#4

Spotify offline folder with 30 playslists, switch 15 out every two weeks - keep 3, replace 12.

Anything I really like goes into another offline folder, and I try to buy it on vinyl. Massive backlogs obvs, vinyl is💰

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#6

I download albums I want to hear and then listen to them when I’m in the mood.

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#7

Cheers, I like the sound of this - might give something similar a go

#8

I’ve found it really helpful - I’m someone who gets the most out of music when I time into it. Before I started doing this I was listening to everything once or twice and loving very little, I’m listening to less but enjoying it more.

#9

bookmark albums on Spotify and wishlist them on Bandcamp, then look through them later when i’m looking for something to listen to.

not very efficient as certain things get accidentally ignored for ages. still need to listen to the new HMHB!

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#10

I just listen to the smashing pumpkins instead

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#11

what smashing pumpkins record did you listen to today ttf?

#12

Hardly try, just think what I fancy at any time. Trying to listen to less stuff more often which can be fun.

Going into a phase where I’m not fussed on music which is shit but I’ll be over it come January.

#13

Bit of machina 2

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#14

I use my car journeys to work, about 45 mins each way so perfect for the average album, to listen to new stuff from Spotify. At home, with my big speakers and nice set up I listen to things I love on vinyl. Every year the “albums of the year list” process is really important for me as it helps me decide on the ten or twenty things that make the leap from the former to the latter.

#15

Here is my ridiculous methodology:

Create giant Spotify playlists, titled To Play, Played Once (Twice, Three, Four+ times). Each week add new releases based on Metacritic, DiS, Flying Out (NZ music store affiliated with Flying Nun, for the NZ stuff), plus the old stuff (I’m doing career re-listens to Bowie, Ramones, Wilco family).

Listen through the To Play playlist and move to Played Once. Continue like this. Usually everything gets four listens minimum, though if it’s really not for me I’ll drop it earlier. At that point if i like it it gets saved, if not deleted, if unsure I keep listening to it.

#16

I buy CDs and put them in CD wallets in the car and then listen to them when I want (ie when I am in the car). It’s about 95 per cent new music, on the rare occasions I buy non-new music it’s music that’s new to me.

About once a year I clear out the CDs in the car, taking out everything I haven’t been listening to and put it in a huge CD wallet in the house, never to be listened to again.

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#17

Start with Bandcamp for any rec. If it’s on there I add it to my wishlist. If not there then I add the album to a Spotify playlist.
I can listen at work so I play stuff there.

Generally find if I like something it lodges in my head even after this and I can add the album to a keeper list in Spotify to listen again.

Generally given something up to 3 listens

#18

Totally unstructured because what I enjoy depends totally on my mood.

I now give barely any time to music that doesn’t stick because otherwise it feels like I end up spending all my time listening to music I don’t actually like. There are exceptions e.g. gave the Hillary Woods album a lot of time this year because of DIS enthusiasm and because it theoretically ticked the boxes of stuff I normally like. But actually I feel quite confident in my own taste these days and worry less about missing out or wondering what it is I’m not getting about artist x.

I’m sure both these things mean I am missing a lot of great music but maybe I’ll stumble on my favourite 2018 album in 2024. But even if not it doesn’t matter, it’s like chasing rainbows. I’ve genuinely loved over 70 new albums this year. It’s (more than) enough.

More generally it’s fair enough to be cynical about the whole vinyl revival thing but I do think there is something intrinsically different about having a physical copy of an album that enables engagement (cd too). I spend most of my time using streaming because of the practicality but it still somehow misses a certain level of engagement.

Love bandcamp btw. Only really started using it over the last couple of years and I’m a big convert.

#19

I’m similarly impatient, these days.

Also, I probably only have the capacity to hear one or two new-to-me albums a day, depending on my mood. More than that and it gets overwhelming - nothing is going to sink in.

Therefore the rest of my listening is music I already know and like (and own), which seems like a sensible balance to me. I get a lot more out of listening to favourite stuff for the umpteenth time than I do following up on recommendations all day. It’s possible I listened to nothing but Nick Cave in October. All that new music isn’t going anywhere, and sometimes it’s more rewarding to wallow in your favourite stuff, like you used to do when you only owned a dozen albums.

As for the new stuff I love, I always buy those albums on CD or on Bandcamp (can’t go all-streaming). Once I’ve done that (and ripped the CDs) I have smart playlists like ‘Not listened to yet’ so that nothing gets neglected.

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#20

did you come around to the Woods album? i gave it more time than i was naturally inclined to as well and it still hasn’t really clicked.

#21

No I didn’t. Definitely a case of quite liking any given individual track but not liking the album as a whole. Gave it 8 or 9 proper listens and actually ended up quite disliking it, which is a bit unfair.

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#22

Actually just setting one new to me an album a day would probably work for me. It’s the wading through stuff to find what’s worth giving an hour to that is tricky.

#23

I’m still in the habit of automatically downloading stuff by bands I like or stuff I like the sound of to investigate later, but because I’m yer auld da and still using an iPod Classic, I’ve started picking three albums from my download folder on the PC each week and putting them in their own “To Listen To” genre on iTunes, which seperates them from all the existing favourites on the iPod.

Found I’ve given a lot more time to recent downloads due to them not getting lost in the overall sprawl on the iPod.

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#24

As an old codger, since about 2011 I have had a rule that I’ll only seek out contemporary releases rather than back catalogue stuff I missed at the time. I also avoid bands I liked 20 to 30 years ago reforming and releasing new material. Lastly, I grow out of bands/artists after a while and stop buying or listening to their releases - they were good back then but no longer relevant to me now. I still have much of my vinyl from the 80s and CDs from 90s and 00s which I’ll occasionally delve into when in reminiscing mood but that is not often.

That long preamble brings me to my current system. I subscribe to various artists and record labels on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, You Tube and to a lesser extent Spotify. I listen to a few select shows on Mixcloud. Every Friday I receive notifications of releases from various record stores (Resident, Normans, Monorail, etc) and online sellers (Bleep, Boomkat et al). I also read a few music sites: Drowned in Sound, Quietus and one or two others. Lastly, I follow artists and labels on Twitter (My favourite album of 2018 was discovered this way via a comment from another artist) By doing that I kind of know what is getting released and when - it isn’t foolproof as I do miss things but there is so much music out there that it is not possible to cover everything. Subscribing to Soundcloud and Bandcamp in particular enables you to pick up all sorts of things not really mentioned in the rather insulated British media (Russian and South American takes on alternative and electronic genres are a particularly discovery this year).

Each month I’ll collate playlists on Spotify and Soundcloud and turn it into a compilation that goes onto A CD for my work commute from which a edited version will then appear on Mixcloud for me to listen to at work or elsewhere. In the meantime at home I’ll be busy amassing material for the following month - it’s usually the first thing I do when getting home from work - go through anything from the above sites that have appeared in my stream. This continues throughout the year. In the meantime anything I really like I’ll buy on vinyl, CD or download, and listen to at various intervals. During the summer when I have time I’ll play all my vinyl putchased in the last year a process repeated in December when I start compiling my own best of lists.

The thing to remember is music is transient, time moves on more appears, I like the fact that despite being in my 50s I’m always searching out new sounds (Experimental, industrial electronica by women artists is a particular interest of mine - the noisier the better) and haven’t descended into the patronising ‘music was better in my day’ attitude of many of my contemporaries. Much better looking forward than being stuck in the past.

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