Sea of Content - how do you feel about it?

[Sebasty]

Hey 🙂

I came across this pretty interesting comment under an Amon Tobin video where he mentioned "sea of content". The underline of that is Amon being advised to releasing some content straight to paying fans under a subscription rather than releasing them in the open field, as they could "get lost in the sea of content rather than found in the playful paddling pool of creative exploits".

Here it is:

You're right it is a vast sea of content out there. 
I feel my brain slowly being rewired to consume content rather than 
enjoy it as I mindlessly scroll through various feeds.

I remember when I was in high school and I bought master of puppets. 
That CD didn't leave my stereo for months and back then I feel 
I was almost better at the art of enjoyment.

Now, rather than being centered and at peace enjoying a work by 
an artist, I can feel a slight anxiety in my subconscious because 
there is a vast amount of content out there that I'll probably like 
but haven't heard yet, and so instead of giving it a second listen 
or even letting the song I'm enjoying finish I click on the next song 
like a glutton for sonic nourishment that I'm not even appreciating. 

-- commenter on Youtube.

I understand this, but I'm just unfortunate enough to become overloaded with too much new content. :')

It's pretty unfortunate with the rise of streaming services and "millions of songs at your fingertips", and "This artist released new EP", "Watch ZYX' new music video", tons of recommendations from more or less followed curators and so on.

That's kind of why I am pretty unplugged as a listener. I try to be true to myself and see if I really want to look for new content instead of listening to that fabulous album I am already somewhat attached to...

How do you see this sea of content and how do you work around this?

[eltoch]

You bring up a really interesting point here about the "Sea of Content" that we often find ourselves in nowadays, I never really thought about it that way before. I used to be the type of person to find an artist and then listen to that artist's music alone on repeat until I got sick of the songs (something I regret now, it's hard to go back after that haha). 

With streaming platforms though, exposure comes so much more easily and then with people sharing their music it seems that everyone's tastes have been diluted. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing but it's much harder to focus yourself when you always have that nagging thought that you may be missing out on some other fantastic music.

What I do to try to stay focused while also making sure I catch as much as possible is making a new playlist each month, with some overlap for the songs that I add in as the month comes to an end. This way, when I go back to listen to past playlists I sort of get to relive my memories of that month since I tend to find songs that I can connect emotionally with. 

Love that I'm often able to memorize most of the lyrics too since its more condensed, makes it much easier to sing along to 🙂

[osornios]

I've been doing some research, and found out that before streaming existed I listened to less music, but more repeats.

If I liked a song, I used to listen to it 25 o more times in certain period of time, while now if I listen to a song more than twice is really out of the ordinary.