Please tell me if this is a common progression (iPod burnout)

[suzzer99]

1) Music Fan owns lots of CDs and has been buying a few new ones every month since junior high (well some were cassettes in my case, but that's irrelevant to the point).

2) Music Fan discovers some kind of Napster service (legal of course) and starts to download tons of songs s/he can remember being into in the past.

3) A few years later, Music Fan now has accumulated every song he's ever liked on his hard drive. Also Music Fan has spent a lot of drive time listening to stations like Jack-FM, which play some significant fraction of those songs.

4) Finally Music Fan is completely bored with just about everything on his iPod/HD and hears maybe 1 or 2 new (or new-old) songs he likes a month.


I'm honestly a little concerned that our newfound ability to have everything instantly musicwise - has burned out the whole catalog of music for me. I've had a couple "download days" where I try to find new music. I grab ideas from every source imagineable (IE - radio station playlists, pandora, friends, the indie hipster thread here, etc. etc.) and check out how they sound. I do find some diamonds in the rough. But it's basically a whole day of sifting through 95% crapola for a few songs. I seem to have an easier time motivating myself to clean the bathroom.

I think I need at least 100 or so songs I'm really into in my current playlist, otherwise I burn them out too fast. Right now I have maybe 20.

Am I just getting old and bored/boring? Or is this a common phenomenon? If so I'd love to hear any strategies to renew my love of music. I do have Sirius in my car now. But I feel like it's few and far between before I hear something I want to add to my collection. Again - I'm just not getting that critical mass of new songs that I need to keep a playlist going.

[bmxicle]

I don't think this has much to do with the internet/downloading. If you look at your parents, or the average parent, they rarely listen to music, or at the very least listen to it way less than they used to.

I'm sorry, but you are getting old.

[suzzer99]

[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

I think you can fight it though. With drugs.

[bmxicle]

hahaha...actually now that i think of it, the old guys you meet that still listen to alot of music generally smoke a lot of pot.

[DLizzle]

I think this is pretty common now for the reason you gave, but I just download everything new that comes out in the type of music I like, plus always searching for older stuff, and its enough. I usually get 4-5 new albums per week to listen to. I could see this being a major problem if you were a fan of a type of music where not much new stuff comes out. I guess then you might want to experiment with different genres?

[suzzer99]

Actually I like at least some music in just about every genre except young country and bluegrass (well and christian music that's not good gospel). And I haven't heard that much bluegrass. Maybe that's my problem, I'm so broad I don't know which lists to watch for new stuff.

[bryan4967]

new stuff comes out all the time...just give a listen to casey casum one of these sundays.

[lacticacid]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think this has much to do with the internet/downloading. If you look at your parents, or the average parent, they rarely listen to music, or at the very least listen to it way less than they used to.

I'm sorry, but you are getting old.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not so sure its getting old. My dad still buys a couple of CDs a month and he is almost 60.

I think the key is having a good radio station. For him it is an AAA station in our area (88.5) I listen to it as well and it crushes the commercial stations. I'm getting a HD radio tuner so I can listen to their Alternative station in my car. I've gotten addicted to listening to it online.

[KJS]

My #1 source for new music is friends. I contribute by recommending death metal and jazz since I know more about those than almost all of them. I have friends that have encylopedic knowledge of: punk (3-5 friends), soul (2 friends) and hardcore/metalcore (1 friend). I turn to them when I am craving new stuff in those genres. They usually point me in the right direction. I can say to them "I like x, recommend me something like it" and almost always get reliable responses.

Name 5 bands you like and I will give you five recommendations for other bands like each. Except for hip-hop, I don't know jack about it.

KJS

[Dids]

suzzer,

I stopped downloading albums like a year ago because I realized that my ability to have anything I wanted ended up with a ton of mp3s that totally sucked. My ipod kinda died, and now I use a 2 gig iAudio and am in general MUCH happier with music these days.