Smile

I came across this article the other day and I think this should be read by everyone. It is important as musicians to really see this perspective but overall this has a principle of life that is very true to me and should be to you too. Are you listening or hearing? Enjoy your reading!

Have you ever noticed how an impression of a song or album can change with repeated listens? Thank goodness it doesn’t happen too often for me, but there are times when I’m nagged by the feeling that I got a review wrong because my opinion of the album has since changed. Depending on that change, I call it erosion or accumulation.

Erosion occurs when an album I initially love begins to wear on me‚Äînot within the first two or three spins, but maybe after five listens, or a year after an album’s release. I don’t want to give examples here, but I’m sorry to say that there are a few discs we’ve put on our annual Best Albums list that I’ve enjoyed less with time. I’ve also noticed from my own listening that erosion happens a lot with modern worship music‚Äîso many new songs remind me of great songs from five to ten years ago that I end up growing tired of both the new and the old.

Accumulation is the opposite of erosion, occurring when albums seem to get better with each listen. I typically notice this with dynamite songwriting, when a strong lyric suddenly resonates more because I hear it in a new way or it takes on deeper meaning after a new life experience has occurred since the last listen. It also happens with newfound musical nuance in the performance or some “hidden” layer to a textured production. Though I’m still only on my third listen, Brooke Fraser’s Albertine continues to connect with me more and more in both ways.

It’s only natural for our tastes to change with time and repetition. Sometimes it’s because of changing musical trends, sometimes we simply outgrow the music, and sometimes we hear music with new ears or a fresh perspective that causes us to reconsider it.

One thing I miss about the Top 40 radio of my youth is that it forced people to listen to things repeatedly, enough to form an educated opinion one way or the other. Today, I wonder if we give things the same due attention with our information-overloaded, sound-byte-packed, quick-to-blog culture. A friend of mine said it best: With so much at our disposal, it’s as if we’re more interested in hearing than listening, always eager to move on to the next thing.

If that’s the case, what does that suggest about our pursuit of meaning and substance, not just in art, but in bettering our faith walk? It scares me sometimes that we become so obsessed with the new and the instantaneous that we miss out on deep and lasting truths by judging things as too simple or too subtle, based on things like an artist’s performance or a pastor’s presentation. After all, while some things lose meaning and erode with repetition, others take root and accumulate with time.

Hence, why I like to revisit the albums released and reviewed within the year they released. While driving home from a recent concert, my friend and colleague Andy Argyrakis asked, “Why are you still listening to that?” referring to an album that we had recently given a less-than-favorable review to. I told him I was just making sure that I wasn’t missing anything.

God bless,

Russ Breimeier

Tags: listening, Music