I have to be really into something to continue doing it. It’s like when the
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Without even clicking!
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you win the thread. take it, it is yours.
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My diet of sledgehammer techno morphed into a rediscovery of ambient stuff in the 2010’s which led me to a discovery of dub techno and its various outgrowths. This has kept my listening ears busy for the last decade and due to track / album lengths tends to involve extended periods of listening, albeit playing in the background at home. On an average evening I will listen to 2 or 3 albums from my music library and I’m often thrilled to discover new stuff, though my range of artists and styles has a gravitational pull that prevents me branching out as erratically and hungrily as I used to.
Sitting down and only listening, on the other hand, that’s a different story.
Work, kids, the home routine, all to an ambient dub soundtrack 
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I can’t compete. I am the schmuck.
I do have an odd little habit with albums I’ve rinsed repeatedly.
Because I want a different listening experience or have got too used to how it starts, I play it from track-2 instead of track 1.
Living on the edge!
There are some live performances of albums which I prefer to the actual album. You could try that for a curveball.
I practically never skip a song once I’ve started listening to it. Usually I pick out an album I’ve never heard before and listen to the whole thing. Maybe I’m just weird…
unless you’re doing it due to some compulsive impulse which does not allow you to skip a song once it’s started, I’d say you are no weirder than any of the rest of us. we are just each unique in our own threshold for what and how much we can listen to something that isn’t immediately gratifying. my tolerance just happens to be pretty low lately.
If I think an album has merit, I will give it as long as it takes. Sometimes I can just tell that something is great and will keep giving it a try until I find the right context to hear it properly.
Now that streaming dominates music discovery, this comes up a lot less often. Several albums needed the entire album to get across, but now I’m usually presented with songs in isolation.
And… it’s less important for me to find new music than it used to be. Especially stuff I need to put effort into. I already love too much music to listen to all of it. So it only really becomes worth it if there is some social reason, which does come up occasionally.
I could have given fuck all about some weird band called king gizzard and had to listen to a few songs on a few separate occasions before I found something that I was like “oh this is really good”, and that was a foothold for me into appreciating some of what I had dismissed before. I mainly only gave them several chances because like you said, some social reason and that being all the buzz that I was just for whatever reason unable to dismiss. But when I checked out this live performance, something between the choice of songs and the performance itself really clicked, and I still don’t like all of their music because they’re more across the board than I guess I can handle, but in some regards I appreciate that I don’t have to like all of their music and can still find some merit in knowing that they’ll do something new regardless of whether or not I’ll appreciate it.
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Hah, now that you mention it, the whole prog space does this to me. I have to approach each band fresh to some degree. It’s good that means there’s a small universe to navigate in each band, but it does usually take me some effort to figure out whether they’re on a compatible wavelength.
I’ve always have been an album guy, and I wonder if that has shored up my musical attention span. (Also a prog rock/metal fan 
)
- Musician/Band I already like, or made by a friend: I’m gonna listen to the whole thing, but the less it grabs me, the longer it will take to get through it
- Recommended by a trusted friend or favorite musician: I’ll give it a whole song. If I’m meh on it, I’ll give it 2 minutes of another song
- Totally new to me: Song has 2 minutes give or take to grab me. However, if they have at least three song I like, I’ll buy the whole album
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I think that sounds reasonable, it’s a no bullshit approach to new music. I don’t buy a lot of music though simply because I know I won’t listen to it. even if I like it, I probably won’t.
Bandcamp Fridays have been big for getting me to try new things. Also crate digging for sample ideas
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I should probably get more involved in these things. If it’s working for you I’m sure it’s worth a shot, thanks.
The discretionary time argument is definitely true, but I’m also interested in the “psychosocial maturation” angle the article mentions. There is something about cultural consumption and identity formation involved too.
I remember being a teenager absolutely obsessed with discovering new music. It was a big part of my identity and a shared hobby in my friend group. Music said something about who we were. Listening to “alternative” music was a way of differentiating ourselves from our peers and from society at large.
These days music is still a big part of my life, including finally learning to make my own. But I don’t need or expect music (or books, or movies, etc) to say something about who I am. My identity, values, and sense of self is much more complete than during adolescence. Of course, here I am 20 years later still posting on internet forums about music…!
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