I’m going to just check something - hold on a moment please. Okay, so I just went into my Spotify library to check how many new albums, released in 2024, I have yet to actually play. More than 20 already and it’s only April. If I have not listened to those albums by now, chances are I never will. This is why I occasionally delete everything downloaded in my Spotify library - the equivalent of clearing the clutter. Every time, I find it incredibly hard to be so brutal - all those neglected, unplayed albums. 

Why am I saying this?

By way of a prelude to the most controversial idea I’ve ever had; I intend to listen to less music from now on.

Two things triggered this decision, although it’s been brewing for a while. Firstly this piece by Mil Hoornaert on stopping listening to music altogether. That’s obviously bad advice and far too extreme and impractical for me but it did make me think. It encouraged me to re-evaluate my current relationship with music and how it has become…unhealthy. I could certainly do without songs going ‘round in my head when I wake up in the morning. 

Then, on Friday, I sat down to review the week's new album releases as I always do. And the glut of new records was overwhelming. Each and every week seems to bring half-a-dozen albums I want to hear. It doesn’t make sense to buy them all on vinyl, even though this is the only way to guarantee a proper listen. I will barely have the opportunity to sample them all on streaming. I’m still catching up on new releases so far this year. They are piling up on me like unread books, unworn new clothes and new recipes I’ll never get to cook. It’s anxiety inducing. Hence my prelude…time to spring clean. 

On top of all this, consider:

1. I’d really love to discover a new album by a new artist, yet the choice is so dizzying, I’m not sure who to choose or where to begin? I’ve made an appointment with the Fabiana Palladino debut record (since it has taken over a decade to make and sounds like Prince, apparently). I just hope I can keep it.

2. My guilty pleasure, the rock band Feeder, just went and made things worse by releasing Black/Red, a DOUBLE album (I mean, what were they thinking!).

3. I cannot stop listening to the new Everything Everything album. This is a good thing, but reduces the time available for all my other ‘listening goals’.

And another thing, for every guest that joins me on The Art of Longevity, I listen to the entire back catalogue at least once. I understand that’s a professional obligation. The interesting thing about it though, is that it is a real pleasure. In the environment we’re talking about here, the firehose of endless music, it’s most unlikely I will discover a new artist and then pursue a completist approach to their back catalogue. There isn’t time. The flip side of that coin is new music by my favourite old artists…should one bother when you can spend guaranteed quality time with their classics? Again, it’s a dilemma. 

That’s not to mention all the movies I would like to see and books I’d like more time to read. I can never, ever, become a gamer, clearly. And I should’t forget too that it’s good to sometimes not fill my head with something. 

In my 20s, I was a film obsessive. I kept a notebook with lists of all the films I wanted to see. It became maddening, because seeing them all was impossible (for one thing, I’ve never understood what the film industry does with all those good films…where do they go to?). In the end I abandoned the notebook and let my completist needs go. These days, I only watch movies occasionally, and as a result, I choose carefully and mostly enjoy every film I watch. 

In my 30s I read obsessively, especially related to anything music - album and gig reviews, business stuff and artist interviews. It became so much it overwhelmed me, filling my head with mostly useless information. So I had to stop, mostly to stay sane but also to enjoy paying more attention to what I did choose to read. 

That’s where I’ve got to with music. I want to savour it, not filter it. My ears are not oysters.  

Self-imposed scarcity is now a necessity. As spring gets into full bloom, it means morning dog walks without shutting myself off with headphones. It means taking my meals without background music (maybe even outside, in nature). It means working without the background music (Oh no, what do I do about BBC 6 Music?). It means choosing BBC Radio 4 or World Service in the car, instead of habitually firing up Spotify before I even start the car. Essentially it means not having a constant soundtrack to my life. It will mean letting many more new records pass me by and that’s the hardest part. Plus the under-appreciated catalogue, the blind spots by classic artists (a lot of them) but most of all, new releases by new artists.

It almost certainly means no playlists, no streaming radio and no alternative mixes and ‘mood music’, because that is truly drinking from a firehose that is getting wider and wider, before AI has even got started. 

Changes in the music industry seem to reflect my own micro concerns. Record companies have been worried about competition from the never ending supply of DIY artists but now they are even more concerned about AI generated music, which will truly fill every possible pipe with almost acceptable functional music. Even if a lot of it really is garbage, tech platforms will not hesitate to push the button, so get ready…it’s coming. Already as a result of new deals between the majors and streaming platforms, thousands of “bad tracks” are being removed. It seems like putting a windbreak up to stop a tidal wave though.

None of that is my problem. I only ever play music from real humans. Not only real humans but real artists - the people I respect the most on this Earth. 

There may be other options. Perhaps we should approach albums more like movies - a mostly single event experience. But that doesn’t optimise music’s best quality - the heady mix of familiarity and discovery of something new with each listen. Also, it wouldn’t help remunerate artists in the already dysfunctional economic model that brings us all this music. Or, we could treat an album like a game and just play it on heavy rotation over and over for say, a month, and then move on to the next. That means essentially focussing on 12 albums per year. 

The solution is somewhere in-between; accepting that most new album plays will in fact be a sampling session, but then picking out a choice few titles that will come to be annual, or maybe even lifelong favourites. 

Truth is, I don’t know what this new listening landscape will be like. But it will free up more quiet time, to watch a few more movies again (maybe some of those films about music, perhaps). Even time to…talk to other people! Somehow of course, time has to be set aside to play those all-time favorite records, before I actually, like, die. 

By the way, that Fabiana Palladino album is excellent. I ended up putting it on while writing this, darn it. Seems I am not yet quite ready to be cured.