Listening Widely vs. Listening Deeply

Plus: Radiohead, Kanye West, The Kinks, My Bloody Valentine, The Beatles, Green Day, Bruce Springsteen

This project started because I had a strong desire to broaden the music I listen to. I was trapped in the Spotify recommendation echo-chamber, where I heard an endless loop of songs that could have been covers of one another, because that’s what the algorithm thought I would like. I plumbed the depths of trendy Millenial new-retro revival rock until there was nothing left. And that was kind of fun, for a while, but it got boring and frankly annoying to hear amazing music on random movies or restaurant speakers or whatever that felt so different from my tastes that I couldn’t conceive how I could discover it on my own.

But after listening to ~25% of the Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums of All time, not to mention countless recommended songs and albums from some of the cool music recommendation sources I’ve found lately, I’ve started to wonder about the pros and cons of this approach. I’ve certainly found some good new music, but the number of additions to my “on repeat” playlist haven’t been very large. Maybe I’m just too early in the process, but it seems like expanding the library of stuff I’ve heard hasn’t proportionally expanded my list of favorites.

That makes sense, really. I’ve been listening to random genres and artists I have no familiarity with. That means lots of music where I might not be totally fluent in the language of the genre - I encountered that problem with Ornette Coleman, for example, because of my lack of Jazz knowledge. So it’s to be expected that I would find a lower proportion of favorites than in the Spotify-fueled hyperfocus on one genre that I had before. That’s why Spotify doesn’t recommend random stuff, after all. 

And where I might not have exponentially increased my list of favorites, the opposite is true of my music knowledge. I’ve found great stories and artists that redefined music and society that I had no exposure to simply because of when I was born. That’s been the biggest joy of this whole thing so far, and I’d recommend that to anyone.

But on the other hand, what if you’re just looking for some awesome new jams? What if you don’t particularly care about the history or context of old music (or you already know about it all) and you just want to fill up your Liked playlist for your upcoming road trip? In that case, is it better to listen widely or to narrow your focus to familiar genres where you might have a higher hit rate?

A part of me gets afraid that listening to, well, everything might make me lose sight of the music that inspired me to love music in the first place. Another part of me is afraid of missing out on music other people know and I don’t - this part will always be right simply because of the unimaginable volume of music in the world today. And the perfectionist side of me thinks that if I try to listen more broadly, that means I really have to listen to everything, which is a fool’s errand.

I don’t know about you, but personally I think these fears are more rooted in the need to over-optimize rather than anything else. It’s a human thing, and it’s especially a me thing, to think “if some is good, more must be better” and apply that to everything we do. If listening to some unfamiliar music is good, listening to more must be better. And when there’s infinite music available, that’s a slippery slope.

And after all, as I keep reminding myself, I’m not here to find the “optimal” set of music to spend my life listening to. I do want to find more good music, but I’ll always miss things, and that’s OK. And besides, as I wrote last week, the pursuit of perfection in music is completely dependent on the listener, and there’s no such thing as objectivity in liking music. So why should I waste my time wondering if there’s good music out there I’m missing, or if I’m diluting my favorites by adding other great music to my personal library?

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My conclusion is that it’s healthy to do both wide and narrow listening to really hone in on your favorites. I think of it like an education - people love to complain about learning Trigonometry in high school because “I’m never going to use this in the real world.” OK, that’s probably true for most people, and maybe it’s also true of other subjects like Literature and History that you may never use in your career. But that’s not the point at all. Almost no general education prepares you 100% for your specific career or interests in the future. One of the biggest reasons for getting a general education is to give you the foundation to help you find your skills and interests in the first place. School gives you the overview, and then you choose - whether through personal choice or through the job you go into - what to deep dive and learn more about. 

That’s how I now think about music. Maybe listening to music from all genres and times - a musical general education - isn’t going to directly give you a million new favorite songs right away. But it will give you a flavor of all the genres and ages of music that are out there. And then you can zoom in on the ones you love to your heart’s content. The general listening simply breaks you out of your tunnel vision to give you the opportunity to find new areas to go deep on. Maybe it will correct misconceptions you have on a genre and let you enjoy it more. Maybe general listening will open your eyes to things you didn’t know before. Or maybe it will reinforce the fact that your favorites are your favorites - that’s also a perfectly reasonable outcome of listening widely. And even if you’re only interested in listening to your genre, to doing your thing, there’s still a lot of value in learning about the wider musical world - because even if you don’t use music history in your day to day life, it’s simply a fascinating thing to learn, and that’s a joy in and of itself.

Project B.A.E. - Listening to the Best Albums Ever

So far we’re at 83 albums reviewed. Keep plugging, Dave!

