How stuck in your musical comfort zone(s) are you?

My thread, my guilt-inducing rules, yo.

Tbh I'm a little horrified that so many people seem to go around with headphones on all the time. That's super weird!

it’s definitely anti social

The only type of music I have no interest in exploring (because it literally nauseates me) is (American) musical theatre and show tunes in general, especially Broadway

Music doesn't usually occupy a foreground space in my life anymore, it plays a more supportive role- thus is corny, but sometimes like a film score. I'm much more likely nowadays to cue up an album or track that enhances my current surroundings or activity, whether or not it's "any good".

I listen to a lot less music than I used to, both in frequency and variety. In particular, I listen to a lot less "difficult" music. This has meant that I do not make it a point to stretch myself any longer, and routinely choose Happy Meals over vegetarian tasting menus.

And yet, I've fully embraced overtly emotionally manipulative music, showtunes etc, which was really like the ultimate frontier for me in a way.

It's also meant deepening my engagement in music on the ubiquity axis mentioned in the OP- hardly my comfort zone. So while I'm not as adventurous as I used to be, I have found myself in unfamiliar territory anyway as a result of being less discriminating.

I have far fewer, and possibly more conventional items on my music player now... But that includes a couple of original broadway cast recordings and a playlist of songs that I learned at the supermarket. Heh.

Speaking as a "former" or "recovering" music ovsessive, of course.

It's incredibly common and has been for years. Nothing weird about it at this stage (anti-social tho, yes).

xp

To me that isn't the horrifying part. It's that there is a vast world of sound that exists, and being in that world is as important and clarifying as being in the more organized sound-world of music. There's a great Bloomsbury Object Lesson book on the personal stereo that has a lot of interesting philosophical and social thought around this issue, but that's just my two cents.

Like, I never wear headphones in public unless I'm on the subway. Ever.

Very Cage-ian of you. I agree for the most part, unless the ambient sounds happen to be more or less the same, day in, day out, as you go about your mundane business.

I never wear headphones walking in the hills but often do (did) in cities - partly because I find the stimulation knackers me out after while and partly because music enhances cities somehow, in a way it can't hope to compete with the natural ambience of the countryside. Nature fash, there.

My two cents is that I'm suggestible and a dilettante and am always curious about people's responses to things - particularly with certain friends and you knowledgeable and experienced folk on here. It does mean I skim way too many things though.

I want to shut out the crowded sounds of the city, though. Too much sensory input everywhere. The only issue is you're also shutting out some potentially important cues (e.g. a lorry reversing noise, someone shouting that you dropped something, etc).

Also yeah, another plus for headphones is that it can be great to have your own personal soundtrack to moving through places.

I only ever listen to music in headphones now. My home system died years ago, and at first I couldn't afford to replace it but I rarely want to listen to music at home these days. Never considered how this affects my preferences, but it probably rules out a lot of stuff that requires very attentive, active listening most of the time.

Not because of the headphones, obv. Because I'm always moving through places when i listen

18 years ago, when I first started exploring the rabbit hole of music fandom (thanks, in part, to this very board) I was I felt compelled to develop the broadest taste possible (or at least what I thought of as broad then). Part of this was because everything new also felt v. exciting, and part of it was just the hipster status game of knowing the most niche stuff. Of course, my tastes ended up being shallow as they were wide.

Somewhere around 2008 I just got exhausted with the prospect of trying to hear everything. Since then, I try to take pleasure in simply knowing what I like. I still try to broaden my horizons, but as soon as it feels like homework, I nope out.

Good post

I wear headphones a lot when I'm walking around cities because there are some albums I like to listen to when I'm in motion, and I rarely drive.

I am very stuck in my musical comfort zone - and my reading comfort zone, and my tv-watching comfort zone, etc. I'm the sort of person who always orders the same thing at their favorite restaurant. It's not a quality I particularly like in myself.

The only situation in which I find headphones wearing to be "weird" is during pickup basketball games. A team sport where you need to vocally coordinate actions with your teammates. Instantly let's me know someone is a bad, selfish teammate.

I mean, to be clear, I don't wear headphones in circumstances where I would expect reasonable people to want to talk to me. I don't think it's anti-social to wear headphones on public transport or walking through the city, but I wouldn't wear them in a shop or a taxi or similar where a reasonable person might want to talk to me.

