14 ms·

It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

220 points by reg_dunlop 4y ago

texaslonghorn5 4y ago
It's not unusual
- madcaptenor 4y ago
  To be loved by anyone
  - jjulius 4y ago
    It's not unusual
    - legostormtroopr 4y ago
      To have fun with anyone.
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        But when I see you
        jjulius 4y ago
        Hanging about with anyone
        willjp 4y ago
        It’s not unusual - to see me cry
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- willhinsa 4y ago
  This reminds me of the John Mulaney standup bit :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Gryt-rcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Gryt-rcc
  - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
    Haha you got it, that's what I was going for. I was hoping someone would respond with the line.
pseudoramble 4y ago
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!”
- Buttons840 4y ago
  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.
  - doliveira 4y ago
    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
    - bigiain 4y ago
      What song? (I might have hit that count with Lebanese Blonde by Thievery Corporation a few years back...)
  - bigiain 4y ago
    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 https://youtu.be/nlK0zYZLBGY
bhaney 4y ago
> I’ve listened to Montgomery’s Impressions recording for as long as an hour straight I've spent many consecutive days with the same song on loop for several hours a day. Was hoping this article would validate that a bit more, but I'll take what I can get.
- nemo1618 4y ago
  Yeah really, I've listened to the same 11-second loop for over an hour! (William Basinski's "El Camino Real") By the way, for all you loopheads out there, here's a protip: drop the song you're looping into Audacity and slow it down by 5%. It tricks your brain into processing the song as "new" again, so you can wring a few more listens out of it.
iainctduncan 4y ago
Can confirm, that Margulis book is great! So is her other one.
totetsu 4y ago
This reminds me of this classic bit of radio I stumbled onto. A WFMU DJ playing Bob Dylan's 17 minute long ballad about J.F.Kennedy 'Murder Most Foul' over and over for three hours. It's archived here. https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/92415 https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/92415
pronlover723 4y ago
That just reminds me, why is it ok that work cafeterias are fine playing music over and over that if I quoted would get me fired?
pfdietz 4y ago
I've found that if I play a song enough, I begin tuning it out. My brain interprets it as background noise with no information content.
ishjoh 4y ago
haha, i literally have been playing a song on loop all day today. I've probably heard it 30 or 40 times. I wasn't aware other people also do this. It's like the music is stuck in my head unless I listen to it. Then after listening enough I can let it go.
Transfinity 4y ago
Semi professional musician here. Repetition goes way beyond what the author mentions: - Most music is highly repetitive, often recycling 2 or 3 short segments (chorus, verse) with minor variations to fill out a whole song. Coltrane is known for his avant-garde composition, and even he repeats (often on a much smaller scale than a pop tune). - The work of being a musician is repetitive. Learning (memorizing) songs takes reps! Then you've got to keep them fresh, teach them to new band members, etc. You probably have a limited book, and you know what the crowd pleasers are. Unless you're big enough to have a following cutting a song you're sick of isn't a problem, but filling out a set might be. Between rehearsal, gigs and practicing at home I probably play through most of my band's book at least twice a week. - Being a musician is very physical, which means you're drilling exercises in your daily routine. As a brass player, I run more or less the same set of warmups, range builders and flexibility exercises every day. Drummers do rudiments. String players have their own shtick. As far as listening to music, I don't typically put something on repeat unless I'm trying to transcribe it. But I'll listen to a song, and there's a chance it'll play on repeat in my head all day (or all week!). Steely Dan and LCD Soundsystem are particular earworms for me. It wasn't until college I realized this isn't true for many people.
- reid 4y ago
  Beats on repeat repeating on me… LCD Soundsystem is great for this.
- klodolph 4y ago
  I’ll add to this—when writing music, a lot of people (myself included) make the mistake of not using enough repetition!
  - grasshopperpurp 4y ago
    I think this is right. A lot of my favorite music finds ways to rotate what's repeating. It finds a balance of keeping the groove while still playing with the listener's expectations. But, to your point, if there isn't enough repetition, there's not enough to grab hold of. Obviously, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but for most applications, you want to give the listener engaged with your music. Beyond, or beneath, song structure, I've noticed that experienced songwriters repeat notes in their melodies more often than people starting out.
