At 05:43 PM 1/18/2003 -0600, you wrote:
quoted 13 lines Would you buy a book you knew nothing about?> > > Would you buy a book you knew nothing about?
> >
> > Nobody expects you to buy music YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.
> > Much of the benefit of this very IDM list is to talk about the music,
> > get other people's views and read reviews (or ASK). My experience
> > with this list is that if I ask for opinions, I readily get lots of
> > clear and lucid mails which help me form my own picture of whether I
> > might or might not like the album discussed based on other people's
> > descriptions.
>
>Really, am I the only one that buys music based on people's recommendations
>without even hearing it? I can read a review of something and buy it based
>off that. I'm rarely disappointed.
I used to. And I ended up with a lot of mediocre music, because there's
always someone around to recommend something.
That, and the descriptors used aren't very indicative of entire
albums. Unlike a movie, albums can have a broad range of changeup during
their 40-80 minutes, and saying "pretty, nostalgic melodies" doesn't
describe whether the beats are chaotic, or cut up on one track but housey
on the rest, or if those pretty, nostalgic melodies are samples or deep
synthesis or boring synth presets or chopped up home recordings.
For example, when I say "I like some aesop rock, can anyone else recommend
things like that?" I get things like Cannibal Ox and anti-pop consortium,
which may be cool hip hop, but the guys sound either horribly nasally and
grating (cannibal ox) or have no flow (anti-pop). Something that Aesop
Rock has in spades, in my opinion.
That sort of recommendation scheme is rampant on the list (and other places
of course). Music is related to other music in such weird terms that, of
course, work just fine in each individual's head, but certainly loses
something in the translation from "I think they're similar" to "You should
like both, since they have this thing in common." Whether that's something
that the other person will even notice or listen for is usually forgotten
(understandable, though, since it's impossible to know everyone's
organizational and listening scheme). It's like hearing someone say "it
sounds like Aphex Twin," forgetting that Aphex Twin had stuff that ranged
from Analog Bubblebath to Pancake Lizard (isn't that just the best track? heh).
oh well.
So I usually rely on a few songs downloaded before I buy an album. It's
usually pretty easy to find a few tracks from an album, and you don't even
need to hear the full songs. Just a bit to see if what you've been seeing
everyone talk about is something that actually pans out on the album.
Like, I was really interested in Vladislav Delay for a bit, but I
downloaded some of his other projects, and the "house" element that
everyone was talking about was certainly apparent. Enough so that I simply
said "ok, I like this album, I'll just keep this one and be happy with it
on its own" :D
derek
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