Hacker News Reader

Comment by pseudoramble | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate this. I’ve had days where at work I’ve played a new song I’ve gotten into at least 30 times, sometimes with a few songs to break it up, often not though. I’ve always assumed it was slightly strange, but also probably not that strange. I also relate to the authors explanation. I’ll get tired of a song eventually, for a while, but one day come back to it and get into another usually less intense loop.

I don’t really understand what happens, but to be honest, I’m not really sure I’m bothered by my lack of understanding either. It’s just an experience that I can explain simply “I listened to this song on repeat 37 times today”, and yet I can’t explain it at all “Why does this happen? Why this song from an anime I’ve never seen? Beats me!”

View on HN

Once you sleep on the song once or twice the enjoyment fades. Like that favorite song from the radio, you listen 4 or 5 times over several days and the excitement is gone. So you mine as well enjoy it 40 times in a row on day one.

It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song

You can't believe it; you were always singing along

It was so easy and the words so sweet

You can't remember; you try to feel the beat

-- Regina Spektor, Eet - https://youtu.be/nlK0zYZLBGY

That was one of my repeat songs!

My experience with albums (LPs, remember?) was that a handful of songs would attract me fairly quickly, while other's were, meh.

It was good that there were songs that hooked me early because I would wait patiently through the less-appealing songs for those good ones.

Some months or so later, the tracks had flipped — burned out on the hooky songs, loving the once-meh songs.

(I can specifically remember this to be the case with both Murmur and Reckoning when they came out — yes, I am old.)

Once I checked the stats and I had listened to a single specific song 150 times in a single year. I wouldn't be surprised if I've reached 500 by now

What song?

(I might have hit that count with Lebanese Blonde by Thievery Corporation a few years back...)

I'm the complete opposite. Playing music on repeat ruins it. But if I listen to a song/album relatively rarely, it feels just as good every time. I also notice new subtle details once in a while, and that makes it even better.

I have songs that I absolutely love and have loved for years now. I just make sure not to overdo it.

Feel like this is probably a better way to manage it if I'm being honest. Actually, this is a bit of a similar way I'd listen to jam bands (Grateful Dead, Phish, Railroad Earth, etc.) Usually too long to listen to on repeat, but interesting enough to listen to many times and pick up on things.

For me, I think short term this is kinda how it works. Although a point I'd make is that is not that I enjoy it less often, it's just that I move onto other things.

Long term though, songs I loop like this can always return and restart their cycle. So it doesn't completely ruin it for me or anything after a few days.

For me the enjoyment fades only if the song itself is not very good to begin with; I start to notice the flaws and after a while I start to hate it and wonder why I even liked it in the first place. Good songs tend to pass the test of being listened to on repeat for me.

And then it's time to find your next fix.

In a year or two, that song might be able to bring you back to that point in time. I've started building playlists by the year I discovered the song. It's a trip.

When I was younger I would get hooked on a CD. I'd do it so much that the current game I was also hooked on and the music I was listening to get intertwined into a single memory (if I see the game I remember the music, and vice versa).

These days with Spotify I get hooked on a single song and will often play that song over and over for a week or two.

I had this with books! I would play one album per book. And still when I pick up the book I hear the music and know where I was when reading it. And the other way around. When I hear the album I see the pages of the book again.

Walking on Glass - Iain Banks

and

In-sides - Orbital

been stuck there for 25 years or so

Orbital is a great band to be stuck on! One of the few I don’t tire of.

I've unfortunately at least tired of "Halcyon" because the youtube algorithm just won't stop playing it to me when I have autoplay on.

I do it to focus. Loop a known energetic song.

I do it with a single album (No More Shall We Part by Nick Cave) but it's been my focus music for about twenty years now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com