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
Somewhat related - I've been listening to Snarky Puppy on repeat on and off for months now. Highly recommended for the modern jazz fan. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52RKVKBFM328OwddSMRQS9BYOA3oVDgl https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52RKVKBFM328OwddSMRQS9BY...
acomjean 4y ago
I do listen to some songs over and over. Though after 3 or 4 times I usually switch it up. I do like albums.. Or sometimes one song can last like 30 minutes. (Phish does this). It’s great to drive/work to because it does have a rhythm that moves. https://youtu.be/UuzclQBJwWs https://youtu.be/UuzclQBJwWs
- bigiain 4y ago
  Back in the beforetimes, when I went to an office, I'ed play Chameleon by Herbie Hancock when I rode the bicycle in. It's just under 16 minutes long, and I'd use it as a way to time my ride, aiming to get door to door before the song finished. https://youtu.be/UbkqE4fpvdI https://youtu.be/UbkqE4fpvdI
smitty1e 4y ago
Can't abide hearing the same stuff repeatedly. We have more material now than we could ever get through in several lifetimes. No more than once a day per tune, please.
- bigiain 4y ago
  > Can't abide hearing the same stuff repeatedly. It depends. Sometimes I'm doing "critical listening" and I'll repeat the same song many times carefully examining the interplay between instruments, vocals, effects, rhythms, whatever - and intentionally re listening to it over and over so I can concentrate on one specific interplay each time through. Sometimes I'm just drowning out next doors power tools of vacuum cleaner, and one song on repeat is just as good as a playlist. But I grew up in the golden era of albums, and I love to listen to a whole album in the order the artist carefully curated them into. I _can't_ listen to a single song off Dark Side Of The Moon, I need to hear the entire album end to end. (And I will stab anyone who plays the songs out of order - let that be a warning to any Spotify engineers or product managers I ever meet...)
  - pawsforthought 4y ago
    The thought alone of playing Dark Side Of The Moon on shuffle makes me shudder. Why anyone would butcher albums that way is beyond me. Even my own playlists (of electronic music, which doesn’t tend to be released as albums) very quickly attain a ‘canonical’ order to my own ear. It’s jarring when the anticipation of the next track is disrupted.
    - copperx 4y ago
      While I agree and feel the same jarring effect when listening to songs outside their album context, I've accepted that as the past of commercial music. The present and future lies on listening to singles.
- bhrgunatha 4y ago
  I have what feels like an infinite backlog of bands and albums I want to listen to. My quirk is deep dives. I'll discover a new band or style to me, then listen to as much of it as I can. Very often someone's whole catalogue at a time. I'll occasionally repeat an album many times - recent examples are both Pixvae's albums or Ott's new album Heads (after 8 years waiting)!
throwawaycuriou 4y ago
I really enjoyed this book which covers the subject deeply https://www.amazon.com/Repeat-How-Music-Plays-Mind/dp/0199990824 https://www.amazon.com/Repeat-How-Music-Plays-Mind/dp/019999...
- flobosg 4y ago
  That book is mentioned throughout the article ;)
bemmu 4y ago
Back in my first job we had a CD drive but somehow only one music CD, so me and the other guy in that office just kept listening to that one all day. Now despite access to all the music in the world, I still have per-project playlists. So I might listen to the same ten songs again and again for weeks on end, as starting the soundtrack quickly puts me in the mood to resume work where I last left off. I've also adopted a mild superstition that it's bad to listen to the soundtrack for a project that failed.
- rob74 4y ago
  With me it's similar: I don't play individual songs on repeat, I play whole albums (mostly on Spotify however, not on CD). But I change the album once in a while. Listening to new music or one of those endless Spotify playlists doesn't allow me to concentrate on programming, the music has to be familiar.
aarondf 4y ago
I often listen to the same song on repeat for days in a row during periods of intense work. Usually "Djohariah" by Sufjan Stevens. It helps that it's like 17 minutes long. But I also listen to "Saturn" by the same artist, which is only 3 to 4 minutes long. It kinda puts me in a trance.
Barrin92 4y ago
" And is it cognitively normal -- not to mention socially normal -- to listen to so many songs[...]on repeat, day after day after day?" Even provided it wasn't normal, how any person engages with art is up to them and it doesn't require someone else's approval. No need for your tastes to be normal. And as Nabokov used to point out, a good reader, that is an active and creative reader is a rereader. Same goes for music. Many incredibly talented people spend their entire lives studying and playing a handful or maybe only even one composer, so why shouldn't listeners do the same.
- kieckerjan 4y ago
  Interesting that you bring that up (rereading). I found that the first and foremost reason to learn at least a few poems by heart is that you will be able to "reread" them at will without the printed text: on the bus, in the shower, etc. It helps you appreciate the text so much more.
