I think my music attention span is becoming shorter. Maybe it’s too easy to switch between tracks now. I tend to play my collection on shuffle and just press skip if something comes on I don’t want to hear.

It wasn’t a conscience decision, but I started skipping the ends of songs. The end bits tend to be a bit dull, as if they don’t want to suddenly stop and are looking for a nice way to finish. Songs often seem to have a really unspectacular last quarter. I sometimes take this track skipping further and listen to only a couple of minutes of a song and then go to the next one. It’s as if I’ve only got so much time to get through as many songs as possible. I’m sure this is what it’s like being a judge on Pop Idol or The X Factor.

It’s no longer good enough to have favourite songs, now you have to have favourite parts of songs. I love the bit about 3.20 minutes in to Talk by Coldplay where they have the piano breakdown, it all goes quiet and calm, then suddenly the drums and guitars come back in. I think there’s a lot of dance music influence gone in to that. I also really like the second half of the Jay-Z version of Diamonds are from Sierra Leone, “Yup. I got from here here… Had to get off the boat so I could walk on water… I’m not a business man, I’m a business, man.” Love It.

• Remember when songs used to just fade out during a chorus? That’s so 80’s…it’s like you never knew when to stop your tape recorder to make sure you got the whole song…and then the radio people would cut off the end with another song so you’d get the beginning of another song on your recording. Hmm…how come people never complained about people making radio tape recordings of their music (and subsequently, mix tapes for your crush) but people are complaining all the time now about sharing mp3’s? I just don’t get it.

  Comment by aaaand.....fade out.... — September 20, 2005 @ 11:33 pm

• Dude, all I do is skip skip skip. Listen real quick. Or, I am such a creature of habit that I have to listen to certain “playlists” to the subway, to work, coming home on the train, blogging… I mean every moment of my life has a soundtrack. Only now I guess it’s more stunted because I too never make it to the end of the song. Maybe marketers could take advantage of that. Wait! Remember the “hidden track” - like you’d listen and listen to a CD/track and there’d be silence and shit… and then plink you’d hear Radiohead singing country.

  Comment by cheesecurd — September 21, 2005 @ 3:35 am

• Oh yeah! Remeber how difficult it was recording from the radio as you always tried to press stop just before the DJ came on? Maybe songs should go back to the retro 80s feel and fade out the chorus, it did kind of give you a warning at least. There’s too many that stop really abruptly now and catch you out, things like Song 2, which is short and stops suddenly.

  Maybe everyone needs a soundtrack to their life, it sounds like there is an idea for a film in that somewhere. Movies already use music a lot in the background, why not make a film about how everyone does that in their day to day life anyway. Just think of the cinema/dvd/cd/mp3/concert tie ins you could do.

  Comment by Darren — September 21, 2005 @ 8:14 am

• Don’t forget Darren, each time you skip the end of a track you’re robbing the iPod/iTunes database of played-count and last-played info. Your metadata will be all wrong!

  Comment by Roo — September 21, 2005 @ 11:29 pm