Listening Survey, Part I

By Carrie Brownstein

Last week, the NPR Music team, including myself, sent out a series of questions to people in the music, arts and entertainment communities. We wanted to get a sense of people's thoughts and feelings pertaining to the last decade in music, and what their thoughts were about the future.

We'll roll out the questions and a sampling of the answers over the next two weeks.

And, of course, we encourage you to answer these questions yourselves in the comments section below.

1) How often do you sit around and listen to recorded music with friends or family? Is it more or less often than you did around the beginning of the decade? On what device or equipment do you listen to most of your music? Do you go to shows more or less often than you did 10 years ago?

Andrew Leland, writer and managing editor for The Believer:
I am friends with most of my coworkers, and I am the guy in the office with the good computer speakers. It's an open-plan office (no cubicles), so pretty often, someone will call out, "Hey, Andrew, put on some music," and I'll pull something together. At home, I always put a record on the turntable when I have friends over. I buy lots of $2 vinyl, find lots of records on the street. I don't use an iPod unless I'm on a plane. I probably listen to music more than I did at the beginning of the decade, since it's on all day, every day at work. I go to shows less, but not that much less.

Julie Cafritz, musician (Free Kitten, Pussy Galore), teacher:
I have never spent as much time listening to as much music in my entire life as I have in the past six years. I can chalk this up to several factors. For one, having moved from NYC, I now am part of car culture, which has always been pretty much to my mind the perfect vehicle for listening. I have a good stereo in what is essentially a private soundproof booth on wheels in which to listen to music at ear-splitting volume in a small space -- my preferred listening environment. For another, yes, music is more available through the Internet, and not just to illegally or legally download, which of course I do liberally. But also, I can track down stuff like never before, be it on eBay or Amazon UK (I try to patronize my locals, but much of the stuff I'm looking for is early- to mid-'70s English stuff). And most importantly is that, since having my children, I have effectively been under house arrest for the past 11 years and don't even come up for parole for another 12. As my freedom of movement has been severely limited by the realities of motherhood, I look to music to lift me out of my ennui, connect me to my old life and self, define my identity and generally rebel like a bratty teenager locked in her room and listening to her stereo loud. And, unlike reading or watching a movie, I can listen to music while doing other stuff. AND, yes, I do listen to music with my children. My music, not theirs; well, my music is theirs. They are like Gitmo detainees forced to listen to music all day long, repeated over and over again for months at a time (seriously) at loud volumes. They can take it up with their shrinks later. I see much less music live than I used to or would like to.

David Scheid, tour manager:
Not at all. I can't say this has anything to do with changes over the decade as much as it does with my work schedule. When I do listen to music, because of traveling so much, it is most likely on an iPod. I will say that I think satellite radio is one of the best things to happen over the last decade! I hear so much great hip-hop on the radio now that I would never hear on terrestrial radio. They'll play songs from mixtapes and remixes, just a lot more content than the regular radio stations. It's also a good way for me to hear indie rock music I would never buy and, I have to say, I don't usually like all that much. And then there's Lithium! I listen to this in my car. I should get one for the house, too. I have been buying lots of records lately, which is odd, since there was a point when I was selling a lot of them on eBay. I rarely listen to them. But I like the covers, and I find myself buying records from labels like Southern Lord, if only because the packaging is die cut and beautiful and I wonder, "How can a small label afford stuff like this?" and I want them to keep doing it. Then I'll download the record and listen to it on my iPod or computer.

Carly Starr, International Marketing and Promotion, Sub Pop Records:
I hardly ever listen to recorded music with friends. (Although I just did this weekend. I would say it happens once a month, which is definitely less than it was 10 years ago, when it was at least once a week. I listen to all of my music via my car stereo, iPod or computer. I don't even have real speakers anymore, just computer ones. (My place is really small.) I definitely don't go to shows as much as I used to. It went from two or three times a week to once a week or once every other week.

Tim Quirk, musician, VP of Music Programming, Rhapsody:
I listen to at least four and as many as 10 hours of music a day, though very little of that is with friends or family. I am almost always sitting -- at my desk, in my car, on an airplane -- or lying down -- on the sofa in my house, or on a bed in a hotel room. This is up to twice as much time as I spent at the beginning of the decade, partly due to my job but mostly due to technology: All my music follows me everywhere now, in a way that only subsets of it could at the turn of the century.

Andrew Kesin, co-owner, Ecstatic Peace Records:
All the time. Especially with my kids -- I always share new music with them first.

Slim Moon, owner, Shotclock management; founder, Kill Rockstars:
Couple times a week. About as often as the beginning of the decade. I listen to most of my music on iTunes on my Mac or on my iPhone. I go to shows about the same as I did a decade ago. I do want to point out that nearly everyone goes to fewer shows over time, so practically the entire population who has been going to shows for more than a decade should honestly answer "less often." But that doesn't mean that the general all-told population is going to fewer shows overall; it just means that everybody who answers the survey is getting older.

2) What percent of the music you listen to was recorded in the past decade?

Sam Coomes, musician, Quasi:
Maybe 1 or 2 percent.

Chris Sutton, musician, The Gossip:
Twenty percent.

Chris Lyons, musician, The Carrots:
Thirty percent? That sounds high, but a good portion of what I listen to is music that my close friends are making now, or music that I am tangentially involved with. However, beyond that, I am completely clueless about modern "indie" music. I know much more about current Top 40, of course, due to radio.

Megan Holmes, photographer, booking, Holocene:
Fifty percent. It's mostly hip-hop.

Michele Flannery, Music Manager, YouTube:
Ninety percent. Most of what I listen to is either a new release or a recent reissue -- though recently I've become addicted to the "Eccentric Soul" series and lots of African funk, both originally recorded in the '70s.

Kristin Thomson, musician, co-owner, Simple Machines Records; Education Director, Future of Music Coalition:
We tend to be equal-opportunity listeners, splitting our time between new releases, the '90s stuff we cut our teeth on, mid-'80s stuff that reminds us of high school, and '70s and '80s classic rock. But if I had to put a number on it, I'd say 40 percent comes from the last 10 years.

Albert Mudrian, Redflag Media:
At the moment, it's probably just under 50 percent. Though my job requires me to be familiar with the newest artists and releases of the extreme metal genre, I often need a break from the newer stuff and find myself returning to the "classics" of the genre with more and more frequency. It probably doesn't hurt that I'm forced to spend 8 to 10 hours a day in front of a computer with a 160-gig hard drive. Over the years, most of that real estate has been filled with the 21,000 songs I've imported into my iTunes. So now, with just a few mouse clicks, I can dial up anything from the brand-new Slayer album to an early Napalm Death demo.

Sara Jaffe, writer, musician, teacher:
I'd say 35-40 percent. A few years ago, a friend made me a mixtape titled "The older we get, the older the songs get." Without a doubt.

Lyndsey Parker, editor, Yahoo! Music:
I'd say about 75 percent. I certainly love to listen to older music -- particularly '80s new wave/goth/post-punk and '70s glam and classic rock -- but a) it's important to stay on top of what's new; and b) it's a total fallacy that there is no good music out now, or less good music than there was before. Anyone who says that is just old, or sounds old. I wholeheartedly believe that once you stop caring about current music, you age like David Bowie in The Hunger. New music discovery is the key to agelessness. I feel like a teenager again every time I fall in love with a new band.

5:01 PM ET | 11- 9-2009 | permalink

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