This is exactly what I do. I listen to every album I have front to back. I also have a seperate playlist for stuff I pull from blogs to find new music. (Setting your Ipod onto album shuffle is the way to go) I do this because the music glut was making me a horrible DJ. I found that my memory for certain songs and sounds was getting very very thin, and I have a bit of OCD in the first place, so i’ve been stuck so many times with a “what the hell should I play next?” panic attack while DJing. All this information available is making me horribly anxious, and I just keep trying to find better ways to compartmentalize everything.

In addition to the, im my opinion, more-than-just-a-semantic-debate of hearing vs. listening, I’ve found the studies by Adrian C. North, albeit at times a touch academic, to be consistently fascinating. For example, here’s one blog’s reference to North’s studies on “The influence of in-store music on wine selections.”

Other studies of his are more on-point to the topic at hand (e.g. The importance of music to adolescents and Is music important?), but they can be hard to come by without a subscription to LexisNexis or the Journal of Applied Psychology.

As far as my $0.02 are concerned: I agree with loudersoft that it’s ultimately one’s own choice and choices that help define one’s relationship to and with music.

In other words, recognizing that it isn’t actually to your benefit to have your entire library at your disposal–at all times–to be lost adrift your poorly indexed iPod and repeatedly replaying the same familiar tunes.

To me, it seems to be about discipline(d listening). About making an effort. Defining your own experience. For example, might it make more sense to have an iPod of less memory with less music that you swap out regularly to make room for something new-to-you, like you once did with your Walkman and your tapes and CDs?

Is it really better for you and your music to have it at all at your easy and portable yet seemingly disposable access at all times? It seems that here, in this instance, more means less (attentive) listening but more (as in too much) time hoarding and (inattentive) hearing.

I used to believe that the music I like was one of the things which defined me as a person. I’ve come to believe that making such narrow definitions leads us to the place where satisfaction is balanced on the fragility of art and artists, most of whom spend their lives stuck in the constant search for a kind of calm that most of us will never know.

I have less trouble with pick-and-mix MP3-ism than I might because I adapted to it fairly early, and I was always interested in singles as much as albums. That said, on my May road trip (when I did the most recent Project X w/my family), I listened almost exclusively to singles and compilations. (The albums I played were usually for assignments or, a few times, the most recent Spoon, which has become my favorite comfort-food album of the past year.) When I got back to Seattle and had a month’s worth of mail waiting for me, I did nothing for a week but play albums. What a relief it was! The same artist and/or idea for an hour at a time!

I think the secret is not to panic. I want singles and I want albums; I want big ideas and I want one-shots. They don’t cancel each other out; they enrich each other.

My only observation to add — and I have been outside today, thanks ;-) — comes from last night at a show, where the headliners I knew v. well (the Mountain Goats) but the openers I didn’t know at all (the Annuals). As I told friends with me, even though I knew I could have easily heard everything I wanted to hear from the Annuals through their sites or whatever if I was so inclined, I didn’t do that precisely so I could be surprised when I finally heard them. As it turned out they didn’t impress me all that much — they like their Arcade Fire and Flaming Lips and etc. and don’t add to any of it, at least on first blush — but it was still good to be able to come in ‘cold’ that way, and just deal with them as is. Larger point if there is one — there’s still a capacity for surprise and being entranced (or, as in this case, not) even in the saturated world, and there’s no reason why one’s engagement with it can’t be just as clearly defined by what you allow yourself distance from as much as what you let in. I think this dynamic is sometimes lost in a more all-or-nothing framing of netkultur in general.

Also, @ Lax (link-quote is not working for you): They’re called Smiths fans.

It makes it difficult, though, to distinguish between “favorite songs” (singles) and what are essentially “favorite passages” from larger, cohesive, works.

that said, the past several years have seen most of my favorite records of the year being “front-to-backers” – albums that you really can’t pick apart. and while there have been plenty of great “every song could be a single” records, it seems i’ve been more drawn to the ones that demand repeated, close listening. Scott Walker, Joanna Newsom, Portishead, Boris, Mammatus, the Field, etc.

while almost all of these records were critically adored, there was also a contingent who wanted to call them “unlistenable”, “willfully difficult” or just plain “boring” and i wonder if short attention spans and the urge to, after 1 or 2 listens, abandon an album to the stygian depths of a 500gb external hard drive, never to be listened to again have something to do with those opinions.

Just a couple weeks ago I read Bowie in Berlin, coming across a mention of a guitar solo in a song on Low, thinking “I don’t remember a guitar solo in that song,” and mentally playing back the whole song until the guitar solo came in and I realized, oh, yeah, that guitar solo. These days I’m more likely to hear something somewhere and think hey, I like that, and, on finding out what it is, realize that I have it already.

(And yes I know I’m not taking my own advice.)

I try to maintain a balance, but ultimately whatever the subconscious demands gets played.

Also, Maura, I love that these sorts of posts you’ve been making lately parallel weirdly with this zine portfolio project I’m working on… you like Helium, wanna go roller-dancing?