Tape Noise Diary

I don’t spend as much time listening to music as I used to as the years have gone by. Particularly new music. Back in the 90′s, when MTV still played music videos and had shows like 120 Minutes (btw this show has been archived online), plus the ones I’ve found about in music magazines, perhaps I discovered 10 to 20 new artists a month. Now if I listen to two new artists a month is a lot. Which is ironic given that I’m always on the web. There’s zillions of mp3 blogs, sites like Last.fm and Pandora, Hypemachine, web zines like Pitchforkmedia and Popmatters, etc.

I suppose that it’s just an age thing. When younger, I use to devour a band’s entire catalogue. I was sort of the stereotypical music scholar snob. But I think that it’s also because there are as much ways of discovering music as there is music out there. Just a couple of days ago I heard the band The XX. Yeah I know. They were on Jimmy Fallon.

The way that I’ve transition from music video channels and magazines are things like Last.fm. I scrobbled enough there and every now and then I listen to the recommendations and “my neighborhood”. I follow some excellent Tumblr blogs like Some Songs Considered and Tuneage. And finally at the end of year, like everybody else, I look at the “best of” lists and hit the torrents.