The Bends - Radiohead

Oh my lord how many Radiohead albums are on this list? I’ve heard this one a few times before, but I’ve got such a bad taste in my mouth from my recent Kid A debacle that I have to take a deep breath and reset for this album, which came earlier in the band’s career. Let’s see what the pre-Kid A Radiohead sounds like with fresh ears. 

Maturity. Grace. Wisdom. You can do this, Dave.

Ok what the F&$k is happening here - the first song “Planet Telex” is just plain awesome. Where has this been? Why hasn’t every Radiohead song sounded like this? They are capable of making enjoyable music, after all. They’re using the fundamental building blocks of music and everything. Wowee. 

I’m probably speaking cancel-worthy blasphemy to Radiohead superfans right now, knowing my luck. The Radiohead purists probably hate this album with the fire of a billion burning suns because it’s extremely poppy and has melody and rhythm and structure and crazy stuff like that, and I’m just an uncouth pretender for liking this album. Whatever, man, I’ll accept that because it makes me happy not to 100% actively dislike this band - finally. I’m sure the band is relieved as well. 

Brain Rating: 7

Taste Rating: 7.5

Jams:

• “Planet Telex”

• “The Bends”

• “High And Dry”

• “My Iron Lung”

808s and Heartbreak - Kanye West

Kanye seems Ike an insane genius from my point of view. I really wonder how insane he really is. I know I’ll never know because I’m stuck seeing him through the lens of social and regular media, which can distort anything, but I would like to actually know. 

“Say You Will” was kinda Garage Band-y, butane that speaks more to the quality of the 808 emulators in my Macbook today than the quality of the 2008 production. The sampled and off beat choir parts added to that impression too. It annoyed me at first, but I now realize that’s part of the magic of this album. It’s produced simply for a reason. Which makes sense - this feels like a producer’s album more than anything else. Producer/songwriter, maybe.

Brain Rating: 8

Taste Rating: 7

Jams

• “Heartless”

• “Paranoid”

• “Coldest Winter”

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks 

Normally I’m a big Remastered fan, but the stereo remaster version made my ears want to pop. Very strange, so I listened to the old mono version. 

Can someone tell me if this is meant to be a Beatles ripoff or not? I got heavy Sgt Pepper vibes early on, even down to the seemingly weird-on-purpose songwriting. “Do You Remember Walter?” No but I remember “I Am the Walrus” and man do those songs favor each other, even the names of the title characters. 

But don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this album a lot. I’ve just been exposed to so much Beatles dust that everything similar will sound like it to me. I’m sure I’m not alone. And it’s awesome. 

Brain Rating: 6.5

Taste Rating: 7.8

Jams

• “Picture Book”

• “Big Sky”

Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

I thought I was hearing a dusty playback of a Smashing Pumpkins album at first. The album has a weirdly over-compressed sound, at the time I didn’t know if that was my headphones or if my eardrums had ruptured. This album seriously needs a remaster in my opinion. I seriously had to change to another album for a few songs to make sure my headphones weren’t broken (they weren’t).

I couldn’t understand a single word for most of the album and the lyrics weren’t available because I was on a plane. I feel like I lost a little because of that, but at the same time it was like 12 words per song as far as I could tell. And it didn’t grip me enough to go back and listen again right away with the lyrics, although I may do that in the future. Lyrics don’t usually make or break music for me anyway, only accentuate it. And the music was a little meandering and soundscape-y and monotonous, which isn’t my thing at all.

Brain Rating: 7

Taste Rating: 0.5

Help! - The Beatles

Horny Beatles. Every single song is horny. They have one thing on their mind, and they express it as thoroughly as they were able in 1960’s accepted lyrics. I honestly wasn’t that impressed (by Beatles standards) even though it contains some classics that are among the best songs I’ve ever heard.

That being said, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” is up there on my personal list of the best-written songs ever. As is “Yesterday.” The rest of the songs are mostly forgettable, though. 

Brain Rating: 7

Taste Rating: 8

Jams

• “Help”

• “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”

• “Yesterday”

Dookie - Green Day

Such a great high school throwback from the guys who made low slung kid-sized guitars cool. I can still picture these guys rocking out a high school gymnasium or a packed stadium just as hard. Green Day is how I was introduced to punk and punk-like things, which certainly shows my age, but you gotta start somewhere and I’ll always be thankful for that. 

Brain Rating: 7

Taste Rating: 8

Jams

• “When I Come Around”

• “Longview”

• “She”

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen

I grew up on Bruce, but it seems like I grew up on the wrong Bruce, if such a thing exists, because this got me pumped way more than I remember being while listening to Born To Run in the backseat of my parents’ car on road trips. Or maybe I was just a contrary little kid and refused to admit my parents liked cool music. Because this was pretty damn cool - the album was super tightly constructed and cinematic and just a blast to listen to.

Brain rating: 8

Taste rating: 8.7

Jams

• “The E Street Shuffle”

• “(Rosalita) Come Out Tonight”