"Music downloading creates listener apathy" study says

[FunkyHiFi]

From the article (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/10/060110164416.p4z0rnx6.html):


Internet downloading and MP3 players are creating a generation of people who do not seriously appreciate songs or musical performances, British researchers said.

"The accessibility of music has meant that it is taken for granted and does not require a deep emotional commitment once associated with music appreciation," said music psychologist Adrian North on Tuesday.

North led a team from the University of Leicester, central England, that monitored 346 people over two weeks to evaluate how they related to music.

They concluded that because of greater accessibility through mass media, music was nowadays seen more as a commodity that is produced, distributed and consumed like any other.

It could also account for the popularity of television talent competitions, particularly in Britain, which allow viewers from the "iPod generation" a rare chance to engage and appreciate music and live performances, they suggested.

"In the 19th century, music was seen as a highly valued treasure with fundamental and near-mystical powers of human communication," said North.

"The pace of technological change has accelerated further over the last 20 years or so and these fundamental changes in the nature of musical experience and value have arguably become even more pronounced.

"Because so much music of different styles and genres is now so widely available via portable MP3 players and the internet, it is arguable that people now actively use music in everyday listening contexts to a much greater extent than ever before.

"The degree of accessibility and choice has arguably led to a rather passive attitude towards music heard in everyday life.

"In short, our relationship to music in everyday life may well be complex and sophisticated, but it is not necessarily characterised by deep emotional investment."

The academic's assessment follows a warning last week from rock legend Pete Townshend, The Who guitarist, that listening to rock music on an MP3 player through headphones could cause deafness.

I think I have some personal proof of this study's results, though this may sound strange to people who only listen to music on a computer or an MP3 player. As most of you know, audio gear is a major hobby for me (I also sold it for three years [non-commission basis]), and while I don't have a need to replace my components every year like some hobbyists do, I still like to go check out what's available.

Before MP3s and the Internet, whenever I was listening, almost always someone would walk up and listen with me and out of those people, a large percentage would ask what album was playing.

But these days, 9 times out of ten this never happens. And it doesn't matter what I'm playing either because I've tried all kinds of music: Beastie Boys, Stereolab, 311, Rush, Yes, ska music, Thievery Corporation, Beck, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Super Furry Animals, and others. Even turning it up LOUD doesn't change anything.

I honestly don't know if there is a connection but it sure seems like an unlikely coincidence. FYI: the past four years I have noticed that the audio gear departments at all price levels, from Wal-Mart to Best Buy to extremely expensive hi end equipment shops ($20K for a pair of speakers), are nearly deserted. But the video departments are extremely busy. Another connection? Do people really sit and listen only with earbuds or those little computer speakers all the time?

[DroppinScience]

Before MP3s and the Internet, whenever I was listening, almost always someone would walk up and listen with me and out of those people, a large percentage would ask what album was playing.

But these days, 9 times out of ten this never happens. And it doesn't matter what I'm playing either because I've tried all kinds of music: Beastie Boys, Stereolab, 311, Rush, Yes, ska music, Thievery Corporation, Beck, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Super Furry Animals, and others. Even turning it up LOUD doesn't change anything.

Dude, if I were around, I'd ALWAYS ask what you're playing. ;)

As for listener apathy, gotta say it's true. When Napster first made its presence known and was all the rage, some friends of mine would download songs like crazy. However, after a few months, they'd chronically delete lots of songs and replace it with different ones. It struck me they had no true passion for the music and were just using it as background material and little else.

But then again, these people I'm talking about weren't all that into music in the first place (before Napster and MP3s, etc.), so maybe it's merely correlational instead of cause-and-effect.

Having said that, I do think iPod shuffle is a godsend.

[jabumbo]

i think its probably a lot correlational too...

alllthough it probably pushed over those who were on the fence. anyone wo truly loved music before, still does, but those who didnt are just kind of going with what they get.

[kaiser soze]

This might be true for people who buy into the trends rather than the music. There is probably 50% of mp3 player owners who have subpar pop music stored that is easily polluting our airwaves as well

It could be generational as well, during the swing/jazz days music was a revolution pulling people out of the depression, conservative mindset, vinyl was not only something fun to listen to, but owning a gramaphone was a sign of prestige. The 60's was a revelation of the mind and music, 70's brought out new and not so flattering social expressions, 80's brought music video, 90's brought "the alternatives", and now we have digital music on demand.

But unfortunately vinyl and high-fi just aren't hip/functional for most. I still cream my pants when I walk into a record store that smells like record sleeves and I always walk out depressed that I couldn't get all that I wanted.

I know when i wake up until I go to bed, I'm usually listening to music from all sorts of perspectives, but many of us are an exception to the norm. I could have put a nice down payment on a house with all the cd's and records I own, and i have yet to own an mp3 player.

