Listening to Music

When was the last time you really listened to music? I mean really listened to music--sat down and did nothing but listen to music, perhaps a favorite album, with no distractions? In today's musical culture it's a tough question. Our lives are pervaded by music--in the car, in stores, on the way to class; on our iPods, computers, phones, and anywhere else there's a microprocessor. Perhaps it's the omnipresence of music that makes it so much easier to ignore and pushes it into the background of our minds. I tried just listening to a favorite album today--Dark Passion Play by Nightwish. To be honest, I didn't entirely succeed. I love that album, but even so I found my mind wandering and my hand reaching for a book. Movies manage to hook our attention, maybe because they give your eyes something to do, but even for a professing audiophile like me, giving that same attention to music--good music--is hard.

Besides our frenetic, multitasking culture making it hard to slow down and just listen for an hour, the way we listen to music, and music itself, seem to be shifting away from the old-fashioned custom of listening to whole albums (maybe on vinyl). The exact same album I just listened to on my pseudo-audiophile setup sounds unremarkable on the kind of setup (iPod with cheap earbuds) that so many people are content with. And then there's the dynamic range compression that I've already written an essay about, which removes the load-soft dynamics of music and makes it even easier to tune out. When we do listen, it's rarely to entire albums--it's mixes of all different songs jumbled together in a playlist.

So I'm not really sure how to end this post, and I'll just leave it open-ended. If there's anyone else out there, reading this blog (I'm not sure), what are you thoughts in Americans' shifting music-listening habits? Do you miss the good ol' days of vinyl and undistracted music listening? I'd love to hear your thoughts.