A quote from DJ Pete Tong has been haunting me for weeks. He declared that modern listening habits are tantamount to “just watching the best scenes from a movie.”
This quote came in response to a survey conducted by National Rail into people’s music listening habits, which, it turns out, are narrower and more comfort-based than a lot of music fans would hope.
Of the 2,000 respondents, the average listener plays their favourite track 343 times a year and rotates between just six artists. They even unearthed a rather disheartening statistic: 41 per cent of fans have not listened to an album in full in the last year and 8 per cent have never spun one from start to finish at all.
“The way we interact with music has fundamentally shifted, and it’s easy to let an algorithm do all the thinking for you, or rely on that one playlist of favourite songs, keeping you stuck replaying the same safe tracks,” Tong added.
This survey and Tong's response buried itself so deeply in my psyche because at least, to some extent, I know I’m part of the problem. Funnily enough, when it comes to music, a lot of us are quite literally like records stuck on repeat. When I’ve played music through Spotify or YouTube, I have been known to bounce between a heavy rotation of songs conveniently listed on the sidebar or at the end of a playlist, songs phasing in and out as time passes.
This pick-and-mix like approach brings its joys, of course. It’s a form of panning for dopamine, especially as what I choose tends to be fresher discoveries. More intense are my ADHD song hyperfixations, where I’ll play one song constantly, either for the emotions it induces or because one particular section scratches my brain.
The problem is I fear it inhibits me. There’s a universe of music that it stops me touching, because it takes away my need to have to search, make a decision, or exert any extra effort. I have to switch gears in my brain when I want to transition from this quick dash from song to song to artist to artist to locking into the full experience of an album. It’s even stopped me going deeper into a certain artist’s back catalogue. Frankly, I don’t want that anymore.
Depending on the circumstance, my brain can become more distractible than I’d like when I’m trying to explore an album I’ve not listened to. Sometimes, a few songs in, I develop a craving to listen to one really specific song and end up cutting my own flow off to listen it before picking up where I left off. The unfamiliarity and unpredictability of a new album asks more of you, in terms of both time and energy. Often, they need breaking in like Doc Martens for the depth of its experience to fully reveal itself to you. It’s a nourishing act, a slower, more satiating type of gratification, but one that requires more effort.
The algorithm rushes in to take one more decision off our overloaded plates, but in the moment, we’re not focused on what it costs us. We don’t always notice how it narrows our worlds, especially if we outsource that decision making because life has drained us enough in other ways. It’s not surprising in this economic climate, when wages have been outpaced by living costs and there’s greater pressure to simply survive. Naturally, it squeezes our mental capacity too, but this is intertwined with online information overload, social media overstimulation, and the sanding away of already fragile attention spans thanks to short-form video and the endless micro-decisions that come with scrolling into oblivion.
The attention economy matters. The less capacity we have to deeply think, for our minds to wander, and to absorb more complex ideas and art, the easier we close ourselves off to the world’s knotty issues and raging crises. We cannot solve problems we don’t have the capacity to dissect, but we also get cut off from the long-form art and culture that imbues our lives with so much meaning. If you needed more of a jolt out of these habits, Johann Hari’s brilliant book Stolen Focus is an essential read about why the decline in attention spans is such a vital issue.
Fortunately, algorithmic dominance is falling out of fashion anyway. Offline is in and brainrot is out, partly a result of AI slop clogging news feeds, partly a result of declining mental health. A piece I read in The Guardian on the rise of offline activity clubs was especially encouraging, while an Ofcom report earlier this year confirmed that fewer adults are posting, sharing and commenting on social media, and that two-thirds of adults feel they spend too much time online.
I see my efforts to alter my listening habits as synonymous with my battle to distance myself from social media where possible. They have the same effects, both positive and negative. A few hours offline can have the same restorative, calming power as immersing myself in an album on the train or in my bedroom. Sometimes song-based listening feels like stuffing myself with sweets where an album feels like a nourishing meal, which is exactly how too much online time versus an offline afternoon feels.
So, how do we make change? As I’ve been learning, environment matters more than willpower. (Don’t rely on willpower unless you want to convince yourself you can never change your ways at all. It’s fickle.) Train yourself with albums again in quiet, peaceful environments with maybe only a menial task to do as you listen – I weirdly favour sticking one on when putting my laundry away. See also – the supermarket, the bus, the drive, a walk.
If you have the means, invest in what you’re listening to, by buying some CDs, a record player, even a second-hand iPod. If you’ve put money behind it, you’ll want to engage with it and get every pound’s worth. Even a subscription to a better quality streaming service like Qobuz – who pride themselves on discovery and human curation – counts. I’ve also found making a specific list of albums to explore helps narrow down the decision making when the occasion calls. On mine currently are the likes of Nothing’s Dance On The Blacktop, The Prodigy’s The Fat Of The Land and Songs To Scream At The Sun by Have Heart. Trawl through magazines and support print media at the same time. Then, you get to feel doubly like a good arts-supporting citizen.
The best part is that the choice feels more like yours. No technological wizardry can hold you in place. Explore, and enjoy.
If you have déjà vu, this thought has been stuck on repeat since this recent newsletter about the National Rail report.
And in other news...
- Women's Aid and the End Violence Against Women coalition have urged the organisers of Thirty Seconds To Mars' arena shows in London and Manchester next year to cancel them. This comes in the wake of a litany of allegations of criminal sexual misconduct against vocalist Jared Leto, which allegedly took place between 2002 and 2016. (He has denied all the allegations.)
- We're still waiting for the government to properly put plans into action to ban ticket touting, but in the meantime they've linked up with O2 for a new campaign against ticket fraud. They're encouraging gig goers to always use official ticketing websites, such as Twickets, and to take caution over last minute tickets for sale on social media.
- Spotify will begin labeling AI artists on its platform in response to the demand of fans for better transparency around AI-generated music. They will also not be included in personal recommendations.
Drowned in Sound is proud to be partnered with Qobuz, the pioneering high quality music streaming platform.
Each week, we create a companion playlist for our podcast. School's out for summer and the DiS team are sharing their tunes of the year and this week it's the turn of podcast co-host Helena Wadia. Listen to all of our playlists here.