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  Active listening is a real pleasure. Qualitatively, it’s a very different experience to having music on in the background while doing some other activity, and it merits listening on repeat. Mentally separating out the different voices in the composition, listening for how they enter and exit the soundstage, how that layering of sound builds up the texture of the music, not to mention melody, harmony, dynamics, pacing, phrasing, repetition, structure, timbre, rhythm, and the interplay of all these factors.
pupppet 4y ago
I'll sometimes play a new song on repeat with some strange aggressive need to hear it over and over, and then the very next day wonder why I was so into that song.
weinzierl 4y ago
Neither the article mentions it nor is it somewhere in the comments so far: Common TikTok wisdom seems to be that listening on repeat is an ADHD thing. I wonder if there is something to it or if it's just one of those oft repeated 'facts' that run by themselves after a while?
- quinnjh 4y ago
  On tikTok _everything_ is an adhd thing. The algorithmic loop practically gives you it.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  I came here looking to see this comment, but I think honestly TikTok is really damaging for people wrt mental conditions and understanding them. There is a TON of mis-information and "I have condition x and behavior Y" correlation/causation BS on TikTok. There's articles of people developing "tik tok tourettes syndrome" from watching videos of other with Tourettes. There's a growing literature of the affects of follow-along mental health conditions coming from watching other people on media with certain issues. I've seen a ton of TikTok ADHD claims that are BS or are "normal" but people shared as ADHD symptoms. I don't know how, but I suspect this sort of mis-information is bad for society. That said, I'm not a doctor/psych but I think its true that this is also an ADHD behavior. The article talks about how the author will listen to certain songs forever, but I think the ADHD behavior is a binge-and-forget type behavior, which seems different, and more related to the hyper-focus aspect of ADHD. Source: I have adhd, do this with music, and recreationally learn about ADHD for fun.
joebob42 4y ago
I'm terrified of this. I've no idea why, but if I hear a song too many times in a couple day period I have a night of fever dreaming where I wake up over and over again to the song in my head. It's like my brain has over conditioned the pathway for that song and as soon as it starts trying to dream it falls into it and the dream breaks and I wake up. It happens to me a couple times a year and when I hear any of the songs it's happened with before I feel a deep physical revulsion. I kind of wonder if it's a symptom of something but am otherwise more or less 100% neurotypical so I think it's just a weird quirk.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Exact same thing with me, to the point where I have to deliberately avoid listening to some tracks to avoid insomnia triggers. It wears off with most tracks, but I still can't hear "See-Line Woman".
- zelphirkalt 4y ago
  What about music without singing? Does it happen listening to that as well?
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    Yes. I've had this happen with various Ace Attorney soundtracks[1]. The best bit of advice I found to beat the earworm was to play the song to the end in my head. Which didn't help a bit, because every song on those soundtracks has a loop point. [1]: example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-QiKy-iEkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-QiKy-iEkQ
- ehnto 4y ago
  I hope you never have to work retail, they often have the same approved songs on repeat all day. I worked at a gym, and to this day, there are songs I don't even like that pop up in my head. 3 years of hearing them every day just about drove me spare.
  - dls2016 4y ago
jspash 4y ago
"But this gem of musical dervish-ness" Hits on the key point, in my opinion. Repeating songs, phrases, rhythms can by hypnotic and put the listener/performer into a trance-like state. Something that can be quite enjoyable and even addictive. I find that listening to music with lyrics simply won't do it for me. It must be instrumental only. Something like Keith Jarrett, Earthless or a good Frank Zappa vamp. Time no longer has meaning. It's wonderful!
NonNefarious 4y ago
Sadly, the enjoyment of popular music has been so decimated by dynamic compression that I rarely repeat a song mastered (or, heaven forbid, "remastered") since the mid-'90s. What should be very catchy music is now a fatiguing wall of noise that you just don't want assaulting your eardrums any more.
- creativenolo 4y ago
  I often wondered what the term / production technique was, and "dynamic compression" it is. Makes me think of Oasis records from the early 90s that were mastered to be the loudest sounding songs on the pub jukebox, and they were, then.