I'm not sure it as uch as apathy as it is "look at me, I have an ipod"

it's just another step in the evolution of music....why are people paying for satellite radio? to be cool, because it's there, or because it has more to offer?

[EN[i]GMA]

To me it's done the opposite.

I didn't really appreciate music before I started downloading it.

All I had to go by was what was on the radio.

Downloading allowed me to expand my horizons.

I wouldn't have bought David Bowie's Low because I hadn't heard any David Bowie (Aside from the singles).

I'm not going to risk the money, but I will download it.

And now that I know I like Low, I'm likely to buy some David Bowie albums.

[FunkyHiFi]

so maybe it's merely correlational instead of cause-and-effect.
Man I hope so (it does seem like that to me also)

Having said that, I do think iPod shuffle is a godsend.
In the olden days :o when CD changers first came out it was (and still is) fun to load it up and push shuffle/random/etc and for the next five hours you didn't really know what was coming next. And then when the "mega" changers debuted, like this Pioneer (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/product/detail/0,,2076_4147_35909,00.html), it was like you had your own personalized radio station.

anyone wo truly loved music before, still does, but those who didnt are just kind of going with what they get.
Agree.

This might be true for people who buy into the trends rather than the music
At the risk of sounding like a reverse snob, I agree with this too! More and more people seem to be susceptible to what the corporations tell them they should like-scary.

But unfortunately vinyl and high-fi just aren't hip/functional for most.
Yep, the days of being able to impress someone-not that I bought my gear with that intention in mind-with a rack of components, a nice Technics 'table and some nice Advent (http://fisherdoctor.com/nadvent.html) or Infinity (http://www.bobbyshred.com/infinity/Qb.html) speakers seems to be slipping away. Now it's more like "Eeeewww, why did buy all those HUGE radio & CD player things and those fat wooden boxes?! What are you, afraid of technology or something?" :rolleyes:

I'm not sure it as uch as apathy as it is "look at me, I have an ipod"
Double "yea" on this one. Though to be honest, I wouldn't mind owning an MP3 player for while I'm jogging, cycling or hiking. But I sure as hell wouldn't store all my music on it-if it was stolen or just dropped too hard...... :(

why are people paying for satellite radio? to be cool, because it's there, or because it has more to offer
If I could afford it, it would definitely be because these services *do* offer a lot of music I could never hear anywhere else AND music that I didn't need Google to find AND no clueless DJs making fart jokes (most of their DJs actually do know about......music!). I've heard satellite radio enough to know it's very enjoyable to turn on and listen to because so much good and unknown-but-still-good music gets played. This is the way much of radio used to be.....but you didn't pay for it (well, didn't pay directly for it at least, since you helped pay for the commercials when you bought that Big Mac or that Toyota Celica).

All I had to go by was what was on the radio.
Most radio is pretty much an artistic wasteland nowadays, so the 'Net does have a few positives to offer in that area. ;)

[yeahwho]

Even though I am a recovering audiophile, I still find myself checking out the latest gear at the upperend stores but,

I truly enjoy the ease music is swapped, ripped and burned. I also am a big fan of mash-ups, which are always free. Now when I checkout CD's from the library I also happen to have the capability to own them on my hard-drive.

Portable MP3 players are incredible bargains. Most of my friends average 20-40 gigs of music on their drives, but like many of you I have a few friends who have well over a hundred gigs and are heading towards thousand. All legal. All swappable!

As far as apathy goes, it's been around forever, but I would like to think we're cool here at BBMB. :D

I still have some high tech audio componets, but I keep the turntable and Klipschorns in the garage....they get used during card games or while I toil away on a mad invention.

[Documad]

Downloading hasn't affected me because I rarely do it. A song now and then from itunes, and an album if I'm really desperate and regular stores are closed. I don't steal music. I have satellite radio and a fuckload of music that I've purchased over the years.

My first generation ipod got me listening to music more often, and for longer periods of time, because I tended to carry only about 40 CDs in my car, and I never listened at home anymore (too many years in apartments). What I noticed though was that the music I was listening to didn't mean anywhere near as much to me as music used to. At first I thought it was a product of age, or of having a better life now, but then I realized that random play was ruining my ability to truly appreciate new music (or any music that wasn't already a favorite song).

I wound up getting my stereo and vinyl out of storage, getting my brother's old speakers (my old ones were way too huge for my tiny house), and I started listening to vinyl and CDs front to back (except when the B-side sucks). Now, most of the time, even my ipod is kept with the shuffle off, so I listen to complete albums. I get more out of it that way. I feel sorry for talented musicians who put out albums today, because no one is hearing the songs in order. It's like we took a step back to the pre-70s when it was about individual songs rather than albums.

