Discovering music before and after internet (pros and cons)

[Bear 1817]

This is not my thread or anything, I am just helping Euronymous to get it going:

 

Quote

wanted to make a topic about the positive and negative aspects about finding new bands on internet.I mean,i remember when i didn't have access to internet and each album that i could buy,i used to spend weeks listening to the same stuff.Nowadays there's so many good stuff and infinite options floating online,that even though i discover some  incredible  music  i feel like i never give the "proper" attention it actually deserved due to the fact that i'm always  busy giving attention and discovering other stuff each day.my english suck,but thats it,not sure if its worth making a topic for it. (and of course it is better with internet lol)

 

Good first post by Euronymous and a very interesting subject of matter. Because there is no doubt things have changed hella lot over the past 10-20 years.

[Bear 1817]

Pros: easy to find new bands, can listen before you buy and so on. And the sheer amount of bands gives you countless options.

 

Cons: the sheer amount of albums being released makes it so hard to keep up, and to find a proper diamond you basically have to check out a lot of albums because everything drowns among the amount of albums. And I don't feel like I have as much time to give albums the time they need to truly shine.

 

 

Back in the days, way before I had internet, the way we bought albums was simple: we bought magazines with reviews and after a while we got to know the tastes of the reviewers. So we knew who was matching our tastes in music and not. So if an album got a proper good review we'd go out to the music stores close to us and give a few tracks a listen there, and then buy it if it sounded good. And then for the next weeks that's the album(s) we'd be spinning on repeat. It was fun, but at the same time we did buy a lot of albums that gave off a good first impression, but we ended up getting rid off. Felt like such a waste of money. Nowadays that just doesn't happen to me, unless I just buy something blind which I do every now and then. Because that's a lot of fun, but sadly too expensive.

 

This is the same as with movies, video games and so on too. Same shit. When we bought, or even rented, movies and games back in the days we ALWAYS saw/played it through. No matter how bad our first impression was we watched or played the entire thing through. Sometimes it payed off, other times we felt betrayed.

'

 

And another pros is that feeling when I discovered new albums/bands back in the days before I had internet. That is a feeling I do not get anymore at all. Like. Not ever. But back then it was something quite special, because it was also so rare to find that one band that changed everything for you personally.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Bear

[daintypersnicketydingo 38]

Yeah, I do very rarely listen to the same album more than a few times now. And I pretty much never buy blind. Before when I use to buy music without hearing it online first I'd pretty much get whatever had interesting covers or stuff I've heard about from a friend. And loved getting CD collections with multiple artists I've never heard of before. Now most of my CDs are not in use and I haven't even watched some of my favorite band DVDs in years. On the flip side, whoo those high quality streaming PVs. And there are still songs I listen to intensely for a couple weeks. Thank goodness for massive playlists and automatic artist recommendations, too. First heard of some extraordinary ones though stuff like internet radio.

[Neigedesmannes 70]

There are some amazing bands that i would have never discovered if i did not have the internet, and actually i don't think i would have discovered the genre at all without internet because of where i live.

But also because of the surplus of information the web gives us, i too often can't give an album the proper listening/attention it deserves. Even when it's a gem by my favorite artists i can hardly keep myself from trying to discover new diamonds the next minute. 

I barely experienced the pre-internet age but i would assume that back then each album was something special you held on to and you could easily appreciate it the way the artist wanted it to be.

[monkeybanana4 1732]

Before the internet explosion, I remember either finding out about new music from friends or hearing songs on the radio. And when I could finally afford to buy a release, I felt excited and thrilled to be able to purchase a CD and listen to the release for myself. Afterward, I would put it on repeat for weeks on end, soaking myself into the release and sorting out how I felt about it. I guess it was like a journey starting from anticipation and ending on my fully fleshed out thoughts. On a random side note, I still remember using the now-outdated CD player since portable MP3 players weren't in wide use yet.

 

With the internet, things have changed. On the pro side, I managed to discover Japanese music, and as a result, stumbled upon VK, finding so many popular and esoteric bands, which I have come to enjoy. As others have mentioned, and for me personally, the internet became a gateway into the world of VK (and music in general)  and helped to expand my tastes in music. No longer was I listening to the radio and asking friends for recommendations. I ended up digging info as to what was being released and who was what (artist) from different (fanmade) websites, forums dedicated to anime shows/Japanese music/etc., and YouTube (although, it was quite a different beast back in those days). So, thanks to the Internet, I've managed to widen my music library, enjoy great stuff, and connect with amazing people who share the same musical interests even if we don't live in the same place.

 

The downside, as people have already mentioned, is the amount of time spent on an album/single/release/artist is much less because of the sheer amount of music that gets released. I feel I have less time to mull over on a particular release. Instead, I listen to it a few times to gather my initial thoughts, and then move on to listen to the next latest thing that's being released. Thus, it makes it hard to really dig deep into the music and truly give it the time it most likely deserves. Also, as someone mentioned earlier, I barely use my physical CDs nowadays except to rip it since I mainly use my computer or phone to listen to music as opposed to the ancient CD player, lol.