Thursday, May 11, 2006

Musical Monogamy in an ipod Shuffle World

I recently noticed that I am a bit obsessive when it comes to music. When I discover a new band or pick up the latest CD from one of my favorite artists I have a tendency to only listen to that artist. Now I'm sure that to a lot of you that makes perfect sense. You're probably thinking, "So Craig buys a new CD and he actually takes the time to listen to the whole thing. What's so obsessive about that?" Or maybe you're thinking "What am I going to have for dinner tonight?" Or perhaps you're thinking, "Wow, Craig posted 2 updates on his site in the same week!"

The thing that I've noticed though is that when I pick up a new CD I'll also go back and check out the entire back catalogue of that artist. For example when I was introduced to Black Sabbath I couldn't stop listening to their first record for at least a month. Friends would stop by the house and say "Sabbath again? Man, you are going to burn out on that."

Of course I eventually did burn out on it, and I moved onto another one of their records before finally moving onto another artist. But when I was done it felt like Ozzy era Sabbath was ingrained in my DNA.

This complete immersion ultimately gives me a better understanding of the artist, and that is what I find the most appealing about musical monogamy.

2 comments:

Metal Mark said...

I used to be that way. Now I have so many cd's that I don't do that anymore because there is so much to listen to.

T-_Bone said...

Interesting post. I agree somewhat, but the record needs to be really special. Recently, I discovered Suspended Animation Dreams by a band called Subterranean Masquerade. For a month or so I listened to it everyday.