What are you burned out on?

Posted almost 6 years ago

Artist:
- PLAY
Clash

I took London Calling off my iTunes last week. It's been my absolute favorite record for years...the vinyl double disc is still somewhere in my basement, it was one of two first records I bought in the CD format, and I know pretty much every song by heart. It was, of course, one of the first things I put on my iPod when I got my first one (I've had five or six so far, including both full-scale and shuffles. I think I must be unusually hard on them, or they're more fragile than Apple lets on.) How great, I thought, that I can hear one of my all-time favorite albums any time I want?!!Well, not so great, actually. I found myself, a few months ago, skipping over "The Right Profile" and "Spanish Bombs" and "Workin' for the Clampdown" -- even "Train in Vain," as far as I know, one of the earliest hidden tracks. (It wasn't listed on either the vinyl or the CD reissue.) These were songs that I'd studied to, danced to, made out to, lived through for a good half my life and I was sick to death of them. Weird, huh? Hail, iPod changer of all things.So I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience? Have you had to take one of your favorite albums off the iTunes because you simply could not bear to hear it again? Which one and how long did it last? Were you able, eventually, to listen to it once in a while? (Sort of like the alcoholic having one drink, I guess.)

Comments (10)

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lemontwist says I have this problem all the time. I always have to ration the music I listen to, most especially my favorite songs. This is why I'm so hesitant to rank anything with stars in iTunes, because I don't want to hear the 5 stars more than the 1 stars, I want to hear them less often, so they retain their magic. I really couldn't list all of the songs, artists and albums I've overplayed over time, but I've learned my lesson, and I have also learned that, given enough time (which may be weeks, months or even years) the magic will come back. I just can't push it.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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Rocky Burnette says With more opportunities to listen to my music than ever before, I find myself hungry for new mkusic to avoid this. I have a "core" playlist, usually of 15 songs that I rotate all the time. Usually about 10 are songs that I've added recently, and the other 5 are froma big library, songs that feel like something I want to hear now. Sometimes I feel I should play the older library more, but def. don't overplay, and I keep discovering great new stuff. And...tracks from london Calling make regular appearances.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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patthinker says I burned out on the good Weezer albums, and a lot of Led Zeppelin. The Stooges too.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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ivylander says It may be a function of age. At least it seems to be in my case. When I was 10 or 11 I could listen to a single 30 or 40 times in a row, or until my dad would bang on my door and growl, "If I have to hear that record one more time, I'm going to break it over my knee!" When I was in college I could listen to the same album (if I really loved it) once a day every day for weeks. Now I have to create a new iPod playlist for my commute every week, because if I hear a song, say, three times a week it starts sounding stale, no matter how much I love it. Is this good or bad? Not sure. At the same time, thank God, sometimes something will come up on the iPod that's so delicious that I have to play it three or four times in a row (most recently The Avalanches' "Since I Left You"), so the 10-year-old hasn't been completely squashed by adulthood.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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Yah-Shua says i remember being 16 and LOVING No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" as well as Weezer's blue self titled. I played them to the point of pathology... and now... 8 years later, both albums still sound worn out. Which is sad, cuz that only leaves me with one decent weezer disc to listen to.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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Yah-Shua says i remember being 16 and LOVING No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" as well as Weezer's blue self titled. I played them to the point of pathology... and now... 8 years later, both albums still sound worn out. Which is sad, cuz that only leaves me with one decent weezer disc to listen to.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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RobP says It's all right, Jenny, London Calling's a great album, it'll come back to you when you need it. The idea, as a music obsessive, is to keep finding other music you love and playing it into the ground. Which is why so many of my favorite records haven't yet made it into my cd collection - I've played em into the ground (Blonde on Blonde comes to mind, although I did buy the cd anyway, and I probably went a couple years without playing Hendrix). The trick is finding new great albums to hold you over - I currently recommend the Howlin Rain album to everyone as the first album I've considered great in awhile, but I can't swear that's one that'll work for you. The concept works, though. And there's plenty of other good Clash if you're only burnt out on one album.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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DerekSunshine says I love discovering old stuff after not listening to it for a long time. So, yes, take it off the iTunes, don't let it show up on any playlists or sneak into your shuffles. Don't sell the CD, but do stash it away. Better still, tape it onto a cassette and hide it in one of those weird drawers or bins that cars have these days. Some day, you'll forget your ipod and won't have any CDs, but you'll scrounge around and find that tape. That'll be the right time to listen to it. Two of my first discoveries in college were Let It Be by the Replacements and Husker Du's Zen Arcade. I played those records constantly. In fact, I didn't even own a turntable - I'd have to wait until my roommates left or I'd listen to them on tape. However, after a while, they just grew stale to me. A couple years back, I got a new turntable and listened to Zen Arcade, then dug up Let It Be again. After ten plus years of other discoveries - Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Superchunk - those records made sense to me in a different way. But it took a lot of time. And after having just been through a good drenching by Tropical Storm Ernesto, I strongly recommend moving your vinyl out of the basement. A previous tropical storm hit Richmond about two years ago and several music fans had decades of vinyl ruined due to basement flooding.

Permalink posted 09/02/2006
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jenny says That's great. I don't feel so fickle now. I do listen to a lot of new music -- I don't think that's the problem. I just have a few albums that I thought I'd love forever, London Calling being one of them. There really aren't a lot of great Clash records. I burned out on Combat Rock about the same time my 8-track copy gave out, and Sandinista while it undoubtedly has its moments, isn't the kind of thing I would just dump indiscriminately onto my iPod. The self-titled is actually holding up pretty well. That's probably enough Clash for the moment. I like the idea of rediscovering London Calling eventually...that happened to me with Led Zeppelin a couple of years ago and it was oddly powerful to hear those songs again. I've got a Howling Hex record in my review pile -- now i'm looking forward to it even more. I ran a half marathon today (1:46:45) with my iPod on shuffle and not a single Clash song came up. I did get "I Wanna Be Your Dog", though, and apparently there's hope for me. At least I'm not sick of the Stooges.

Permalink posted 09/03/2006
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eshep says i could go without listening to led zeppelin for the rest of my life. i totally overdosed in high school. unfortunately the same goes for black sabbath, although i probably would slip on sabbath before i slipped on a led zep record.

Permalink posted 09/06/2006