How can I stop getting sick of new songs quickly?

December 9, 2006 5:34 PM

How can I stop getting sick of new songs quickly?

I might love a song the first time I hear it, but after hearing it several times it palls on me. This question sounds like it's straight out of the Annals of Improbable Research, but I'm wondering how I can get the most enjoyment possible out of a song. Does spacing out the time between listening to the song really make it fresher in your mind? What about listening to short segments at a time? (Just as one would sample a fine wine.) Has anyone else ever thought about this? I would really like to have that wonderful feeling (of listening to a new song) over and over again.

posted by lunchbox to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

Maybe start listening to some new kind of music. Maybe they're not interesting for long because they really aren't interesting at all.

I say this because the songs I really love usually took several listenings before I could really hear them. I do not tire of them.
posted by Listener at 5:46 PM on December 9, 2006

Try listening to more complicated music. If you get tired of something after a few listens, that probably means that the music is so predictable that it offers no surprise or interest.

For example, I saw this Zappa: peaches in regalia (you tube) today. Is it too complex for you to enjoy on the first listen? but do you find anything interesting in it? If so, good. On repeated listening you will find it more predictable but still containing interesting things.

I'm not saying you (or anybody) should listen to that song. It is just that the more complex the music the longer lasting power it has.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 6:22 PM on December 9, 2006

Try adding the song to a mixtape....
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 6:24 PM on December 9, 2006

Listen to old songs
posted by hortense at 6:35 PM on December 9, 2006

I review music for a college radio station. One of The Rules is that you should listen to something several times, before judging it. Good music ages well, but may sound awful at first, espescially if it's outside your typical listening patterns. Conversley, mediocre music loses its luster rapidly.

I hate to be so glib, but are you hearing this music through traditional outlets? (ClearChannel radio, MTV, etc.?)

Most pop music (used here in the sense of anything you hear through those outlets) these days is bile.
posted by phrontist at 6:39 PM on December 9, 2006

It may be that you haven't found the particular genre/style that you really like yet. You might want to try getting an MP3 player and a subscription-based music service that lets you download and listen to as much as you want as long as you pay a monthly fee. (The URGE music store, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music, and the Zune music store are the best examples I can think of off hand.)

Note: The iPod does not support these services, because the MP3 player manufacturers are using different DRM standards. You'll need either a Zune or Plays-For-Sure device like the Creative Zen Vision to get the most out of these services.
posted by JDHarper at 7:44 PM on December 9, 2006

Your favourite band sucks!

Start here.
posted by flabdablet at 7:45 PM on December 9, 2006

And what's wrong with getting tired of the same song?

If you listen to enough music, there's got to be at least a few songs that really sticks with you, for whatever reason.

I myself usually only listen to my songs (thru itunes) in Shuffle mode; if you use set playlists to listen to a small amount of 'current favorites,' try listening to _everything_ you have for awhile -- impressions on songs can change significantly over time, and you may just find lost favorites within your own stash.
posted by Muu at 8:22 PM on December 9, 2006

Definitely try listening to new kinds of music. I find it hard to find music that I don't tire of because to me it needs to sound exceptionally fresh and original. Try listening to music from outside the US or UK. Assuming you grew up in the US or UK, then most of the music you've heard probably has been influenced by all the same stuff - other US and UK music. That makes everything, even some of the more original stuff, sound sort of familiar, and not that original. So maybe the first time it'll sound pretty good, but after hearing it a few more times, there's nothing exceptional seperating it from everything else out there.

Also, you could try joining last.fm. It keeps track of the songs you listen to, then connects you to other people listening to similar music. So just listen to those songs you really enjoy, however few, and you'll find others listening to those. Then you can check out what else they listen to, and hopefully it will please you. Another useful tool is pandora.com. Enter in one or more artists that you like, then it will play other similar music. Then you can tell it whether you like what it's playing or not in order to refine it even further. It's free, but you can only skip a handful of songs out of every hour, so you may be forced to sit through some you don't like.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 11:19 PM on December 9, 2006

I think SaltedMonkeyNuts is on the right track. Listen to more complex (a.k.a. intellectual) music.
Try as I might, I simply easily tire of most (if not all) new music I hear these days. I just find it all one-dimensional (not to mention highly compressed and mixed for crappy earbuds...which might also be a large part of your problem. Bad-sounding music is just boring.) I constantly find myself running back to the comforting, and complex, sonic arms of artists like Monk, Mingus, Davis, etc.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:40 AM on December 10, 2006

Try a new genre, ignore you prejudices, listen to new stuff at least 3 times at intervals, if the artist is an artist and not a pop artisan you may find new stuff from forcing yourself to do it, it would be nice to have a list of the well out of the way genres, in the UK we have Radio3 Late Junction, which together with our fantastic ales and weather makes the UK the place to be, so how about take a listen to Robert Wyatt .... just try it. Old folk find it hard to discriminate between instances of younger persons music, I guetss the same applies in reverse. Most folk are strongly influenced by the styles they imbibe during their teens, so if youre at teenager get it wrong now and you live with naff muzac all yer life. aaargh
posted by SwissTommy at 8:14 AM on December 10, 2006

Listen to the same music with different people.

Everybody tends to have a different take on how they hear a song, or what they take from it.

Hearing their opinions or thoughts will likely reveal aspects of the songs you hadn't picked up on, and hopefully refresh them for you.
posted by extrabox at 12:11 PM on December 10, 2006

do you listen to whole albums straight through? i got out of that habit, and recently returned to it and it's great. your listening changes altogether. singles are great and all, but album listening is a completely different, underappreciate animal.
posted by ifjuly at 9:07 AM on March 17, 2007