No one listens on IPODs

[brandondrury]

I went to a concert with two buddies recently who both brought their Ipods. They use the FM modulator thingy to play the MP3s through some unused radio station and they usually just hold the mp3 player in their hand like it's a remote control. Well, we have a 2 hour drive to St. Louis so it's kind of a small road trip. I don't think we got through a single song all the way through.

Just like people with 200 channels on the TV, they flipped through song after song after song.

There was a day when people got by fine with only 3 TV stations. Now people can't find anything to watch, even with 200 channels. The same applies to mp3s and Ipods.

I couldn't help but think that Ipods are killing music. It seams the ability to have 20,000 songs makes it' impossible to listen to 1. Crazy!

Sorry, the title was a little bit of an exageration.

[TAlderson]

Oh, man, I know exactly what you're saying. Whenever I listen to an iPod with someone else, it seems like they have musical ADD, play 30 secs of one song before switching. I have a cd player, so I can't really do that, but I like it that way, because then I listen to the entire song, not just the first 30 secs every single time.It annoys the hell out of me.

Then again, a lot of times, I don't like the music we're listening to, so then it works to switch it fast.

Great post!

-Tyler

[richiebee]

I agree... great post Brandon!

I never even get more than 2Gigs of songs on my MP3 player (not an iPod by the way). I have maybe five albums on there now, and listen to each one all the way through without touching any of the buttons. But I know that's not normal for your average MP3 player user.

R.

[Smidgelton]

I embrace the new technology. I have 200 channels and I don't know what half of them even are. I sit down and browse the channel guide, pick out the shows that seem like they might suit my interests, and set them up to record on the DVR (TiVo thingy). Then on my day off, I don't have to worry about flipping through stations trying to find something decent when I've got hours worth of material that interests me right there in my menu. Plus I can skip right on through the commercials. I actually spend SIGNIFICANTLY less time in front of the TV because I know exactly what it has to offer, and I don't waste time flipping through a bunch of garbage.

Same thing goes with my mp3 player. I can set up HOURS worth of music that I want to hear in playlists so I don't have keep switching out CDs to hear certain songs. I can't listen to an entire album in the car. Now when I'm at home it's a different story. I can put in one CD and let it's entire duration play through. I don't think the technology is killing music, maybe the way some people are using it is taking the joy of music away from themselves.

[brandondrury]

I like your method Richiebee. I've always thought that 5-10 albums is plenty for your average trip. You can fit this is on a 1GB Ipod pretty easily. Well, when I tell friends / family that a 1GB Ipod is plenty, they look at me like I'm either an idiot or an old school dinosaur. Why use one 1GB of mp3s when you can have 40GB or 60GB?

Of course, I'm the one with 620 GB of drive space in my recording computer, but they don't seam to understand that one either.

Oh well.

I'm very curious how this will effect music / society / whatever. The "channel changing" mentality has to have an even more adverse effect on the "death of the album" concept.

Brandon

[richiebee]

Yeah, I've got a 5Gb MP3 player and have never filled it.

I wonder if there's some correlation between the whole don't listen to a whole track thing and the whole internet experience. We've given ourselves too much choice. Stupid people are getting onboard technology that requires some intelligent filtering and a real thought process. Because they don't know what they like or want, they are constantly on the search in a random manner.

I'm sure the majority of people with way more choice than they know what to do with are unsatisfied.

[brandondrury]

I'm sure the majority of people with way more choice than they know what to do with are unsatisfied.

I know all about it. While this doesn't directly tie into MP3s, I've found the same to be true with how I want to earn a living. I can do tons of online ventures. I can run a studio. I can focus on this site. All of these will pay the bills (some better than others). I've found this excessive choice has become mind boggling at times when I really need to figure out which one I need to do and give it 100% attention. Otherwise, I'm a lot like the guy flipping through mp3s.

Even in audio recording, choice seams to be a bad thing. I can't count how many times I've read the big boys say that it's almost always better to commit an idea to tape or disk. One obvious instance is in guitar recordings. It's quite common these days to use multiple amps at the same time to combine various timbres and tones and come out with something bigger/better in the end. Well, I was reading about the second Creed record. They had 9 microphones all going to seperate tracks in Pro Tools. Of course, they layered the shit out of it and ended up with something like 56 tracks of guitars. They said that mixing it was a total nitemare. One the record after that, they used the same system of 9 mics (I think) but they submixed them to one track. They said that the fidelity of the record was just as good (if not better) but comitting to something (and limiting choice) made the entire process WAY easier.

Anyway, I do think that this "too many choices" world we live in is going to bite us in the ass in the not too distant future.

Brandon

[sergio]

I use my Ipod mainly to listen to the mixes I'm working on in the studio, while I'm driving and I listen trough the headphones.

All music in it, is stuff I really like and I do listen to the songs all the way.

I hate when ppl can listen to anything till the end....hehehe