be it from files or hard copy.  At this point, speaking for myself, I find very little difference, if any at all, between files and hard copy.  I approach them the same way.  I experience the music the same way.  There's no chasm in psychology between the two.  I don't find more joy or value in an LP over a FLAC set.  I very, very rarely listen to MP3s.  Files are almost exclusively lossless running through my full stereo.  The computer has been a component of my stereo system for a long time.

I have cut way, way back on buying certain types of music because of what I wrote.  The first listen provides 90% of the listening value I can ever mine from it, so like you said, it is a waste of money to invest in music of that nature.  Such an LP/cassette/CD becomes more like a reference tool rather than a primary listening experience.   Like adding another volume to an encyclopedia set rather than exposure to a pure musical experience.  I don't have the space or cash for such and endeavor.  I'm not sure how I can better explain it.  Hopefully, that makes some sense.

EDIT:  I realized I might not have answered you in full.  Nearly everything you can imagine is eventually available lossless.  There are blogs, groups, and torrent trackers dedicated to vinyl and cassettes lossless.  There's a growing number of people who find joy and pride in doing high-quality transfers to share with other people.  So, there is very little lack of availability.  My nearly every thirst to hear something in its full glory is easily quenched.

just one example:  http://pbthal.blogspot.com/