Ever felt "musically stuck"?

[spc_daicon]

Hey all,

Have you ever felt "musicaly sutck"? Like, you only ever keep listening to the same bands and genres?

I noticed that all the bands I usualy listen are the same bands and music/genres I was listening some 10 years ago and even if something new gets my attention I quickly discard them and go back to what is more familiar

I feel I'm stuck eternaly on the same 40 odd sogns since my teens and I admit I'm getting kinda burned out and yet new things can't realy hold my attention for too long

Is it only me? Am I just getting old?

 

[Andrew]

Oh absolutely, I get this all the time. I've found that limiting / removing my control from whatever I'm listening to helps a ton. Vinyl's great for that since I'll hear a whole album instead of just the hits I put on repeat, but even better than that is to just throw on real FM radio. I'm between enough larger cities that I can get a decent variety of large independent stations and that's been great for breaking out of my comfort zone.

Especially when 107.3 Alternative Cleveland decides they're gonna sandwich folk music between The Presidents of the United States of America and The Butthole Surfers

 

[Lunanescence]

all the time.

 

[Sonachine69]

Oh yesss, for sure.

I feel like for me this thing is caused by the same shit that stops me from enjoying anything - short attention span. I listen to most of my music on Spotify or Bandcamp, and it's a lot easier to play some of the playlists filled with my favorite tracks.

The thing that really helped me personally is to stop listening to music just to fill the silence, and stop relying on playlists filled to the rim by the absolute bangers that you've heard thousands of times. I search for some new stuff in autogenerated mixes, and when some track vibes differently I go for the full album, to experience it as a whole thing, without skipping. Not every album will be great, but it helped me to finally enjoy my music to the fullest, be more mindful about it, find some new favorite artists, and finally stop abusing my poor "Liked Songs" playlist on Spotify.

 

[Mukky]

often.

It's either friends randomly reccomending me stuff or a random mix dropping on my YT feed that gets me exploring more music, it also helps I have a lot of friends who drop bangers!!

 

[aura547]

One of the worst things to do to yourself is find a new genre or song you enjoy, listen to it at nauseum, and predictably get fed up to the point you can't physically stand it.

Playlisting my music to specific genre's on Spotify, and allowing smart shuffle I found can help curb that habit by a bit- but it depends on how you tailor the algorithm because it tends to be a bit "abrasive" I'll put it in trying to recommend you one song you've already said you don't want on your feed over and over.

Either that or going window shopping at a local CD store (whichever one's are still around at least) or just listening to whatever you find at like an F.Y.E or something (again, if you still have one near you.)

 

[Niche]

One of the worst things to do to yourself is find a new genre or song you enjoy, listen to it at nauseum, and predictably get fed up to the point you can't physically stand it.

Playlisting my music to specific genre's on Spotify, and allowing smart shuffle I found can help curb that habit by a bit- but it depends on how you tailor the algorithm because it tends to be a bit "abrasive" I'll put it in trying to recommend you one song you've already said you don't want on your feed over and over.

Either that or going window shopping at a local CD store (whichever one's are still around at least) or just listening to whatever you find at like an F.Y.E or something (again, if you still have one near you.)

The first point's honestly what I'm scared of! I'm worried of that happening most with Skapara. I've been checking more punk thanks to a friend (and even some rave, Atari Teenage Riot's good) and also CD picking (I got more into Hikaru Utada as well since I found a CD for a dollar, thank you indirectly @Digitab) so some level of the issue's circumvented, but I'm afraid of getting back into that curve.

Regardless, musical stagnation's gotten, on occasion, mad for me. Skapara's partially had it, Long Shot Party almost consistently (one of the top 100 listeners on Apple Music last year) and a few other bands are somewhat cycling in. Although it's not something I'm inherently against, I do feel it could end up posing a negative in the future.

 

[Scott]

i get this with genres for sure. there's some pop/electronic/singer-songwriter stuff I enjoy but for the most part I default back to stuff with loud guitars and other such angry noises. a lot of acclaimed albums in these genres leave me completely in the cold but to be honest? i don't really mind. even when I stay within the confines of the handful of genres/subgenres I know I'll like, there's always so much new stuff to listen to that I don't really feel stuck. did I see a band name on a flyer for a local show? something to check out. band I like did a photoshoot and they're wearing another band's merch? something to check out. opener for a big band coming through I never heard of? you guessed it, something new.

i do usually try to schedule out some time to explore and again, there are albums and artists I enjoy outside my usual sphere. CHVRCHES' debut is one of my favourite albums ever. Autechre make some of the coolest stuff I've ever heard, i just need to be in a really specific state to REALLY want to get into it. i hardly know anything about jazz, but every now and then I feel like listening to Fire! or Sons of Kemet. it's just very rare.

how I go about listening to music borders on the mechanical though. i realize not everyone can just go "i'm setting aside at least two hours today to listen to [x] [y] and [z]" for any variety of reasons. as far as remedies for stagnation go, I don't know if I really have one that hasn't been said here already. personally, I try to avoid playlists like Daily Mix [x] when I'm not busy. if I'm at work and can have music going, I might throw one on because I'm not really going to be paying full attention to it and just want to hear The Hits, but if I'm at home I usually just pick an album and and go from start to finish.

but if your intent is to branch out, I think algorithms like spotify's Discover Weekly etc usually do a decent job of putting stuff you've never listened to in there, but mileage may vary. asking your friends for recs or even just checking RYM charts for new releases or highly rated stuff is a good way to try. as long as you at least ATTEMPT to listen to something new, even if you end up not liking it, you should eventually find something that clicks. it just might take a little more concentrated effort than you'd expect, and that can be hard to drum up, which is something I don't really have a solution for.

 

[ball]

active engagement instead of passive listening is how you break the cycle of listening to the same old stuff. avoid The Algorithm completely. read words instead. read artist biographies, interviews, histories. learn who is influenced by what and why. absorb context. if you're not already a creative/musical person, learn about how music is made. songwriting, basic theory, production techniques, instruments and how they work.
those 40 old songs in your rotation can turn into 4000 overnight just by looking up what the artists were listening to when they wrote them. and whatever you discover from that will inevitably lead you somewhere else.

 

[KeplerElectronics]

This thread is kinda old, but I really like using the algorithm to my advantage. Pick a semi-obscure artist you like, go to the "similar artists" section on whatever platform, then pick whoever looks the most interesting from there. Listen to a track or two, if it doesn't grab you, go another layer deeper.

I think I discovered Aquasine from doing this through Metaroom's Spotify page, it's also given me some really good stuff when I go chiptune hunting.

sometimes it'll give you absolutely tiny artists (<300 monthly listeners), especially if you start from a tiny artist to begin with, so you can really escape the confines of the algorithm. When I was trying to listen to an album a day last year this was an awesome technique.