So I Set A Goal For Myself This Year. I Need Some Tips.

[AAL2014]

Hello BEA. Hope all is well and your 2018 has been going great.

At the end of 2017 I went through a phase of listening to albums I hadn't heard before and discovering new types of music like never before so I set a 2018 goal for myself, my musicianship, and musical listening knowledge:

Listen to at least 365 albums I haven't heard before (A number that may not seem so huge to some listeners, but it's a far greater number than any I've put up for one year ever before).

I'm pretty close to being on track with over 60 albums so far and some of them I'm ashamed to say I'm just now getting around to, but hey, better late than never of course. I'm expanding my knowledge of multiple genres, diving further into bands I previously didn't think I'd have any interest in, and actively seeking music from different countries as well. This has not only been fun for me as a listener, but as a musician it's important to have a vast array of influences and different things for your ear to latch on to.

365 albums is the bottom line. Some days I feel confident enough in my listening habits to get close to 500, but 400-450 is a safe bet. BEA is the perfect place to keep track of this progress as well.

However, some days I can listen to 7 or 8 albums with no problems or ear fatigue, other times I may go days to a week without listening to anything new simply because of life being what it is. With all of this said, I have a couple questions for anyone who may be willing to respond.

1.) How many albums (new or old to you) do you normally listen to in a week? A month? And have you ever set a goal similar to this one before?

2.) How do you schedule, so to speak, your listening habits. We all have busy lives to varying degrees, so when do you find yourself listening to music the most and do you sometimes make time to listen to albums new or old to you?


3.) In your weekly-monthly listening habits, do you go through genre/artist/era/decade whatever kicks or do you find yourself going more all over the place? Recently I've been discovering more classic metal and its sub-genres than ever before and it's fucking sick to be honest.
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Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.

[indieshins]

[indieshins]

Oh, I didn't answer question three. Usually with music I find it hard to stick to any sort of dive into an artist or genre - I told myself a while back that I was going to go chronologically through Nick Cave's back catalogue. I think I got to Prayers on Fire and wanted to go somewhere else. Not that I didn't like it, I just didn't feel like keeping on going. So mostly I'm all over the place.

I'm the same with anything. I've been getting into movies a lot, and I said a few weeks ago that I was going to watch all of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro's collaborations, which is eight films. I watched four of them, which isn't too shabby, but I found myself getting bored of the point of view, and needing a new perspective. So I guess it's just that I can't stay in one mood too long before I have to go somewhere else. Or maybe anxiety about missing out on other good stuff. Or both.
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Top 40 Greatest Music Albums by indieshins

[Tap]

I don't really have a set goal or consistent amount of music that is new to me that I take in. That chart shows every time I heard a release that was new to me in 2017. Sometimes I'd do 5 new things in one day, sometimes I'd go 5 days without taking in a single new thing. Usually those days would be spread out, there were actually 137 days like that where I didn't listen to anything new. But usually I'd hear at least one new thing.



This chart shows every time I listened to a release of some sort, including things I'd already heard and again there's a fair amount of volatility. So as you can see by comparing the numbers, the new listens are a minority. There were 427 new listens out of a total of 2227 listens (19%). So I didn't get that much further than your 365 goal. I never really set out to make a goal of it, it just sort of happened. I hear people talking about music all the time and a lot of it interests me.

For scheduling, I'm lucky in that my job allows me to listen to music during work. I believe that while I can't give the music my full attention, there is value to letting the music fill the space you exist in, and so I do a lot of relistening to things during that time. I used to be able to take in new things too, but work got too hard for that. But yeah then when I'm off work I'll find some time to sit down and take in some new things. I haven't really been keeping up with any other media, some tv and the occasional movie here and there. This was also not really an intentional thing, I just found myself really wanting to listen to music a lot and so it never felt like making time for it, like the music made time for itself and I gladly took it.

I will definitely go on themed kicks in my listening, gathering up a bunch of related things and attempt to establish their context with each other by taking them in in close proximity and trying to see a whole out of the parts. I'll never get fully 100% committed tho, if things get too consistent things start to feel less significant than they should.

[rkm]

I have been following a sort of listening pattern for a while, which began when I first started making year charts.

I pick a year (I’m in the 80’s for the second or third time right now).
> round up all the albums I know and have from that year, to revisit
> trawl BEA for anything I might be interested in from that year, and add them to Apple Music
> google for best albums from that year, in genres that interest me, add them to Apple Music
> google “Allmusic loves 1985” to check out recommendations there, add some to Apple Music

Basically, my “recently added” tab in Apple Music becomes completely dominated by the year I’m interested in.

From there, I do a lot of listening: I spend a lot of time in the car commuting each week; on headphones while my wife watches TV etc. Within that year there is enough scope to choose genres that I feel like listening to at any given moment. I won’t give up on an album unless I’ve heard at least two thirds of it and none of it interest me. I then delete it from Apple Music. It’s a process of whittling down that Apple Music “recently added” list. If I like something new, it may get several listenings before I decide it’s a keeper. My year lists end up at a maximum of 35 albums, but I’ve generally listened to at least twice that number by the time I’m done with that year (until the next time I come back to it). Sometimes it takes a week to get through a year, sometimes two.

