In the age of the internet, no matter what your interests or hobbies, with just a few searches you can find others who like exactly the same things as you do. Are you passionate about Romanian steel production in the years 1955 to 1965? Then no doubt there is someone else in the world who lives for this topic. In fact, they might be so “into it” that they can talk for hours about the different types of steel that were produced on the windward, as opposed to the leeward, side of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains…

Now if Cold War steel production figures are not your game, then certainly something else is. Whether it be art and astronomy or zoology and zinc mining, as we discover others with our same interests, we realize that we are not alone. For years you might have thought only you had such specialized interests and now you find that there are Facebook groups with a thousand active members all burrowing into the details of the very same subjects. 

Ever since I started drum lessons last year, I have tried to listen to music in a way I never had previously—in an attempt, more often than not in vain, to recognize the underlying rhythm of different songs. Pretty basic I know, but you have to start somewhere. 

Yet the more I listened the more curious I became about how songs are created as they certainly do not appear out of thin air. As luck would have it, my curiosity overlapped with the growth of a corps of excellent music explainers on YouTube. Note: I discussed how these explainers are the nicest people on the internet here: Music Explainers

My viewing actually led me to join a Facebook group that follows one of these explainers and here I found a community consisting of a range from rank beginners like me to skilled musicians and creators. It was also here that I was able to post a two-part question that has been nagging me for years.

It is nothing complex, but it does rely on taste, preference, and mood. The first part: Are there pop and rock songs and artists that you just can’t stand any longer—perhaps songs that just have not stood the test of time for you? The second part asks if you sometimes, or even often, find it more enjoyable to hear someone talk about music than it is, in fact, to listen to it? 

In the U.S., music is constantly pumped at us in stores, restaurants, stadiums, and everywhere in between. By the time one reaches his/her mid-fifties like me, there is a good chance that you might have heard some songs 2000 times or more. This is not an exaggeration for 30 years is about 11,000 days and that means you would only have to hear a song once every ten days between your 20th and 50th birthday to reach that 2000 number. Now that’s a lot of times to hear the same song!

The replies I received to my question were well thought out and reflective. The first point was that I was not alone. I was pleased to learn that many others could also, figuratively speaking, drive round-trip from Boston to San Diego (6,100 miles/9,800 Km) and listen to no more than a couple of hours of music along the way. Yet if an expert were discussing artists or songs in an interesting manner on a podcast, then we would be all ears for the entire journey. 

A couple of skilled musicians confessed that they had actually given up entirely on rock and pop for nearly a decade. They had reached a saturation point and were no longer finding any joy in the sheer repetitiveness of it all.

Although they later returned to the genre, the time-out had been an absolute must for them. 

Others were “burst” listeners who have music on only at certain times—whether that be driving, working out, or doing various chores. They enjoy their favorites and arrange their playlists with care, but are judicious about where, when, and how, they want music to be part of their lives.

Perhaps the most eye-opening to me were the highly skilled musicians who have music surrounding them all the time—even if they had heard it all before. One artist explained that he listens constantly as a springboard for his own creations. Even if he has heard a song hundreds of times, there still might be something in that old tune that connects with where he is mentally in the creative process—not to copy, but for inspiration and context. 

More than one of these musical aficionados reminded me that often songs are associated with the most memorable events in our lives and that we want to associate the good ones with certain songs while perhaps forgetting those that are linked with unpleasant times. This fits in well with the “soundtrack to life” concept that music accompanies us, no pun intended, in some manner from birth to death. 

Quite surprising were the names of the acts and songs that my respondents said they could no longer stomach—not just dislike, but practically detest—including extremely popular acts such as the Rolling Stones, Journey, and yes,  even the Beatles themselves. These sonically overburdened listeners can simply take no more!