A single-track mind
I was thinking recently about my music listening behaviors after reading that some bands want to pull their songs from iTunes, as they claim they are losing money. They claim that iTunes & downloadable music stores like it are changing people’s listening habits by emphasizing the single song instead of the full album.
To tell you the truth, I’ve been listening to music the same way since the early 90s, just the tech has changed to enable my habits, to let me purchase music in a way that matches the habits I already had.
First off, I was always more interested in the single track instead of the full album. I would constantly make myself mixtapes grabbing a track from this album, a track from that album, a track from the radio… I would hardly ever listen to music album by album (or in my case - cassette by cassette). My listening habits didn’t change when iTunes came out, but it did let me purchase music in way that fits my preferred way of listening to music. I can purchase a single track much easier now than I could a few years ago. To those bands that would complain about me not buying the whole album, I would probably tell them I wouldn’t have spent any money on their music if I couldn’t get just that one track I wanted. Something is better than nothing, right?
Secondly a feature popped up on CD players that I just loved in the early 90s, the multi-CD shuffle. Oh my goodness, this really enabled my listening habits. I would load the 3-disc, 6-disc, whatever-disc player with a bunch of CDs and then hit shuffle. The player would pick random songs from any of those discs. Again, I emphasized the single by itself, not in some context with the other songs.
Did I miss some grand message that the artists wanted to make by not listening to an album from start to finish. Probably, but that wasn’t what I wanted when I listend to music. I wanted the magic of discovering new themes through random plays. I wanted to extend emotional energy by having a 60-minute mix tape of handpicked songs instead of being directed by someone else’s grand vision.
I’m still this way. I’d much rather load up the iPod with my choices in music for a long road trip. I’ll still buy a full CD or album here and there, but I have to like the majority of tracks on that album to do so. I won’t buy it just to get the one song I like. I doesn’t make economic sense to me as a consumer to do otherwise.
All this talk about how people’s music habits have changed make me chuckle a little, because my habits haven’t changed dramatically for years, but the technology is finally enabling people like me to listen the way we want to. People like me; people with single-track minds.
September 26, 2008
Posted in: Uncategorized
One Response
I don’t know what I’d do without “shuffle” settings or portable music players.
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