Yeah, the unease with other people wearing headphones seems odd to me, or untimely at the very least, given the recent proliferation of smartphones without headphone jacks and portable bluetooth speakers. I am frankly much more offended by other people *not* wearing them, especially in enclosed spaces like the subway.
Xp

Wearing headphones specifically to discorage people from talking to me has never worked, I've def tried :)

Like, I never wear headphones in public unless I'm on the subway. Ever.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table)

But how will you hear the announcements that due to track work your F train will now be running along the A line, or that this train will now be making express stops till Jamaica?

OP: Honestly, the main times I try to listen with an open mind is the first few months of each year when I try to catch up with others' nominations for ILM polls. Sometimes they surprise me (eg, ILM collectively persuaded me on Carly Rae Jepsen some years ago). Most of the time, though, I know whether music just isn't for me by a 5-second sample mid-track.

Otherwise, I've settled into some comfortable ruts for new music: post-minimalism from improvisatory and classical worlds, artsy electropop, tech house, nu-disco, lotsa things that get filed as dream pop, and some field recordings. There haven't been newer genres that taken my world by storm as shoegaze and IDM did when I was 20 years old, and even those genres mostly wore out their welcome by the end of the 90s.

I miss the days when better curated labels like 4AD would push me to listen to things I might be prejudiced against. Now, most the labels I follow intently (eg, Instant Classic) have well-defined and guarded borders.

Trying to decide whether I'm "stuck" in my music listening? It's important to me to hear some new music and I talk about new discoveries with friends and I ... appear on threads like this. I used to write about music for a living and so got "free music" and (kind of) had time to listen to new music or music that I didn't want to listen to, particularly.

Different life events have changed my listening including not writing about music, having less time for listening, having a job where I'm differently tired, doing a second degree (I couldn't listen to as much *banging* stuff, as previously), having a significant bereavement (again, didn't want to listen to *banging* stuff) etc ... So, I'd hate to think of myself as "stuck" but also ... there's a reasonableness to get different things from different music.

good post.

Here's a good recent example: I used to be *obsessed* with TNP and Destroyer. Hadn't listened to anything from either band since 2005 or so, and tbh, didn't really care much about that fact. Figured they were doing well, and I'd moved beyond TNP's sound, same with Bejar, whom I stuck with from 2001 up to and including Your Blues.

Now, I'm listening to all of these records I missed, and I'm so happy and surprised. Tbh, I've been more excited about new music in general the past few days *simply* because I've been spending so much time with this stuff that I missed because I'd moved beyond it at the time.

I knew the itch was coming, though, because when Bejar's latest album came out earlier this year, I downloaded it based on a review in The Quietus, and while I haven't spent much time with it, my impulse didn't go unnoticed.

And re: headphones— I'm also the sort of person who refuses to do anything using Bluetooth because even though it's gotten more reliable, it was so glitchy in its early days that I would rather deal with a wire.

It certainly makes me seem like a Luddite, but on the other hand, I think people rocking them everywhere they go look totally insane, so whetever.

Heh, just finally realized today that a Bluetooth device was causing me grief by glitching and set it aside to chuck it. I had thought it was my phone for longer than I care to admit.

I used to kind of do a taste makeover every once in a while, or try to bust into a new genre every few years but that approach seems to meet with internal resistance these days. I have a similar kind of catching up going on as the table.

Every four months, I wipe the iPod that I keep as my main digital music player in the car and house, and reload it based on the new stuff I've acquired and my whimsy at the moment. It's a good practice, I highly recommend it.

Sounds like a good practice. I do the same with my ILX Bookmarks.

I think people rocking them everywhere they go look totally insane

More insane wearing earbuds or over-the-head cans? (I ask as a big can wearer)

I still try to broaden my horizons, but as soon as it feels like homework, I nope out.

Thing is, I often feel like sitting with multiple albums by the same artist is more like homework than trying out different things. Even if I love them, I'm going to get worn out by it.

Both.

It's a totally, utterly personal thing. And it's not like I'm actually judging people, I just can't imagine going through life like that.

The only time I'm really a fascist about it is in classrooms. I've failed two students because they refused to take their earbuds out during class, after repeated warnings.

Oh god, yeah, that's just not right. Same with whoever above mentioned playing team sports with headphones. I can't even imagine thinking those situations would be okay!

Anytime I leave the house I have full cans on. (I fully endorse Sony MDR-ZX600s, btw. Fantastic sound quality and bass response at a very reasonable price.)

