Initial vs. lasting love for music

[Henrik]

When you make a list of the best new albums or songs, I assume you make the ranking based on what appeals you most at the moment. But if you instead tried to make a prediction of what you will still listen to 10 years from now, would the results be any different?

[SavoyBG]

When you make a list of the best new albums or songs, I assume you make the ranking based on what appeals you most at the moment. But if you instead tried to make a prediction of what you will still listen to 10 years from now, would the results be any different?

Not for me. I generally have been listening to the kinds of things for 30+ years already. Some of the younger people here will undoubtedly have their tastes change over the years.

[Henrik]

My question wasn't really if your taste changes over time. I'm sure it does for everyone, more or less.

What I wanted to know was if you think you can predict what you will enjoy more in the future. I don't think I generally can, but now and then I hear a song (usually in the dance-pop genre) that I play over and over again while thinking that "the love for this song might not last very long, but right now it's awesome".

[SavoyBG]

My question wasn't really if your taste changes over time. I'm sure it does for everyone, more or less.

What I wanted to know was if you think you can predict what you will enjoy more in the future. I don't think I generally can, but now and then I hear a song (usually in the dance-pop genre) that I play over and over again while thinking that "the love for this song might not last very long, but right now it's awesome".

Yes, I think you can predict when a song comes along that you like for now, but you realize that it's gonna probably wear thin quickly.

It's not very likely that someone who's been at this as long as I have is gonna come across a really great record that they have not already heard, but it did happen in the last couple of years. They released an unissued early take on "Baby Workout" by Jackie Wilson which is now in my all time top 150 songs:

It sounds like a great 1950s record by the Midnighters or somebody.

[jamieW]

When you make a list of the best new albums or songs, I assume you make the ranking based on what appeals you most at the moment. But if you instead tried to make a prediction of what you will still listen to 10 years from now, would the results be any different?

For me personally, it wouldn’t change, simply because it’s impossible for me to project which songs will grow on or grow off me. Fortunately, now that I’m in my forties, there isn’t much fluctuation once I’ve listened to a song/album enough to get a handle on it. However (as I’ve mentioned before), there is a massive difference in my opinion of many songs from my youth (primarily the 80s). Even then, though, I don’t think it would’ve made a difference in how I ranked the songs, because time has shown that it would’ve still been impossible for me to project. For example, my 80s list is (and will continue to be) overflowing with guilty pleasures. Many of my mainstream favorites from the decade (“Physical,” “Right Here Waiting,” and even the dreaded “Mr. Roboto”) I still love today; while others (“The Reflex,” “Ghostbusters,” “Centerfold”) have fallen off considerably with me. Obviously, there isn’t any difference in these two groups, since none of the songs are acclaimed, meaning that I never could’ve projected which would fall into which group ten years later. In fact, I’ve often been amazed that there aren’t more lists containing guilty pleasures from whichever decade the list-maker was a teenager (especially since we’re ranking favorite songs, and not those we consider objectively the best).

[SavoyBG]

When I first started listening to music a lot (late 1968 when I was 11) I did not yet have a taste for the more black sounding records. I remember hating "Oh Happy day" by Edwin Hawkins, which I now like a lot, and I remember not liking "Only The Strong Survive" by Jerry Butler, which is now one of my favorites of 1968. Back then I was more into "Chewy, Chewy" and "Midnight Confessions," both of which I still love. Although I did love "Cloud Nine" right from the start.

The one act that I used to like a lot but now cannot stand is the Four Seasons. Frankie Valli sounds like his balls are in a vice. There's only a couple of their songs that I can even listen to anymore.

[TimmyWing]

My question wasn't really if your taste changes over time. I'm sure it does for everyone, more or less.

What I wanted to know was if you think you can predict what you will enjoy more in the future. I don't think I generally can, but now and then I hear a song (usually in the dance-pop genre) that I play over and over again while thinking that "the love for this song might not last very long, but right now it's awesome".

I get what you mean. This actually happened twice for me with Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti; first with "Round and Round" then last year with "Only in My Dreams", both of which I pretty much had on repeat for a couple weeks after I first heard them. I really like both songs, but with Round and Round especially I can't say now that it'd be one of my favourite ever songs. Even Pitchfork called it their song of 2010, but a lot of music that's been released since has hit me harder than it did then - hell, including Only in My Dreams. I think part of it is simply what's going to come out in the near future that you're going to like/that's going to make your current favourites obsolete.

You could say that's down to development of a specific genre or sound. At the time of Rapper's Delight and the Sugar Hill Gang, I've no doubt they were revolutionary to anyone who heard them, but I'm sure many people would agree there's been much better hip-hop since.

[John]

I think a person who tends to stick with a certain genre would have a much easier time knowing if the song will always remain a classic to them.

Personally, I am very quick to love an album and gush about it, but more often than not I'm not listening to anything on it a year from now. I love familiarity, but the discovery of music is more important to me. When I want familiar, I go back to the songs I grew up with.When I want just music in general, I'm listening to something I haven't heard before. The new stuff sometimes makes into my familiar songs, but usually I move on to something else. I know that's a gripe about music being disposable now, but I don't think that's so much the case with me.

