How to get hooked to a song in an era of music abundance
We can rephrase the above question as 'how to derive the maximum out of your music listening experience in the digital era.'
I came up with this question when I realized how often I have been listening to songs from the 80s and 90s lately, despite the fact that there are plenty of musicians bringing out their original compositions and unique covers these days. So, why this urge to go back in time and listen to those old pieces?
Initially, I thought it could be because the old ones were better than today’s songs. That was silly and too easy a conclusion to form. But, the actual reason was that I was seeking for familiarity as it cajoles and comforts me and I am sure many of us seek that from the songs we listen to. Going by this logic, we can derive a few facts about music industry and music listening experience in general:
“1. The new thing is never as good as the old thing, at least right now.
Soon, the new thing will be better than the old thing will be. But if you wait until then, it’s going to be too late. Feel free to wax nostalgic about the old thing, but don’t fool yourself into believing it’s going to be here forever. It won’t.”
2. When we listen to a particular song, our brains are wired to seek for familiarity first.
3. Repetitive listening is the key to understanding a song and derive the maximum out of it.
I want to emphasize point no: 3 in this blog post. In this era of music abundance, when we are busy discovering new songs every minute of our online life, how do we actually get to listen to a particular piece of music repetitively.
To get hooked on a song we need to introduce a constraint deliberately to our listening experience. One proven limitation is to create a mixtape. That is the primary reason we still go back to songs in the 80s and the 90s. There was a constraint in discovering new songs in the analog era regarding cost, availability, and access. But, not anymore.
Here is a mixtape I tried to create for some of my own songs for your repetitive listening experience.
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