  - NonNefarious 4y ago
    Yep. It's so insidious, stupid, and destructive. Every recording artist and consumer has superb fidelity available, and yet today's music sounds like absolute shit. I have 45s from the '80s whose sound quality utterly destroys all-digital masters from the last decade. And that's not a digital-vs.-analog thing; I can make MP3s out of those 45s that will still destroy "lossless" versions of the same song on Apple Music.
yair99dd 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_psychological_operations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_psychological_opera... It can be hell
- JetAlone 4y ago
  "In the War on Terror, the US used the songs "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem, the Meow Mix theme song, and "Fuck Your God" by Deicide to torture.[6]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyZDq76T74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyZDq76T74 Now we got an extended club version MeowMixTape, on Youtube, for kids!
  - amelius 4y ago
    Did they pay the royalties?
    - JetAlone 4y ago
      That's a great question. I don't know.
hiccuphippo 4y ago
And then there's this. People making 10 hour long videos of the same song on repeat: https://youtu.be/4T0QUdQu7RY https://youtu.be/4T0QUdQu7RY https://youtu.be/xm3YgoEiEDc https://youtu.be/xm3YgoEiEDc It must be a challenge or something.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  I don't know why these exist, because YouTube does have a loop function.
  - scrollaway 4y ago
    It didn’t always have that loop function. It’s also not available on all platforms, eg if you wanted to chromecast it or play on a smart tv.
  - cypress66 4y ago
    Sometimes there are gaps at the beginning or end. These videos make the song loop perfectly.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  At least choose something musically interesting! https://yewtu.be/watch?v=rp8fYbrWLKg https://yewtu.be/watch?v=rp8fYbrWLKg
imgabe 4y ago
Glad I'm not weird for listening to "Running up that Hill" on repeat after watching Stranger Things
- space_ghost 4y ago
  It's literally on repeat in a separate tab right now. Excellent choice.
trwhite 4y ago
You can loop part of a song using loopsome.com
garage_dev 4y ago
I sometimes play the same song on loop for days; especially when I am trying crack a complex algorithm or trying to come up with the system design of a large pipeline. My hypothesis being: with every repetition the song move toward the "background of my mind" such that I am not spending too much "compute time" on the song itself; the sound is still there, helping me ignore external noises and therefore I am able to focus more on the task at hand. PS: 2 songs that have helped me Between The Bars, Elliot Smith Memorial, Russian Cirlce ft Chelsea Wolfe
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
senorqa 4y ago
Back in the day, together with my friend we played this trance tune on repeat for straight 5 days at the office :) both of us remember of this till this day and occasionally I play it for 10 or 15 times on repeat to honour that week :) James Holden & Julie Thompson (Nothing 93 returning mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8cRAjFB1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8cRAjFB1w
- andybak 4y ago
  James Holden's recent (last decade or so) work is incredible. I saw Animal Spirits live and it is a gig that I truly treasure having seen. I'm not a huge fan of trance and more conventional dance music so his evolution has been quite interesting.
tener 4y ago
Needs year tag: 2016.
jmiskovic 4y ago
I'm opposite; more than one hearing of same song per day and something inside gets triggered. Books, movies, shows, I need to wait something like two years before I can enjoy them again. My mind for some reason dislikes repetition. For background music I put on chill-hop which has a lot repetition inside individual songs but the live stream doesn't repeat tracks. I've noticed than my enjoyment in any song peaks at around 3rd or 4th listening. After that I can enjoy a (good) song for hundred more times but it will never exceed that feeling of familiarity combined with freshness. I tried putting the "Impressions" track on loop for 20 mins. It's a great melody and quite engaging listen, but I was distracted each time the song jarringly looped back to beginning.
- rmbyrro 4y ago
  The dopamine release diminishes the more you repeate. People who enjoy repetition (in this context) are maybe doing that more as a calm or focus mediator, rather than pleasure.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  This would indicate that your pattern storage and recognition of songs lasts up too two years. Given a songs "unique" data density, and your listening habbits, we could computate the storage capacity of music in your brain, until brain internal compression degrades the recognition to nil. Lets find out how many terrabytes of you are made of this. Who m i to disagree, i travell the world and the 7 seas..
- scns 4y ago
  I feel kinda similar, would like to know your opinion to this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WNB9JN_2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WNB9JN_2o
  - jmiskovic 4y ago
    Works great, cozy and doesn't draw attention.
- pornel 4y ago
  I have the same! I wish music players and recommendation systems had support for this. I'd like an option "This song is great, but stop playing it for a month or I'll start to hate it".
hexo 4y ago
I do not agree at all. It's just not normal to listen to a single song for 35 times in a row unless you are musician working on it. It's even weirder when you play it loud, harassing your coworkers.
