I really enjoy looking through the ‘What are you listening to…’ thread and have found some great new music, which I’ve bought and added to the collection. I only try to post things that I think might be interesting and may even inspire others to try something new.
Now, Dire Straits, for example, are a decent band and I have a few of their albums, though they are rarely played these days. I’ve noticed that people keep posting their albums over and over. What I think is, ‘oh, that again, haven’t people got bored of it? Why don’t they listen to something new?’ It just seems to add no value. Is it just me? Are people interested in discovering new music? Maybe familiarity is best, like an old saggy cardigan.
Whilst I have discovered much new music as a result of other’s posts, it’s also true that, on occasion, a more “popular” album appearing has served as a gentle nudge to listen to a neglected or “forgot I had that” album.
I post very occasionally to this thread, and whilst I do still listen to many of my old favourites (even Dire Straits) from time to time, I tend not to post about them for the most part. I watch the thread to pick up some fresh (to me) and interesting listening suggestions. Nowadays, I discover a lot of new music from Roon Radio, and I have found that my musical tastes have changed fairly dramatically over the past few years.
Light jazz from the likes of Sonny Rawlings or Bill Frisell, or ‘New Age’ music from the likes of Govi would have received short shrift from me even 4 or 5 years ago. Now I thrive on the option of playing their and other similar artists’ large catalogues of music via Tidal and Roon when I want a break from my normal blues or rock based listening preferences.
I’m not sure why anyone should get bored of music, no matter how old or frequently played. More challenging I find is images of album covers with no explanation/introduction, so if unknown to me they simply remain unknown. (Also the sheer rate of new posting, so I might see something and want to flick back, but impossible to find.)
I only post there when I have time to write something, and present what I think might possibly be of interest to someone else: which might not be new in age, but might be new to someone else, especially when, perhaps, giving details of a listening session with several albums, some of which may be known to someone else but perhaps one not. And also posting something no matter how old or popular might nudge someone’s memory.
I see less value in posting things that others have just posted - but as I can’t cope with viewing the thread continuously due to its volume, I might post things that had been posted many times in previous days without awareness of that.
I have to agree on why post on & on about the same old stuff - love the saggy old cardigan - but it might be someone has just discovered it & its new to them. It would be helpful if some folks added a few words on why they like it - (one of my pet grrr’s is those posts with just the album cover)
Anyways, talking of old, I stumbled on a download of a famous old 1950’s LP on Qobuz (16/44), Les Paul ‘New Sound’. I could go on & on about this, it was real leading edge pioneer recording stuff in those days, Les had developed ways of multi-tracking & other recording techniques & this was the first public airing of his work. I will post all about it & the genius that was Les Paul on ‘What are you listening to…’
Perhaps I wasn’t thinking of new as in brand new. Someone posted the debut album by Pentangle recently, which precipitated a brief but interesting discussion and as a result I bought the seven CD set. It’s all from 1967 to 1972 and I’d never discovered it. But nobody is going to see a Dire Straits album and think ‘ooh, I must look into that’. I do agree that a memory jogger can be nice at times though.
I’m not as good as I should be at completing the why? part of title but do try.
Now here is a suggestion for @Richard.Dane - delete every post where people don’t explain why others might be interested. That would massively reduce the posts and the thread would be infinitely more useful. I’m not interested, and nor is it of any value, to know that someone is playing Dark Side of the Moon for the 1000’th time but if someone played a newly discovered Art Pepper album and said where it could be bought, that really would be interesting.
That’s quite a lot of work for Richard. Might be better if people gave a bit of thought and effort to what they posted. Reminds me a bit of the guitar shop in Wayne’s World where there was a sign saying ‘No Stairway to Heaven!’ Perhaps we could have a new ‘Interesting Recommendations’ thread that has a ‘No Dire Straits!’ sign hanging up
I’m not criticising Dire Straits. That’s not the point. It’s simply that if people posted things they think others might be interested in, and said why, then the thread would be so much more useful.
I’d be happy for Richard to try the experiment for a week and simply delete everything that didn’t fully comply with the thread title.
Nigel, I think it’s best that members self-moderate here. I don’t particularly wish to be deleting loads of posts that don’t exactly comply with the title of the thread. However, speaking personally, I much prefer a post that tells a little bit of why that particular choice of music. It could be something hitherto unknown to me, or something of which I’m very familiar. It’s the story that’s interesting, or the reason why you were led to pick that piece, or perhaps what it mean’t to you either in the past, or perhaps it means something different now. And if it’s new, and it’s great, of course you want to let everyone know about it. But, please just say something about it. Even if it’s just a couple of lines. But if a member just wants to post the album name and a picture (or even just a picture), then by all means do do so, but it just won’t be nearly as interesting to me, and probably others too.
Not criticising them either and do listen to them. It was a tongue in cheek agreement with you that there can’t really be anyone on this forum that doesn’t know them.
In my experience if there is one thing that brands want, it is more social media traffic, not less. So if traffic fell because people were no longer posting without a reason in the What are you listening to… thread, well, our hosts wouldn’t be too delighted I would imagine.
Do you think traffic that is why they host the forum? I’d understand that if there were adverts, but there aren’t.
Otherwise the Ethernet cables ans switch mania thread can take over post count from the what are you listening to one, and let the latter be more meaningful!
I think Naim host the forum for the best of reasons, for those who have bought (or are considering buying) their stuff.
But if the volume of forum traffic is a benefit to them in some way, then so much the better from their point of view. Obviously I do not know whether Naim benefits from the volume of forum traffic. And this thread is about its quality.
I really don’t think we shouldn’t go down the rabbit hole of policing what and how people post. Old or new it doesn’t matter as long as you enjoy it. Your sharing that joy of music and isn’t that what it’s really about. You might be playing DSOM for the millionth time but you may also have a reason for it, it’s a great album and a landmark in modern music that alone is reason enough. I agree that it would be more interesting if you included your reason for playing it and title/artist should always be there. I’ve found some wonderful “new”music on the thread and it’s often prompted me to play something in my collection I haven’t heard or played for years.
And I’m guilty of playing Lighthouse Family, I’d forgotten how good it sounds and how much better it sounds now after some upgrades.
I understand where you’re coming from Nigel but I feel the thread is such a dynamic thread with so many posts that it might be best to leave well enough alone. On many other fora such threads are pretty moribund.
As they say don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
I’ve discovered some good new artists on here but also some from the past that I’d missed first time around. I read an article recently that stated our brains change from the age of 40 that stops the connections being made when we listen to music and, as a result, we find it more difficult to like new music. Perhaps that’s why we default to the old comfortable albums and artists
I’d be interested in seeing a link to that if you can find it. Having had a serious brain injury and being initially unable to do all sorts of things that I can now do, I’m not convinced. The brain is an amazing thing, capable of developing new pathways and it’s now been discovered that we can grow new brain cells which was previously thought not to be the case. I suspect it’s more the case of being unadventurous.
Interesting - but I’m not convinced! On the one hand it is clear from many posts on the forum tbat quite a few people who give the impression they are older than that do keep finding new music to like. On the other, my own taste in music has remained largely unchanged from less tgan half the age of 40. (Largely as in I did later ‘discover’ opera, previously disliked (and tgat was above the age of 40), whike as I became more relaxed with age I found I could admit to liking a few things I refused to acknowledge liking in early years.)
I wish I’d kept the article as it was quite in depth and based on a study completed this year about brain changes. I’ll see if I can find it and send it on. I’d be interested though in knowing how many of us over 40 can say that our favourite ever artist or album was only discovered by us recently. I know mine have been around since I was young