I’ll be the first to admit there’s too much music in my library. And I have zero clue how I’ll ever listen to it all. Or, at least, become comfortable with the music itself. Let it speak to me. Learn from it. Take something away from its art.
While I never purchase an album without having some sort of initial attraction, there’s this breadth of time when an album has to “click” into place. Adherence requires the right mood, frame of mind, and focus. To provide this effort to every album I own, and future albums? It’s an impossible feat.
My album count on Bandcamp recently has recently broken through 600 - and that’s solely on Bandcamp alone, not including the endless hours of music pre-Bandcamp or purchased from other platforms. Oftentimes I’ll stop myself from discovering new music to focus on albums already in my library.
For transparency sake, there are albums I’ve barely listened through completely. Sadly, as it sometimes comes to be, many albums end up not being my thing. More often than not, these albums are just an acquired taste. When initially discovered, the album elicited a draw; something caught my ear. These albums are slow burns, requiring much more time and patience to absorb. Really dig in. This acceptance, this barrier to break through, is in the throes against my music discovery.
My listening habits are often in a lifelong battle against my curiosity to discover new music. The front lines never change. At best, my goal is to ingest the music I purchase when I have the available time - riding the subway, walking around town, while at home. Finding the time to fully be enveloped in an album, though, is difficult. In my perfect world, taking a rest on a bench and enveloping myself in its presence, letting it wash over me, would be my preferred method. The cliche laying next to the stereo works, as well.
Maybe this situation is only ever reserved for the few and far between albums you break through to. The ones that whisper sweet incantations to you at the end of the day.
There’s an addiction, it seems, when it comes to discovering new music, hell anything new for that matter. For myself, it’s a euphoric feeling. Special, and intimate; like the sound was tailor-made, and you were able to find it all on your own. This feeling, this high, is exactly as it sounds - like a drug. And I am addicted. But simultaneously, this feeling can be absolutely paralyzing if you ponder on the bigger picture, zooming out and waxing existential over the vast amount of music out there.
Let me tell you, there’s nothing like the high of discovering a band that just feels like kismet. Where their discography, or even the one single they’ve put out, speaks mountains to your soul.
We don’t give ourselves enough time to chew through music. Really relish in its entirety, let it slow burn. Because of the vast amount of music out there, spanning decades and simultaneously being released every second, it’s impossible to keep up. It’s a Sisyphean battle. You’ll never win. Instead, we fall prey to the trap of ‘one and done’.
Maybe you’ll listen to the featured song on Bandcamp (or Spotify or wherever), and if it doesn’t register right away, you write this artist off and proceed to the next one. For me, this action has grown from the necessity of trying to sort through the music I own, or have back cataloged to listen to later on. In most cases, this is perfectly fine; though guilt often washes over me, disregarding someone’s work so easily.
Oftentimes though, there will be an inkling deep inside, speaking to me. Saying, “Yes, initially this isn’t typically in your wheelhouse, but come back to this later. Stay awhile next time, there’s something here you connect with, but need to ferment on.”
The Hold Steady is a perfect example of experiencing this phenomenon firsthand. They were one of those bands who I knew about in high school, but the lead singer’s voice, Craig Finn’s, was so off-putting with his nasally draw, I couldn’t bring myself to fully enjoy it. Which, in retrospect, is funny, coming from the screaming and high pitched tendencies of emo bands like Circa Survive, Fall of Troy, and even the Mars Volta.
When my teenage self was feeling particularly angst, I would drive over to Bridgeport Village (a mall, not an actual village like they would like you to believe) outside Portland and cruise around the upstairs area of Borders (a now defunct book store similar to Barnes & Noble - showing my age) in their music section. Here, amidst the towering shelves and floor-to-ceiling windows was a sanctuary for me. My time was spent pursuing through CDs, pulling out albums of bands I either recognized, or their covers intrigued me, scanning the barcode under their ‘music listening’ device, throwing on the provided headphones, and drifting off. This was absolute bliss.
It was here, enthralled in this sea of mysterious cds waiting to be listened to, where the Hold Steady and I reacquainted once again. The cover of their breakout sophomore album “Boys & Girls In America” stood out during my searching, and I decided to try them again. When Craig Finn’s voice opened up with, “There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right…”, from “Stuck Between Stations”, it elicited a response that told me to keep trying, to give it another chance. Really soak the lyrics, the visuals, and the sound in. After several spins of the record, everything clicked into place. They were a band so outside my own purview at the time, but also a pinnacle part in my listening expansion. Soon, they became one of my favorite bands of all time.
While I could wax prolifically about my discovery of the Hold Steady and their impact on my development as a human, it truly deserves its own piece. For now, we can return to the subject at hand.
A couple days each month I spend a few hours searching through my various sources for new music. Come with me now to peer behind the veil of my process, over time.