- andybak 4y ago
  Your first part just sounds judgemental (unless you mean it in a strictly statistical sense) but I agree fully with your second sentence. Tolerance for repeated listening is such a personal thing that someone who does it in a group setting has to be some kind of sadistic sociopath.
  - _tom_ 4y ago
    Nah, just thoughtless is enough. "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity"
  - jonnycomputer 4y ago
    Everybody seems to assume that tolerance for non-repeated listening cannot be a personal thing too. The issue is respect for shared space, whatever the preferences.
Fred27 4y ago
This guy found an interesting way to repeat-but-not-repeat a favourite bit of music. https://medium.com/@alexbainter/generating-more-of-my-favorite-aphex-twin-track-cde9b7ecda3a https://medium.com/@alexbainter/generating-more-of-my-favori...
musikele 4y ago
My wife plays the same song over and over. This may be acceptable for those who listen songs on repeat, but it's terrible for those who live with them.
- seper8 4y ago
  Haha I feel this so much. Only a few minutes ago I asked my girlfriend to pick a few new songs to listen to...
blueflow 4y ago
Related: Linkin Park Man https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/843/303/10e.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/843/303/10e...
wvh 4y ago
The brain looks for rhythmic and melodic resolution, and in lots of popular music – and popular classical music – themes tend to resolve in 4, 8 or 16 bars. However, in some Latin American music, themes continuously develop, telling a story with "jazzy" chords that don't completely resolve immediately, and in other music, such as some classical music and even black metal, the challenge is for the brain to be willing to go into unresolved dissonance; one famous example is the Tristan chord, where the resolution takes rather literally the time of a whole Wagner opera. It would be interesting to see a study on the correlation between musical taste and delayed gratification in general, though of course different situations require different musical choices – one wouldn't pick something that requires mental focus when cleaning the house.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Some bands specialize in extended cover versions of songs, like this 45 minute version of Witchita Lineman, which is a similar phenomenon: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4
amadeuspagel 4y ago
> Usually, they’re what I’d call “creative types,” as with architect Zaha Hadid, who before her death in March told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs program about her propensity to play films and songs on a loop while she painted and did other work. Maybe everyone listens to music on repeat (which is why every music app has that feature), including creative types, but creative types are more likely to be interviewed about what music they listen to and how?
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  yeah, probably.
deleted 4y ago
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xg15 4y ago
Everyone should be able to enjoy art in the way they like - but be considerate of the people around you. The article starts with the anecdote that his son was seriously annoyed by the song - and then goes on to counter him with basically "but it's such a great song, it would be a shame if I could only listen to it for 3 minutes!" That's the musical equivalent of getting out your Triple Onionator with extra garlic for lunch and, when your coworker complains, shutting him up with "but it's so tasty!!" Please be nice to your non-repetitionist fellows and wear some headphones.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  There are some songs that I think I enjoy because of their brevity. I sort of look forward to the encounter, pine for the song again when it's over. Rather than put it on repeat though I always shuffle, preferring to (impatiently) await our next visit. (My music library is such now that it can be a while before it comes along again.)
  - reg_dunlop 4y ago
    wow. what a great comment There must be a certain amount of discernment and refinement that comes with savoring songs in such a way... though having built said music library must have been fun.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      I was looking through my playlist (sort by duration) and the obvious example that leapt out at me was Simon and Garfunkle's Bookends (under 90 seconds).
      - reg_dunlop 4y ago
        Seems boring; Would rather move to Canada and make juice
freetime2 4y ago
As a side note on the design of that website, I noticed that they play a rather unusually long confirmation animation when you click Accept on the cookie consent, prior to removing the banner. This feels like the exact opposite of what most users probably want, which is to make the banner go away as quickly as possible. Especially on mobile where the banner takes up a significant portion of the screen. I don’t typically comment on UX design for HN links, but that one literally made me do a double take… I loaded it up again in incognito mode just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.
