During the first lockdown I had time to listen to a bunch of albums I hadn’t heard before (a paltry amount to the average DiSer but loads for me) and experienced a renewed interest in indie with lads’ vocals after a few years of exclusively listening to female pop stars.
Second lockdown was all about my favourite 2020 albums on a loop - Rina Sawayama, Fiona Apple, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift - and Wendy Clear by Blink 182.
In the current lockdown, I have barely any compulsion to listen to anything that isn’t a playlist of 10 glorious dancefloor classics on a loop. (With two exceptions, Wendy Clear by Blink 182 and this delight The Silly Baby LP | Steve Hadfield) The sugar rush of Call On Me, Groove Is In The Heart and Rhythm Is A Dancer… sensational, the giddy hits I need to keep my morale up.
Hahahaha the Thomas the Tank Engine theme tune is also on the playlist with the dance hits and it surprises me and brings so much joy every time it comes on
Usually go to a bunch of festivals across a year and spend a few weeks in advance of each listening to the acts on the bill that I haven’t heard of. Quite like it cos it feels like its building up to something even if the bands aren’t that great
Now its mostly just listening to new releases in a given week which can get a bit boring
Revisited a lot of stuff I liked when I was younger for that comforting familiarity/nostalgia. Also taken the time to listen to some ‘classic’ albums that I never bothered with.
Sometimes can’t think of anything I actually want to listen to and find myself questioning whether I even like music. Usually resolve this by just picking a Joni Mitchell album and remembering ‘oh yeah, music is great actually’.
More or less the same, 90% kpop, 10% whatever i used to enjoy in the past. I do miss the odd good song I hear in a shop though and use shazam to find out what it is and absorb it into my regular rotation
quite a lot really. Before i’d add stuff to my spotify library when i’d read about something or hear about something and then mainly listen when on the move - had a 30 - 60 min commute to work and back everyday, walk around between sites fairly often and generally reasonably active on my own so had lots of time to check new things. Generally in the house listen to vinyl which is broad enough, has old and new, but totally different to the way i’d add things to spotify of course.
I kept doing the same since lockdown but noticed my library was getting bigger and bigger with stuff i hadn’t had chanced to explore properly. I’m at home all the time with two young kids so checking out a new grindcore band, or something which requires even the slightest bit of attention just doesn’t happen. I haven’t shifted my habits enough to do my ‘discovery’ listening in the evenings through Spotify as it just feels different.
I listened to a lot more hip hop before as it works well with headphones in that i can focus on the lyrics so that’s gone out the window since lockdown. Also less likely to pop it on when i’m doing jobs around the house due to the language and the kids.
. Listened to a lot of stuff from when i was younger also, and of course, a hell of a lot of miserable stuff but not sure that’s changed!
tl:dr - i just don’t have the time to fully explore as much as i used to so i’ve become a ‘listen for 10 seconds and proclaim it’s shit’ kinda wanker.
I’m slowly re-digitising my ridiculous CD collection after losing 3 year’s worth due to a catastrophic harddrive failure so I’m basically dragging batches of CDs over to my partner’s house every few weeks and binging artist’s back catalogues as I do so, which has been great to get me back into stuff I might not have listened to for a few years.
What’s really keeping me going at the moment is mostly electronic stuff, from early Warp (been collecting the Artificial Intelligence series via eBay and discogs - still hunting down Speedy J -Ginger and F.U.S.E. - Dimension Intrusion but they’re pretty rare and expensive), the collected works of The Orb who have become a massive favourite and other dub/psy stuff like Shpongle, Ott, Solar Fields, Carbon Based Lifeforms etc. Also a lot of ambient, especially compilations. Revisiting artists I had mostly forgotten about to my detriment, like The Black Dog, Christ. and Bola, and still regularly discovering things that astonish me like Craven Faults in the last few days.
I’d say I’ve been able to find a nice new routine for listening to stuff. As in there’s music I’ll listen to when I’m walking (usually stuff with more vocals), or when I’m writing (usually instrumental moodily appropriate stuff), and stuff I’ll listen to when WFH (radio shows, playlists, video game music)
In terms of what I feel like listening to, it’s always fairly all over the place and that hasn’t really changed much.
I say that, my headphones broke yesterday. I’ve borrowed me dad’s ones but they’re massive and crush my jaw in a bit so I haven’t listened to much today