It's that there is a vast world of sound that exists, and being in that world is as important and clarifying as being in the more organized sound-world of music.

this sounds right to me, even if it's been a while since i've sorted through my thoughts to really get to the heart of why i feel anti-headphones.

and, sorry for a potential further derail, but this is just too great a coincidence: i was in the car today and this author, mack hagood, was being interviewed on the radio and (amazingly) was basically speaking to table's concerns itt (or so it seemed to me):

In Hush, Mack Hagood draws evidence from noise-canceling headphones, tinnitus maskers, LPs that play ocean sounds, nature-sound mobile apps, and in-ear smart technologies to argue the true purpose of media is not information transmission, but rather the control of how we engage our environment. These devices, which Hagood calls orphic media, give users the freedom to remain unaffected in the changeable and distracting spaces of contemporary capitalism and reveal how racial, gendered, ableist, and class ideologies shape our desire to block unwanted sounds. In a noisy world of haters, trolls, and information overload, guarded listening can be a necessity for self-care, but Hagood argues our efforts to shield ourselves can also decrease our tolerance for sonic and social difference.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/hush

That's interesting but some people just wanna jam out to some tunes whenever possible

The true purpose of noise-canceling headphones and tinnitus maskers “is not information transmission” – no shit. I imagine this guy wrote his book at a quiet library carrel or office.

I'll be picking that up next Duke sale in the spring, thanks Budo.

lmao this thread

i wear headphones almost everywhere which i guess is antisocial behavior? i find i do not need to notice the vast contextual soundworld i am contained in as it is mostly city sounds like car horns and construction

I think people rocking them everywhere they go look totally insane

how about you think about other things

imo we should save this discussion for a "wearing headphones everywhere: cool or fool?" poll

sorry y'all i am very tired

well, of all the ways I could be viewed as weird, insane and horrifying, I have to admit that "wearing headphones" wasn't something I'd considered before, so congrats for that I guess

but it's OK to wear them on the subway (and listen to music in the car) because those sounds are alright to be blocked out for some reason

I'm not sure what the exact split is in my listening between familiar and unfamiliar music but I'm happy with the balance, there have definitely been points in my life where I've felt like I should be checking out EVERYTHING that comes out and gets written about but I don't feel that pressure these days.

I will say though that I feel like my tastes have become quite set - I listen to things outside my comfort zone but it's been a while since I've had any big eureka moment with a genre I didn't previously like. As far as new music goes, afro-pop/afro-house was probably the last thing that felt kind of revelatory. On the other hand I've dipped into pre-20th century classical music a bit more this year and have found that quite a lot of it does absolutely nothing for me! Am still finding my way with that I guess.

I need headphones when in noisy public spaces as I find them overwhelming otherwise, this is a fairly recent development as I was fine at raves in Eastern Europe and commuting in Beijing, just something to do with getting older maybe, or general anxiety issues.

For the actual question (apologies for the tedious background detail, please feel free to skip this paragraph): I used to consume music in a fairly normal way, then spent 2006-2010 going through a huge hard drive of mp3s I'd acquired, then at the end of 2010 I wanted to vote on a website (not this one) for my tracks of the year, so spent a month listening to everything I could find. In 2011 I decided to spend the whole year listening to as much new music as I could, and made a top-200 tracks list, toned it down in subsequent years and have continued going full-on new music in December each year. As I've been making this "centuries of sound" thing since 2016 I've been on a schedule of listening to one year every month, this was very easy when the year was 1893 and I could get through every single recording made in one day, but now I'm on 1940 and have no commutes to listen (thanks covid!) and it's a struggle, so am skipping the usual December listening and will do 1941 instead, I expect to catch up with the present day in about 6 years' time.

Would I recommend this way to listen to music: oh jesus no, not at all.

How stuck in my musical comfort zone am I?: I have barely listened to anything in my comfort zone for about five years now

^not the hero we deserved etc

I don't wear headphones in public because there is a lot of petty street crime where I live, and taking my full cans off my head would be easier than the usual bag thefts that happen every day.

I'm sorry I derailed this thread with my insanity about headphones, y'all. Let me be the first to say, hey, let's talk about that issue somewhere else.

Fwiw, tho I also don't think one can be stuck in one's aesthetic comfort zones, I think it's a good question and seems to be spurring some interesting responses!

Oh, I could just post a link on ILXOR somewhere. I was thinking a CD-R because that's my comfort zone.

In fact, here you go:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22k5Bz4p7K82ViTpJJ4eid

May change between now and Xmas.

do you really notice that an overnight simmer has an effect on the chemical structure in a way that's discernible from, say, three hours — in a way that pork or beef would surely break down more ?

In general I prefer the original lineup but I'm willing to listen to certain side-projects