Jonny Greenwood (correctly) concludes 192kbps is good enough for anyone, however it was this snippet that sums up a lot of what i’ve been thinking the problem with my listening habits are.
The downside is that people are encouraged to own far more music than they can ever give their full attention to. People will have MP3s of every Miles Davis’ record but never think of hearing any of them twice in a row—there’s just too much to get through.
I have 116Gb of music which has been accumulated slowly over the last 9 or 10 years and growing as hard drive space has become more and more affordable. I will have listened to everything in my collection at least once, most of it far more often than that but I keep finding myself re-discovering artists that I bought the album of, ripped it, placed on my shelf and promptly forgot about. These are albums that I stumble across years later and wonder how the album ever escaped my ears.
I do most of my listening sitting at my laptop working, and via my iPhone while walking. Recently I have noticed a habit of spending my entire 20 min walk to the train station listening to music but without finishing a single song. It’s even worse when sitting at my laptop with my entire collection at my fingertips, it has become too easy to change artists. No longer do I lose myself in the music enjoying subtle quirky harmonies or truly appreciating an album in its entirety. My solution?
Vinyl. One album a week. Just coming home, placing the needle and letting it run. Now I know I could just train myself to let albums run and forget the whole vinyl hassle, but for whatever reason this appeals, and hopefully that means i’ll stick to it.
I shall keep you updated with the results.
2 years ago