Sorry man, it happens to the best of us.
I can only handle things like Megadeth on the ears and Tremors for the eyes.
I'm still quite happy but no longer excited by 'new shit'.
It really is okay, I'd plan a Fray Bentos night for yourself, that'll straighten ye oot!

Following the belting writeup of Toddla T in the new ish (forgive me..) I used the mighty powers of Napster to test it for myself.

No sleevenotes; no pictures to look at. Just the tunes.

I should hate it. Really, I should. So should we all.

I can't. It's too good.

I found myself doing silly dancing to it. Thankfully, I don't have teenaged kids.

Beware, people. Beware. I have seen the New Way and it is.. sort of.. good.

For me this started to happen about 20 years ago when I got my first multidisc CD drive. I used to just load it up with 6 of my most recent purchases and they used to stay put for a few weeks (I used the old single disc drive for spur of the moment plays). The disadvantage is that you end up not knowing any of the track names because most of the time you don't touch the case when you want to hear a CD but the advantage is that you end up playing albums that you may have dismissed after a couple of plays more often and ending up really liking them. So my solution is making up playlists (remember playlists can be made up from whole albums, not just individual tracks) and instead of trying to like something that isn't really very good you end up liking something that you never thought you would like.

When I found that I couldn't take new pop/rock any more, I listened to jazz, which re-calibrated my ears.

The wilder and free-er the better : Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler.

Here's Pharoah's Black Unity http://open.spotify.com/track/3SCm0SL8NCm8Hbja4XXO54

As well as listening to this for fun, it did mean I could hear a freshness in mainstream music (after a while)

BTW - 22 Demos ?

I'd agree with elhombremalo. I got to the point years ago where a lot of the new rock music I heard sounded little different to the stuff I'd been listening to ten years before, and begun listening to jazz and classical. Since then I've got into blues, country and western, folk, African and Spanish. It doesn't all work but I've found a lot of gems in recent years, and it helps me to appreciate rock music in smaller doses than my younger days - partly old faves like Springsteen, but also newer stuff like Franz Ferdinand and Kings of Leon.
Just mix it, try different stuff, and your ears should find a new lease of life.

This is very much the way I've been doing things for ages now: mixing rock with classical, jazz, country, Indian, Mali blues, well anything. Letting genres brutally crash up against each other so a typical session might start with Miles, move on to Ali Farka Toure, then Zappa, XTC, Mingus, Sinatra, Michael Hedges, Stravinski, The Chieftains, Wilco, Wagner,you get the picture. Keeps everything fresh but it's through loudspeakers not headphones so demands a lot of tolerance from those around you!

I sit, like a sad bastard, with a notebook in front of my CD player and write track by track notes/reviews of what I'm listening to.

The advantages are substantial as I pay much more attention from start to finish (boredom is staved off as I'm doing two things at the one time). Also at the end of it I've got a detailed road map that has the album laid out in detail that helps me digest what I've just listened to.

This way I get my head around albums a lot quicker. From one listen I have the knowledge comparable to three or four spins.

It also means that listening to albums for the first time is much more enjoyable.

Here's what I got out of Duke by Genesis based on one listen (you may remember a few weeks ago I dismissed Genesis and said I wasn't going to buy anymore albums. I found this 2007 remastered CD for £3. I was too weak and powerless to resist):

1. "Behind the Lines" – 5:31 (5 out of 5 stars)
Tuneful rocker with good lyrics and punchy drums.

2. "Duchess" – 6:26 (5 stars)
A great and easily digested extended prog track. It sounds like a straight forward song but still distinctly prog.

3. "Guide Vocal" – (Banks) 1:35 (1 star)
Bland short song fragment. Filler that says less than the band thinks it does.

4. "Man of Our Times" (Rutherford) – 5:34 (2 stars)
Awkward, messy sounding song that just doesn't sound right.

5. "Misunderstanding" (Collins) – 3:13 (5 stars)
Nice heartfelt song.

6. "Heathaze" (Banks) – 4:59 (3 stars)
Too slow and subdued for my tastes, but it has some brief loud sections that sound great. Lyrics are interesting during the second half.

7. "Turn It On Again" – 3:50 (5 stars)
Loud straight forward rocker. Lyrically of no great substance but better than what most bands usually come up with when doing simple songs. A song of considerable craftsmanship.

8. "Alone Tonight" (Rutherford) – 3:56 (2 stars)
Slow ballad that opens into something big and slightly bloated. A bit boring. Competent but banal and trite. If I was to never hear it again I wouldn't be bothered.

9. "Cul-de-sac" (Banks) – 5:05 (3 stars)
Starts great with big symphonic drums and lyrics about armies. Unfortunately it fails to deliver on its opening promise.

10. "Please Don't Ask" (Collins) – 4:01(3 stars)
Okay and melodic but unremarkable. Nothing wrong with it, just a bit bland.

11. "Duke's Travels" – 8:40 (3 stars)
Eventful near instrumental (vocals only start 6 minutes in) that rocks out. Clearly an important track but it feels a bit like filler to me.

"Duke's End" – 2:08 (4 stars)
Short instrumental hard rock reprise of the opening track "Behind the Lines".

wait till the media decide who's this years flavour of the month ... give it some trumped up awards... get it featured on every other advert or 'incidental' montage ... then suddenly you'll love it as well and be able to say you'd been a fan aaaages before the fuss.

disclaimer ... this is the proverbial 'you' I'm refering to..I couldn't possibly suggest that any Word reader would be so gullible or easily swayed.