[Moonbeam]

It's a tough thing to gauge. In my experience, I tend to retain my love for must music - some of my favorites when I was a kid are still favorites today! What I find is that sometimes I grow to like music I wouldn't have ever liked before. Tom Waits and Sufjan Stevens are good examples of this. I can only hope to grow more open to music and that my biases against certain musical forms or styles will continue to erode.

Like John (and probably most of us), I really value new discoveries. I'm discovering a lot from the Song List Special game and the 80s polls, and I'm sure that something like this will always be a favorite:

Seriously, how can I not fall in love with such infectious electro funk?! Particularly the deliriously wonderful synths at 5:00?

[Jirin]

My listing program takes into account ratings I've made over the last three years, with progressively lower weight the further the rating is back in time. That's probably a slightly better projection of how much I'll like it in the future than just using the way I feel now.

I don't think it's possible to really predict how much you'll like something in the future. If you try you'll probably end up applying some external gauge of qualities other people consider to be 'lasting'.

When I first heard the Doors s/t I thought it was average compared to the other 1967 music I was discovering at the time. Now in the last year it's bubbled up to my top 5. I would have expected Sgt Pepper, which was in my top five at the time, to have far more lasting appeal to me than the Doors s/t, and now it's down to #252. There's no way to accurately guess what qualities will make an album stay with you.

[stone37]

To rank songs, I don’t use an open-ended ranking system. I award five stars for my top 500 songs, four stars for songs 501-1000, three for 1001-1500, two for 1501-2000, and one for 2001-3000 (within these large groupings, I then place songs within smaller classes of fifty). Most new songs, i.e. “new” to me, are going to have a hard time breaking that top 3000. But a few dozen songs do each year (recent additions include: “Cuddly Toy” by the Monkees or “Across 110th Street” by Bobby Womack and “Fancy” by Bobby Gentry). Obviously, as songs rise, others must drop. My system is fairly conservative in that it takes quite a bit of time for a given track to move up the rankings (for example, Acclaimed Music introduced me to “Life on Mars, which over the course of four years, moved from no stars to five stars). But, to me, that’s a plus. I don’t want to listen to a track a few times, fall in love, herald it as my 67th favorite song of all-time, and then grow bored with it a few months later, and relegate it to the cut-out bin.

[SavoyBG]

I rate songs from 0 to 10.

10 - Incredibly Awesome
9 - Great
8 - Excellent
7 - Very Good
6 - Good
5 - Pretty Good
4 - Okay
3 - Not Very Good
2 - Bad
1 - Terrible
0 - Unbelievably Horrible

My top 1,000 of all time consists of about 450 tens and the rest are nines. There are about 925 nines all told.

[nicolas]

How can I know what I will like in 10 years? When I rate songs I don't think too much. I think musical tastes are mostly made of feelings, not thoughts.

[stone37]

I rate songs from 0 to 10.

10 - Incredibly Awesome
9 - Great
8 - Excellent
7 - Very Good
6 - Good
5 - Pretty Good
4 - Okay
3 - Not Very Good
2 - Bad
1 - Terrible
0 - Unbelievably Horrible

My top 1,000 of all time consists of about 450 tens and the rest are nines. There are about 925 nines all told.

The problem with an open-ended system, to me, is how do you distinguish a 6 from a 7? What makes a song "very good" as opposed to "good." And how do you sustain that distinction when rating hundreds or thousands of songs?

And, I do realize this may be off point, but there was an old thread I once saw about how people make their lists and I never got to post on it, and I have always wanted to discuss methodology in this forum.

[jimmyj]

How can I know what I will like in 10 years? When I rate songs I don't think too much. I think musical tastes are mostly made of feelings, not thoughts.

^^^^ Agree

[Kingoftonga]

Part of the fun of music is never knowing what exactly is going to stick with you! There are some works that I initially dismissed, only to discover years later that I actually enjoyed quite a bit. It's the same reason I like to reread books that I read as a student; as you grow older and bring new experiences to art, you look at things in different ways and maybe draw different things out of it.

I've been thinking about this as I have both the National's Trouble WIll Find Me and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories playing a lot this month. The National is a band that easily gets better with subsequent listens; their cryptic lyrics and layered textures make for songs that are fun to gradually explore and get to know. They're a band that didn't necessarily knock me over when I first listened to Boxer, an album I now consider one of the best of the decade. They rely less on catching you right out of the gate, and instead creating a deep atmosphere that invites you back to explore.

Daft Punk's new album, on the other hand, is all about the catchy hooks that stick in your head after even one listen. The first listen or two is easily the best - the music is so catchy, and every melody gets stuck in your head! But part of me suspects I'll find less to explore later on. In the past, "Around the World" and "One More Time" are catchy songs that I've played nonstop for a few months and then never really returned to; it might be the same here. By creating music that captures your attention from the very beginning, it's as if they're sacrificing the layers that might draw you back later.

So I've noticed I'm enjoying the National more with each listen, and Daft Punk less with each. But who knows how I'll feel in one year or five? I like to relisten to all albums for the end-of-the-year poll, and my opinions might have shifted again by then. And other albums, like Paul's Boutique, I also initially dismissed as "catchy but inconsequential" but (so far) have only gotten better for me with age.