[FunkyHiFi]

random play was ruining my ability to truly appreciate new music
I use random for albums I've heard LOTS of times because it makes them sound new-ish. But yea, for a new album I would never use random.

[ASsman]

Maybe kids are growing up less "thinky", damn hippies.

Whatever the case there will always be those hardcore underground listeners. Goddamn *looks around for music scene* I need to move back to Chicago, for reazzy.

Right I'm just pissed that all I have is my laptop speakers to listen to, and they suck ass. Another thing to look at is at people attention spans, now you need video and music to keep em in their seats for 3 minutes at a time...

[FunkyHiFi]

Maybe kids are growing up less "thinky", damn hippies.
REAL hippies would encourage introspection and educating oneself on how the world actually works. Unfortunately it seems what passes for "deep" knowledge nowadays sometimes is just making sure the individual feels good about himself......at any cost......and that's it. :( And learning facts and how to think logically supposedly are boring, restrictive and keep a person from being a "free spirit". IMO all this feel-good/politically correct crap does is make someone ignorant and self-centered.

But I'm old so what do I know.

Anyhoo.................

You should be able to hook up that laptop via a minijack-to-stereo RCA adaptor to an audio system, like this basic but decent component system:

Pioneer "Chevy-quality" :) bookshelf speakers (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Pioneer-Bookshelf-Speaker-S-HF31-LR-/sem/rpsm/oid/133874/catOid/-12950/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do) Pioneer makes their own drivers so they can price these really low; and the cabinets don't use expensive veneers. I own the larger versions with 8" woofers for my rear channels (last year's model & a bit different).

Sherwood stereo receiver (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sherwood-Stereo-Receiver-RX4105-/sem/rpsm/oid/121266/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do) This is one of those "quiet" companies that makes good gear but without a lot of marketing fuss (but also make very nice stuff like this $2,000 (http://sherwoodusa.com/prod_r965.html) receiver).

Buy this and your girlfriends will do ANYTHING for you :eek: (well, at least in those 1950s bachelor pad movies it worked that way!).

[SobaViolence]

capitalism devours good music.

[ms.peachy]

I dunno. I was reading a different study not all that long ago that said that one of the positives of the whole downloading thing is that many young people are listening to a broader range of things, because they're not so bound by the time at which something was released. For example, if a kid reads an article or interview where the musician says that one of their big influences was Husker Du, then they can just get online and download a few Husker Du tracks, without having to go out to a shop and buy a whole CD. Now certainnly there's nothing bad to my mind about owning a whole Husker Du CD, but if it's not a band you're familiar with, do you want to have to go lay out £15 for it? Probably not, but you might well spend a a pound or two on a couple of songs. And so then you might like those, and look into the band a bit more, and that might lead you on to other artists that were around in that time that you're not familiar with, like the Minutemen. And then that might lead you to something else and so on and so on, and you end up kind of jumping back and forth in time connected by the threads between bands, rather than just what the local megastore wants to stock in the front of the store.

[Hiebz]

for me, music downloading creates a survival of the fittest. Back in the day where I downloaded quite regurarly what I wanted, I had hundreds of songs I listened to over and over again. Eventually I got used to what I listened to and in some cases got sick of songs I really used to like. So, the way I look at it, the real good stuff is what I continue to listen too. Downloading exposes you to the other stuff and siff out the fluff in some ways.

It has allowed me to find some old stuff I wouldn't have otherwise too. Case in point, is I remembered a few lyrics from a song when I was in college and but didn't know the name of it. I knew the group was Radio Iodine. Eventually, I found another song of theirs through downloading and ended up liking it too. A while after that, I figured out what the original song I was looking for was and bought the album because it had both songs. Turns out to be a pretty good album that I like, and I like most of the songs on it. I don't think I would have bought the album if I had not discovered the other song and liked it too.

[DroppinScience]

I dunno. I was reading a different study not all that long ago that said that one of the positives of the whole downloading thing is that many young people are listening to a broader range of things, because they're not so bound by the time at which something was released. For example, if a kid reads an article or interview where the musician says that one of their big influences was Husker Du, then they can just get online and download a few Husker Du tracks, without having to go out to a shop and buy a whole CD. Now certainnly there's nothing bad to my mind about owning a whole Husker Du CD, but if it's not a band you're familiar with, do you want to have to go lay out £15 for it? Probably not, but you might well spend a a pound or two on a couple of songs. And so then you might like those, and look into the band a bit more, and that might lead you on to other artists that were around in that time that you're not familiar with, like the Minutemen. And then that might lead you to something else and so on and so on, and you end up kind of jumping back and forth in time connected by the threads between bands, rather than just what the local megastore wants to stock in the front of the store.


