Anal Listening Habits
Yes I am male and deeply into the cataloguing and ordering of stuff. Following on from the several threads on cataloguing, how does the anal tendency manifest itself in actually listening? Confessions follow...
1. I'm currently listening to my entire CD collection in strictly alphabetical order - am up to E so it's Echo and The Bunnymen, Echobelly, Electronic etc. after deciding that was the only way to ensure I listened to everything.
2. Strict genre rotation: indie, dance, rock, reggae, soul etc - Ac/Dc followed by Thin Lizzy is not good. Varied diet you know. (this is challenging to maintain with the alphabetical)
3. New albums to be listened to at least twice before being allowed in the main collection...
Album Level:
1. In albums with 4 great singles and a load of filler (hello Madonna and most pop) I have been known to change the play order to filler first, killer last - ie you only deserve pudding after finishing your sprouts.
2. Greatest Hits are the audio equivalent of sticky toffee pudding and must be strictly rationed. They're bad for you you know.
3.Vinyl legacy habit: a CD isn't 12 tracks, it's 2 sides of 6 tracks. If you have to stop listening to a CD then do make it when you'd have to get up and turn the album over.
Historical anal listening - as a teenager would listen to stuff with the lights off, and even lying on the floor with my head between the speakers.... to get closer to the music.
So let's get those anal listening habits out into the open. What new forms of anality are enabled by the ipod - my only one here is that shuffle is what the pod was born for. Track one of 7,563 is how you should start.
- More from trevelyan wright.
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Ever read Sartre's Nausea, Trev?
You mind find Cahrlie Brookers column in today's Guardian (and the accompanying comments) enlightening too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/05/healthandwellbeing
Existential angst and Nausea
Are certainly things that come into mind when you press shuffle and track one of 7623 comes up...only another 7622 to go. And the only way to manage these thoughts is to recognise them. Not sure Sartre ever listened to Ray of Light though...
Ringing Some Bells ...
Er, yes, this does ring a few bells.
I used to listen to some albums in reverse order, to ensure that I didn't become over-familiar with the first tracks and not know the final ones at all. As a result, The Cure's Disintegration now sounds completely wrong the "right" way round to me.
I'm currently listening to Volumes 1 - 40 of the Now That's What I Call Music series, in order. (Up to 11 atm, although I must admit to some other listening in between).
Finally: zero play Fridays (originated, AFAIK, on last.fm): a day of listening to only tracks that have no plays noted on your player of choice (Winamp, in my case). Although this one does involve the cursed shuffle play.
Liking Your Style
Numbered series are of course crack to anyone with the anal gene, I've just finished working through the entire Journeys By DJ canon (an excellent summary of the entire djs 90s thing) in order, though there are only about 15.
And do have a zero play playlist too. But the reverse ordering is genius and a new one on me.
Reverse ordering
Of course, listening in reverse order used to involve laborious manual reprogramming work on my CD player. Then I entered a period when I mainly listened to music in the car, which has no programming facilities at all, so the habit stopped. But now it's dead easy with something like Winamp. Not so sure how easy it would be on an iPod (it would be hard work again on my iRiver).
I'm definitely with you on the idea of having to put in the work to get the rewards. Or, as a friend of mine put it, watching what I was listening to (via last.fm): "Nick Kamen - you really are committed."
But of course, the real benefit is that occasionally you stumble across a gem hidden in your collection that you never knew was there. My most recent discovery: Kate Rusby's "No Names" (off a Word compilation from a few years ago). No idea why I didn't listen to it at the time!
The Rules
It's a fair cop - I'm at it too:
1. Every newly acquired CD placed on the bottom of the "backlog heap" so that they're listened to in order of acquisition.
2. Exception to Rule 1: If I've bought several by the same artist in one gulp, they're interleaved with other recent acquisitions to avoid ODing on one artist by listening to several of their albums in succession.
3. Each new acquisition listened to 3 times before moving to the permanent library (filed in strict artist-alphabetic order).
4. No CD listened to more than once per day. Thus several CDs may be in the "3 listens" state simultaneously.
5. Every new CD is also immediately ripped onto iTunes on my home machine only, and thence to my iPod. Therefore every new CD is available on Shuffle, and may be heard before the CD is listened to. But that's OK.
6. iPod is only ever listened to in Shuffle mode. The infinite jukebox!
7. eMusic acquisitions are downloaded onto both my work machine and my home machine. They are then imported into the iTunes library on both machines.
8. When listening to iTunes, the preferred mode is using the "Recently Added" Smart Playlist, which randomly shuffles all tracks added to iTunes in the last 2 months. This ensures I give plenty of eartime to all my new music.
In my defense, I'll point out that these rules evolved organically as a way of making sure I become at least passingly-well acquainted with all my new music, whilst regularly rediscovering music I'd forgotten I owned!
Auto the new
I have a 'smart playlist' that automatically fills up with the last 30 or so tracks I've put into iTunes - great if you're an habitual 'odd track' purchaser like myself. You then plonk the thing on shuffle and you get your 'odd tracks' mixed in with (at the moment) the new Elbow album and some Sigur Ros I recently aquired. Stick the playlist on once or twice a week while commuting and it's great - it means I never miss listening to the crap I've randomly purchased and forgotten about when home alone with the lager and the laptop (you know how it is).
oops
Sorry about the 'an habitual' surely should be 'a habitual' - maybe messrs Hepworth and Ellen can put me right on the use of 'archaic' grammar.
You can edit your posts...
...instead of posting a separate correction. Nobody need ever know about your toping irrors.