Background music
“There is a proper procedure for taking advantage of any investment. Music, for example. Buying a CD is an investment. to get the maximum you must... LISTEN TO IT FOR THE FIRST TIME UNDER OPTIMUM CONDITIONS. Not in your car or on a portable player through a headset. Take it home. Get rid of all distractions, (even her or him). Turn off your cell phone. Turn off everything that rings or bleeps or rattles or whistles. Make yourself comfortable. Play your CD. LISTEN all the way through. Think about what you got. Think about who would appreciate this investment. Decide if there is someone to share this with. Turn it on again. Enjoy Yourself. ”
In theory I agree with Gil's sentiment. I hate the idea of music just being something that resides in the background, chewing gum for the ears while the mind is concentrated on something else.
Here's an example. As I sat down to read the first few pages of a new book one night last week, I flicked through my records and CDs trying to land on something I could listen to in the background. I tried a few: Balam Acab was too bass-heavy and dramatic; a Penguin Café Orchestra best-of too changing-of-tone, classical too pretentious, a Numero soul boxset too damn compelling. After twenty minutes of faffing around, the stereo was turned off and the book was started again from scratch in silence.
Multitasking and music
Am I alone in this, wanting to focus on one thing at a time? There's a terrible cliché that women are better at multitasking than men, a cliché that appears to have some bearing in truth. But regardless of gender, many people listen to music while doing something else: computer games, writing, working, and so forth. Music has no demand on the eyes or the hands so becomes something easy to consume at the same time as something else.
A lot of music is designed precisely with this in mind. Coders listen to dubstep at loud volume; there has been an increase in the availability and purchase of movie and computer game soundtracks that people listen to while working or running. We're long past the New Age fad now (thankfully), but while it was popular albums of tribal music and whale song were widely available in every corporately-owned megastore.
But people do not exclusively listen to discs of the dawn chorus when they're doing something else. They listen to everything - top 40, rock, dance, jungle, and so forth.
How do they do it?
Music and narrative
...they do it pretty easily, it turns out. Music is reassuring, a little beat that can raise or lower a pulse as required, a treat that can give the illusion that a chore isn't nearly as bad as it seems.
Is that fair? In nearly every instance, modern music has a narrative, a story, or at the very least it has some kind of meaning or intent. To ignore that intent is a terrible disservice to the artist. It's a poor investment in time in the possible beauty of the music that one is listening to.
That doesn't mean that everyone should be reclined with eyes shut and ears open whenever there's a hint of a melody though.
'Proper' listening?
Even if you're the hardest of hardcore audiophiles, you're not going to be combing through someone's lyrics wondering why the phrasing is just so every time you press play.
Some music, like those dubstep and movie soundtracks previously noted, are designed to fade into the background. Beyond that, the familiarity of an oft-listened song will mean that it doesn't command the attention the same way a new song will. The most ardent listener will already have unpacked the story; most will have already heard the refrain and will hum along if it's something particularly enjoyable.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone else: as soon as the needle drops on a record, I'm busy looking at the liner notes or trying to find the next thing to listen to; damned if I'm actually paying heed to the lyrics or the content of the song itself.
Does this mean I'm listening in the wrong way? Is everyone but a select few beardstroking reviewers?
Return on investment
Returning to Gil's quote at the top of the page, different people want a different return on their musical investment.
For most, the biggest investment they make is time: they choose to listen to a piece of music or a radio channel. They want that music to keep them going, to relate to, to prompt a little jolt of emotion in one form and another. I'd argue that, for most, the message of the narrative doesn't matter. Witness the proliferation of the music from the Lego Movie, a song about conforming and pleasing a corporate overlord which has become a throwaway jaunty pop hit used in corporate videos with a total lack of irony.
There is undoubtedly a gulf between artist and listener. The artist may have poured their demons into their music only for the listener to see it as just a catchy hit. Does that matter?
Whichever way you look at it, music is great because everyone loves some kind of music. It's a language within itself and people connect with it on some level. The inattentive listener may cause some to tut disapprovingly, but those doing the tutting will have done precisely the same thing, probably that same day.