When I first got into music, I'd pay special attention to what bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers listed as influences. So yeah, if the kids read interviews of their favorite current bands and they name-drop who they grew up listening to and they end up downloading some tracks by said band, then it can't be ALL bad. (y)

[FunkyHiFi]

It's true that physical CDs have become useless to me.
:eek:

You're one of the RIAA's worst nightmares. :D

I find a digital archive is so much easier to maintain -- and it doesn't collect dust.
Allow me to shatter your dreams :) : hard drive crashes, stolen/dropped mp3 players, and the fact that lots of CD-Rs have a limited lifespan (some brands only six months to year). I think music made available via computers and mp3 players truly *is* cool but to completely rely on them to safely store all of my music sends up major warning flags in my head. So I would much rather own a physical version of it-i.e. a CD, a dvd or an LP-and then use that to transfer the music to other devices. I want to truly own my music, rather than that crap Rhapsody(?) brings up in their commercials where they make it sound like this concept is old fashioned or something.

..........love of vinyl, but I also think it sounds superior to anything else.
FYI: this can be one of the most controversial subjects on an audio gear bboard-nearly every time a digital vs. analog (i.e. tape/vinyl) discussion starts it almost always gets locked, and sometimes members get suspended. I own a Technics turntable myself and some of the vinyl I've bought, some stamped out as far back as 1961, sounds better than many of my CDs. And my table/Shure cartridge combination only cost 240 bucks back in 2003.

Here's a discussion (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=69757) basically about this issue.

Vinyl is sexy too. Isn't it? Or am I weird?
Yes it is.
And no, you're not.

[ms.peachy]

P.S. I have never used the shuffle feature on my iPod. I only listen to full albums, live concert recordings, or playlists that I have masterfully created. :p

You should really give it a try sometime. It's quite funny how it surprises you sometimes, putting songs together that you wouldn't ever think to do, but that suddenly somehow make sense, or that are connected in some way by a fine spiderweb thread that you never noticed before. Occasionally it's almost spooky, like it knows somehow.

[yeahwho]

Listener apathy is real, the mitigating factor is that while alot people download only the hits of that current week, for the rest of us there are literally millions of new outlets for new music. The internet is a music freaks heaven, it catergorizes, informs, directs you to your song and also the people who share that interest. Everytime I do a search for a certain song I end up finding a dozen I forgot about and a dozen I want to get. Plus a whole new music site with a complete different take on the genre. A million times better than any radio station out there, which all the good ones now seem to be on the internet anyway.

Since downloading has come about my music tastes have definately broadened, I do have a few more clunkers in my collection but the upside I'm more inclined to take a risk.

PS, BBMB has an excellent music site, this "other music" and the "remixes" columns have been goldmines for me, thanks to FunkyHiFi and a slew of others here. (y)

[FunkyHiFi]

".....thanks to FunkyHiFi...."
No problem. (y)

Speaking of outlets for new music: while this isn't the most popular stuff around (and there are now many copycats now) it was the Internet where I first heard downtempo/chill out music. This site shut down back in 2002, but "Luxuriamusic.com" which I found on another music site, is where i first heard Kruder & Dorfmeister, Thievery Corporation and others. And because of them, I started checking out much of the music that had inspired them: the original lounge music from the 50s and 60s; reggae and ska, and certain types of hip-hop. Then that led to CDs by Massive Attack and Stereolab and..........

Radio used to provide the same type of service, though obviously not as wide ranging or as easy, but since the big corporations took it over starting after 1996 they have pretty much ruined it.

Lastly, I gotta throw this in not because I want to make people feel guilty or anything but because it was true: compared to the Net, listening to the radio could be so much more fun. Listening while driving, listening to my aunt's big ol' Zenith console stereo in the dark, or just my little clock radio while reading a book late on a school night, you knew other people were out there doing exactly the same thing, so you felt you were part of something. And while not every DJ was memorable, knowing that there was a human being sitting in a room somewhere picking out music to play, based on what his listeners in his city liked (call-ins; talking to the sales managers at record stores, etc), made you feel even more connected. They were playlists most of the time, but at that time they were more like guides & not the rigidly enforced lists of manufactured junk that clueless focus groups-or the music label itself-decided that "everyone" is supposed to love.

BTW: if you ever check out vintage audio sites, you'll usually find entire sections (http://oaktreeent.com/Stereo_Tuners.htm) devoted to component tuners from Pioneer, Technics, Sony, etc, hopefully paired with outside antennas from places like Radio Shack to make sure they were given a strong signal for good sound (FM can sound nearly as good as a CD if everything is done right). That is physical proof that radio used to be a very popular source of entertainment. Now? Only exotic manufacturers sell tuners, I guess for the few college and very few classical/jazz stations that still play quality tunes (and that don't use overcompressed signals and low bitrate MP3s for music playback).