I need to clean out my ears. So from January to November 2009, I'm embarking on a kind of purification rite. In that time, I'm only allowing myself to download one MP3 at a time; the next MP3 can only be downloaded once I listen to the first one. With CDs, if I buy one, I have to listen to it all before I buy another, and before I am allowed to rip any of it to iTunes. There will surely be exceptions--CDs that suck, that I can't deal with playing all the way through--but hearing a bad album end to end is, if nothing else, a learning experience, so I plan to stick by this rule as much as I can.
I write about music and am on a number of publicists' mailing lists. I'm not sent as many free physical CDs as I used to be--a blessing--but they still arrive and they still pile up, and it's impossible to hear them all, not that I necessarily want to. I've often ripped the better looking ones to my hard drive, put them on my iPod, and never, ever listened to them. The one-in, one-out rule should eliminate this wasteful procedure. Digital promos I will download only when I have time to hear them, just like any other MP3s I acquire.
Like a lot of people who love music a lot, I am a pack rat and a glutton. The Slow Listening Movement is my way of trying to curb those tendencies. Partly this is out of necessity: I have back taxes to start paying off, I'm planning to move cross-country (hopefully speaking, soon; practically speaking, probably not any time soon), and I'm sick of feeling trapped by my own clutter, be it my overcrowded CD shelves or the ungodly amount of MP3s my 1TB hard drive contains. It's great to have an extensive reference library, and many of those MP3s are duplicates--organizing it will be a project in itself--but there's a limit to these things as necessities. I can stand to indulge myself with fewer mindless acquisition sprees. Of course, it's not really a movement if only one person does it, and I hope others try it as well. (The name is, of course, a hat-tip to the Slow Food Movement.)
I've deliberately made this an 11-month project rather than a 12-month one. December is when year-end best-of come out en masse, and I've long had the habit of compiling playlists based on the more intriguing singles/tracks lists, as well as picking up likely-looking CDs I've missed. (Not to mention Christmas, when I often ask for new titles and, occasionally, box sets.) But with any luck, after 11 months of one pellet at a time, I'll have acclimated to it enough that I won't get too greedy for my own good again. Thanks for joining me in this experiment.
A great idea! I've had similar thoughts lately myself, partly related to my own cross-country move in 2009. So getting a promo CD in the mail would count the same as buying one, under these rules? That'll be the tough part for me, changing how I sort through the stacks of CDs. I'm considering 'joining the movement' nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteNo, getting promos doesn't count as buying. Listening to one at a time is the key here, more than acquisition, in terms of things you receive free.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a very reasonable approach to consuming/digesting music—one at which I would fail miserably. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteCount me in, MM. I like the sound of this.
ReplyDeleteOften, I give albums three songs to impress me. If they don't do it at that particular time, the record tossed into the waste bin of my mind. Maybe I'd discover something, or have better things to say about something if I really, forcibly had to sit through the whole damn thing. Gonna go for it.
ReplyDeleteI'm in.
ReplyDeleteTravis: I actually think you have the right idea! Even better to discard unnecessary stuff early to get to work you prefer. The idea isn't so much to force yourself through bad CDs as to pay attention to the ones you've gotten hold of, rather than letting them pile up, unlistened-to.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do is create a "Rotation" playlist that doesn't exceed a gig. Then nothing leaves it until I've listened to it 3 times.
ReplyDeleteThis way I make sure I'm giving new music a fair shot. I see no reason to be upset about owning a bunch of music you're barely familiar with, as long as you give decent attention to the music you listen to.
I also try to cleanse my palate by frequently returning to classic albums and listening to pop/rock music only about half the time.
I commend you Matos. I would join the Movement, if I weren't already kind of doing this anyway. I do intend to start a Slow Boozing Movement though, though. No more double-fisting whiskey!
ReplyDeleteI am doubling up on my "though"s, though, though.
ReplyDeleteA bit late on commenting on this post - but I like the idea a lot. I'm on board.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing something similar for the past year or more, except a bit more puritan, limiting myself to one new cd a week. I had the sense that music had become markedly less meaningful to me for some time, and I thought that perhaps it was because I was buying too much to ever get to know any of it. It seems to be working too, so I plan to keep it up. You do get the nagging feeling that you're missing a lot though....
ReplyDeletecount me in - this is basically similar to my new years resolution!
ReplyDeleteLately I've been doing something similar. Not being a critic with endless promos coming through, I've tried to cut down on illegal downloads (morals getting to me) and am just buying about 1 or 2 records from charity/2nd hand shops once a week (bank balance getting to me). I won't buy another until I've listened to the last (currently listening to a 50p Lil Kim's Hard Core and kinda enjoying it). Good luck, I assuming overhauling your whole system is a lot harder work but count me in.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't stand a chance (being not only a freelancer but a magazine editor to boot). Good luck with it, though.
ReplyDeleteI am currently purchasing everything I can get my hands on in order to prepare for the upcoming financial collapse. Like Frank from the Furry Freak Brothers said, It's better to have music and no money than money and no music.
ReplyDelete