Listening to albums doesn’t slap like it used to…and here’s why.
Growing up, listening to music was always an experience for me. The act of physically going to the music store, checking out all the oldest and latest releases, evaluating which album I was going to buy. Then anticipating that sweet sweet moment after I start listening to the album, not knowing whether it would be a good listen or not.
However times have changed, we consume music differently in comparison to how we did 10 years ago. And frankly, I don’t like it. Personally, listening to a new album was a whole 1 month to 2 month process. I’d listen to the album back-to-back, memorise the track list and learn all the lyrics word for word. To the point where you could tell if the album was worthy of being called a classic or a flop because you’ve heard the music enough times.
Ever since we’ve into entered the streaming era, I have found it harder and harder to listen to an album from beginning to end, consistently and this is why:
1. We’re all suffering from decision fatigue
In a world where we are bombarded by new content every day, it’s hard to keep up with everything especially music. And among all this new music it’s harder to not get distracted.
I’m literally one of those of people who enjoys immersing myself and listening deeply to the music. To the point where I have to make time to listen to an album, it’s not enough to just have it playing in the background.
However the moment you decide to listen to a new album, out of nowhere, all these other new projects come out.
So far in 2022, Future’s I Never Liked You came out which I was planning on listening to, then next thing I know Jack Harlow releases Come Home The Kids Miss You, which I enjoyed for a couple days, then Kendrick Lamar released Mr Morale & The Big Steppers. And with Kendrick you need to listen to the project a couple of times over a consistent period in order to “get it”. That’s just how complex Kendrick is an artist.
Then out of nowhere Drake drops a surprise project Honestly, Nevermind. Of which I had only 1 listen so far. Did I forget to remind you that I still haven’t listened to Future’s album? Not to mention Beyoncé is also set to release a new album too. My brain can’t handle it fam!
Music cataloguing blog Discogs has published that new music releases would reach 200,000 this year. But dwarfing that, in April 2019, Spotify founder Daniel Ek told investors that close to 40,000 tracks are uploaded to the Spotify platform daily. In album equivalents (admittedly less relevant to streaming, but clearly still the artists’ primary unit of supply), that’s roughly 23,000 albums per week. This is adding to the 50-plus million songs already to choose from on Spotify — Keith Jopling, 2020.
“Listening to new music is hard. Not hard compared to going to space or war, but hard compared to listening to music we already know. I assume most Americans — especially those who have settled into the groove of life after 30 — simply don’t listen to new music because it’s easy to forgo the act of discovery when work, rent, children, and broadly speaking “life” comes into play.” — Jeremy D. Larson, 2020
In addition, in an article titled “Why do we even listen to new music?” by Jeremy D. Larson he iterates that old music can be new music if you’ve never heard it before. Meaning that generally we like hearing familiar cord progressions in songs and the moment we hear them, we feel comfortable in listening to more of the same.
In other words some people prefer to go back and listen to old albums because not only does it sound familiar, it brings feelings of nostalgia.
The same can be said about listening to old music one has never heard before. A good example of this would be old school tunes of a different era that existed before we were born. As some people regard taking time out to listen to new music as a tedious activity.
2. Most people don’t listen to albums anymore, they prefer playlists.
It almost makes sense now as to why it’s so hard to listen to albums nowadays, most people prefer a vibe more than anything. Hence why playlists have become so popular. We live in the era of playlists — where our main focus is about how we feel: “that Friday feeling”, “Hip Hop Classics”, “AfroPop hits” etc.
Sure, services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal offered streams of full albums. But almost all the attention went to playlists, the modern and virtual incarnation of the mixtape. Now playlists are driving the music industry.
….fifty-four per cent of those surveyed said that they listen to fewer albums than they did five or 10 years ago, with 40 per cent expressing a preference for playlists. — Alan Cross, Global News (2020)
However I must say that the anticipation behind a new album is always exciting. When you know you’re gonna get a new body of work from your favourite artist, it just fills your stomach with butterflies. I mean Rihanna last released an album in 2016 and her fans are still begging her to release. Trust me, if she decides to release new music again, the internet will most definitely crash.
3. Everybody wants to rush to have an opinion, immediately.
The biggest issue I have with this current era of instant gratification is that everybody wants to have an opinion and they want to have it now!
An artist will release an album on Friday and on Sunday there will already be a review on it. Really? You’ve literally had this album for a day and a half and you just happen to be one of the few people to understand this great vision the artist had? Chill, please!
The way I see it you need a week at least to digest the music fam, especially if it’s a Rap/Hip Hop album.
“Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?”- Jay-Z, Renegade (2001)
A big protagonist for this is Pitchfork. It baffles me how quickly they review music and on top of that they give shitty ratings on excellent or good projects. But of course how would they know if it’s any good after listening to the music for a day and a half.
To be fair some of their reviews are really good while others are really crap — most probably because it’s an opinion based sport. So I’m obviously being bias because I feel like they didn’t really take the time to listen to the music.
On top of that because of social media nobody wants to feel left out. Therefore everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon which is to either hate or d*ckride. You see this all the time on Twitter whenever a major artist releases new music especially the likes of Drake and Beyoncé.
In the end, the world is changing and at some point our brains will start functioning differently as we adjust to these changes. I’m young in age but old school at heart and man I wish I could enjoy that feeling of listening to albums the old way again.
