Too much music, too little time. As information overload permeates all aspects of life, in electronic music we also suffer from music overload, and that's why we need DJs. The phenomena is quite new.
Our parents were exposed probably to 1% of the music we are exposed today. Even in the 80s music distribution was scarce, at least by today standards. TV shows were scarce, good radios were scarce, no internet, etc. Finding some records was really a nightmare. If you had 100 LP's (a lot of music, for the time), that would fit in just 4 Gb. Today it is not uncommon to have 40 Gb of music (1000 LP's, only big stores could afford enough shelf space !).
The consequences (at least for me) are too big and deserve to be analyzed with care. First of all, my pattern of listening has changed. In the 80s I bough an LP and listened to it during days or weeks until I could almost memorize most of the songs. Nowadays, I have lots of files in my iTunes-iPod that I have only played once, and probably I will not play them again until next year, or in two years, who knows... Secondly, purchasing music in the 80's was like a permanent search for "the great song". Now, I do not pursue "great songs" anymore, and I'm happy with that. I just search for music that makes me move (physically or mentally), holds my attention and maintains me in some tension, or takes me up some peaks and down to some valleys...
Listening music in search for "the perfect song" is like reading blogs in search for "the perfect blog post". Nonsense.
Listen, enjoy, learn, go for more... That's how I listen nowadays.
Tags: dance, dj, electronic, house, ipod, iTunes, music, techno