In the years prior to Bandcamp, Spotify, etc, this was either done through Last.fm (they had a wonderful recommended artists section), music blogs (mentioned above - We All Want Someone To Shout For, The Wild Honey Pie, MusicIs.Amazing (RIP), FB recommended artists (I would often get ads for bands - strange I know), IndieRockPlaylist (Slowed down but still going strong) and oddly, Amazon (They used to have a superb recommendation algorithm for showing you other bands from either music purchased or wishlisted).
As time passed, reddit became a major source through r/listentothis (and various others), and Bandcamp Hunter, a fantastic tumblr blog showcasing one BC artist everyday; sadly now defunct.
Now, my searches don’t feel as extensive. This saddens me to some extent, as my time used to be so dedicated to discovering new music. Now, this time feels like it has taken a backseat. More likely, the way we discover music these days has changed, as well. Due to the ease of accessibility within the internet as a whole, now my discovery times have sped up.
Firstly, I’ll listen through various Band of the Day podcasts (KEXP, The Current), navigate reviews on Pitchfork/Stereogum, check BrooklynVegan periodically, and sort through the various music newsletter’s I’m subscribed to.
A huge shoutout to SputnikMusic, an independent user music review site still going gallantly strong. Amazing community found within. While a large portion of their base was originally metal and metal-adjacent genres, over the years they’ve balanced out with reviews from everything in-between. Lots of great hidden gems found through them.
Bandcamp, obviously, carries a lot of my discovery weight - and rightly so! Bandcamp’s own ‘discover’ engine is absolutely fantastic. You’re able to filter by a myriad of genres/subgenres, location, time, format - it’s a music spelunker’s dream. Bandcamp also features an artist of the day, their own featured articles, Bandcamp Daily, and the essential releases piece posted every Friday.
It’s not uncommon for me to begin searching for an artist through Bandcamp, and as I’m typing out each letter, become intrigued by the real-time results displayed by their search engine. To varying degrees, my curiosity derails my original search parameters, and I fall down a rabbit hole into other bands.
Try out this experiment for yourself. Head to Bandcamp, and start typing any word in their search bar. Hand to god, there will be a band, album, song, or even record label with your entry. If it’s a more common word, there will be several. And you can see music tagged with your search term!
You’d be a fool to complain about being unable to find any new music - you’re not looking hard enough. There’s just too much of it. And my anxiety comes from never being able to absorb it all.
If there’s an ounce of envy given to Spotify, it’s the ability to quickly search & discover new music effortlessly through their app. Again, this is only if you force yourself to make the decision in the first place. The homepage of your Spotify app is typically littered with curated playlists dedicated to the genres or albums you have already listened to. The algorithm does a fantastic job at delivering you a tailor-made experience. This is done to keep you comfortable; because if you’re comfortable, then you’ll never leave.
After first ruminating over this piece initially, an awareness came to fruition regarding my necessity to be more mindful about my listening experience. Instead of skipping through tracks on albums I’m interested in, I’ll select a track on said new album, and let it play through completely.
Here, the experience is enjoyed, rather than making it feel like a chore. The music is given a fair fighting chance, and a lesson is gained for myself. Listening and discovering new music is a lifeline for me, and to expedite the process, increasing its productivity factor, takes away the nuance and delight gained from the overall experience.
The difficult part is checking in with yourself when listening to new music. Truly being conscious and asking “Do I not like this because it’s something different, or because it’s actually not a genre/sound I’m into?” The opposite can be said as well. Forcing yourself to love an album just because everyone else does isn’t fun for anyone. Life is too short for any nonsense like that.
Let’s get down to some real hard facts real quickly before the end.
In a report released this past spring by Luminate, an entertainment insights data provider, over 120,000 ISRC (International Standard Recording Code - like a UPC but for music) on average were being uploaded to digital service providers (Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music, etc) PER DAY. This is 20,000 up from their 2022 report, which cited 93,400 on average per day.
Luminate estimates that there were 34.1 million tracks uploaded to music streaming services in 2022, which was up 12% year over year from 30.5 million tracks across the whole of 2021.
The wildest part of the data? According to Luminate’s data, a third (33%) of the 196 million audio and video music tracks completely available on digital services as a whole today were released in either 2021 or 2022. I’m sorry, but around 65 million songs were released during the pandemic? That’s absolutely bonkers to me. We are currently drowning in music, and it’s only accelerating faster.
What’s fascinating though, in Luminate’s 2022 mid-year report, total consumption of current music (released in the last 18 months) was actually down 1.4% in the United States. So music continues to be uploaded at astonishing speeds, but people listening to new music is down.
Could the slight loss be from the pining for nostalgia, thus listening to music we’re comfortable with already? Or from searching out artists/music who have already established roots in our society, showing resilience against the tide of this new music onslaught, so we know the discovery will be successful to our ears. If Spotify and other streaming platforms continue this quest for keeping us comfortable and on the platform, listeners of new music will continue to decline. And the diverging gap between those trying to make a name for themselves, or even make a living, will continue to grow exponentially larger.
All I do know, as repeated here several times already, is there’s too much music. My new immutable axiom is there will continue to be too much music, and I will never listen to it all.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. See you Sunday.
Cory