Aside from that, every Friday I look for new releases and generally find three or four to check out for my current year chart.

More recently, I’ve added other listening projects: the pre album era (stuff like chess records etc.); the catalogs of producers I like (Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno etc.); ECM’s complete back catalog; the catalog of a certain artist (Bruce Cockburn at the moment).It’s nice to have these diversions, yet still have some structure.

All of this said, of late I’ve been fighting two opposing urges. The first wants to hear everything. The second tells me that the first urge contributes to the modern problem of information overload, and of “erosion of empathy”. It tells me that the more I hear, the less I will care about any of it. Because I’m a consumer and lover of music, as well as a musician who creates music, sometimes I think my own music making would be better if my consumption of music was narrower and more focussed.

[Puncture Repair]

My work lends itself to being able to listen to a lot of music and podcasts. I'd say 2-5 albums a day is typical. I used to set myself goals, but I've been enjoying the hobby a lot more since I decided to just mellow out a bit.

I always say this, but listening to music is a skill and you get better at it with practice, just like tasting foods or observing art. I'm glad I set myself those goals because it got me comfortable with listening to new music, and (maybe more importantly) understanding the music and how much I enjoyed it and why I enjoyed it.

365 is a good number. There's always going to be people who listen to thousands of records just to say that they have. Just make sure you're actually enjoying the hobby. In 2014 I listened to twice the number of new albums (as in, released in 2014) and the result was having to sit through a stupid amount of completely bland crap I didn't care about.

I have no idea how many new listens I get through. But when I do it'll be because someone I respect recommended it to me, or I feel there's a gap in my collection or knowledge, or it's receiving some buzz from critics or forums.

Set goals, but decide why you're setting them. Nothing happens after you've heard 1,000 albums - no one cares, and you're pretty much as cultured as you were when you'd heard 999. You're a human being with a limited attention span and only so much life you're going to live, things are going to take your attention away from music and that's fine. One week you'll hear more new records than you'll hear in a month, and then you'll want to just hear you're favourites again and again and again. There's nothing wrong with that, you're the only person holding yourself accountable, other than maybe some elitist pricks who browse music forums (whaaat)

[manurock]

Compared to most people I know, I listen to lots of albums, but compared to you guys I listen to very little. I don't mind, at the end music is a hobby and, as some of you pointed out, setting yourself high listening amount goals can be a big pressure and you end up not enjoying or paying attention to what you listen.

1. I'd say I listen to an album a day on average (but I can be some periods without listening for an album in the whole week), and I'd say 30% first listen, 50% second or third listen, 20% well known albums.

2. At work I prefer not to listen to albums because I don't concentrate. I do listen to individual songs every now and then, generally easy listening pop songs, if my activity involves thinking less and acting more (i.e well known long lab work). So I end up listening to music at home, with the speakers (love it much more than with headphones), on the afternoon. At weekends I have more time, i.e right now I am listening to an album.

3. It depends on my mood or sometimes on what I read on this webpage. I have a list of albums I need to listen or relisten, which is quite varied in genre and time, and out of the list I choose the one I feel I want to listen.

I don't tend to repeat an artist for at least a week, what I do however is if the artist I'm going to listen a new album I haven't listened his work for a while, I listen to one or two of his previous albums to remember how much I liked the other albums and be able to compare if I enjoy the new album more or less, but leaving, as I said, some days in between.

[Lowkey]

1.) How many albums (new or old to you) do you normally listen to in a week? A month? And have you ever set a goal similar to this one before?

Per day it changes, per week it changes, but I would say I generally listen to 150 new albums a month and I relisten to 40-50 or so.

2.) How do you schedule, so to speak, your listening habits. We all have busy lives to varying degrees, so when do you find yourself listening to music the most and do you sometimes make time to listen to albums new or old to you?

I am extremely busy, but I drive a lot to and from appointments and class, my commute is usually an hour or so and I can get an album in each way. I listen when I'm at the gym or on a walk, etc.

3.) In your weekly-monthly listening habits, do you go through genre/artist/era/decade whatever kicks or do you find yourself going more all over the place? Recently I've been discovering more classic metal and its sub-genres than ever before and it's fucking sick to be honest.

I will usually pick from a "kind" of music, for the past 6-8 months that has been typically dark music like Black Metal and darker folk music.

[travelful]

365 is a good amount. There's no reason to try to listen to anymore than that. I feel like people who try to cram albums will listen to something once or twice, put a 7/10 on it and then if you ask them about it a month or two later they can't even remember anything about it because they've heard a billion and one new albums since then and they can barely remember anything about those ones either. I was guilty of that when I first got serious about the hobby. Music takes time to appreciate, and your ratings will likely constantly fluctuate overtime due to changing in musical tastes. Just make sure to let albums resonate with you for a bit, there's no rush and it doesn't matter how many you hear as long as you enjoy yourself.

[Romanelli]