QuantumSeed 4y ago
It occasionally happens that I put a song on repeat and leave it running for hours, much to the annoyance of many past roommates. I have no explanation for why I find it appealing, but I'm relieved to read that it's apparently not uncommon.
mgdlbp 4y ago
Reminds me of a cool hackathon project I saw a few years ago, The Infinite Jukebox. It finds pairs of beats in a song that sound alike and during playback has a chance at each beat with of jumping to its paired match, creating a seamlessly looped version of the song with added novelty from verses and choruses having varying order and length. The original hack, done on song that works particularly well, is still up: http://infinitegangnamstyle.playlistmachinery.com http://infinitegangnamstyle.playlistmachinery.com The playback code often gets stuck looping the first beat when loaded for the first time or when the tab loses focus, which is fixed by reloading. It works quite well on songs with repetitive elements and instrumentation divided cleanly between beats. The original site for submitting arbitrary songs is broken, but a fork is hosted by someone else. Here with an instrumental piece it works well on: https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_go.html?id=1LaCW0R8Q7oIY3tKtDgZOw https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_go.html?id=1LaCW0R8Q7oIY3tKtD... An interesting series of posts on the creator's blog explains it works, how it interacts with the structure of pop songs, and how the parameters can be tuned for individual tracks.[1] And it's open source,[2] though the beat splitting is based on an API from (a company since purchased by) Spotify. It seems that once the initial processing is complete, the playback is purely client-side; this is probably why snapshots of the site at archive.org are fully functional, quite remarkably for such interactive content.[3] There's also a variant where one playback 'needle' skips to similar parts of the track and one plays straight through, so that verses and choruses overlap as in a canon: https://eternalbox.dev/canonizer_go.html?id=7GhIk7Il098yCjg4BQjzvb https://eternalbox.dev/canonizer_go.html?id=7GhIk7Il098yCjg4... [1] https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/ https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/ [2] https://github.com/UnderMybrella/EternalJukebox https://github.com/UnderMybrella/EternalJukebox [3] https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://labs.echonest.com/Uploader/index.html?trid=TRORQWV13762CDDF4C https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://labs.echonest.com/Up...
jonnycomputer 4y ago
I do this. A lot. Play the same song over and over and over. Often this is just in appreciation of a particular song (do this a lot with Yeasayer tracks). But these days, I most often do the repeat while I'm programming or writing; I want to keep in a particular zone-emotional and mental. Here are some tracks I've done this with (a good "music for programmers" list, actually). Meeting in the Aisle - Radiohead Sketches - Daniel Lanois Jolie Cycliste Sous la Pluie - Galerie Stratique In Threes - Loscil Gelis - Natureboy Flako Closed Circuit - Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings - Biosphere Unknown - Kutiman Rainforest Suite - Robert Rich Surface Currents - Kutiman Structures from Silence - Steve Roach Le Ballet des Mouches - Michel Moulinie ** No Partial - Rhythm & Sound Mango Drive - Rhythm & Sound Minus - Robert Hood Echoes of Nothing I - Kyle Gann,, Aron Kallay from the Beyond 12 compilation Night Vigil I - Michael Harrison Sun Inside The Sun Loscil Remix - Souns, Loscil Black Monk In The Dunes - X.Y.R. ** This (and the rest of the album Chrysalide) is a brilliant brilliant gem, and almost impossible to find, except here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWvXb6jVpw&list=PLh2Bth4KYIoA_Oyk5uUkgLJdlx8v5mNGA&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWvXb6jVpw&list=PLh2Bth4KYI...
h2odragon 4y ago
Before CDs, I laboriously made a tape with Queen's "We Will Rock You" repeated over and over. I wanted it for car stereo demonstrations, but when others found I had it I sold dozens of copies, mostly to people who just liked the song. Nobody was interest in my Mozart supercuts, alas.
parenthesis 4y ago
I'm right in the middle of pretty much only being able to listen to Zac Zinger's Sanma Samba. I've listened to it for hours the past few days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=434xCyCSXBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=434xCyCSXBg Another record I had this with recently was Change - Paradise (I've just put this on, and no I'm not at all sick of it!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4aSg3u0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4aSg3u0s
rpigab 4y ago
Like humans do.
molbioguy 4y ago
Somewhat the opposite, but are there tips/tricks to get a song stuck in head -- sort of in a controllable manner? I enjoy having songs stuck in my head, but usually it's not the song I want!
- cropcirclbureau 4y ago
  It's my personal experience that songs that I haven't played to the end get are more likely to get stuck. What's more, it's usually the span around the point at which I stopped the playback that keeps echoing on andon andonandon. Same thing with any other media. I remember books I've left midway with incredible detail. Books I've finished, I find hard to remember titles let alone the name of the main character. I believe it's called the Ovsiankina Effect[0]. And as someone who's had a relatively bad memory, it freaks me out. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovsiankina_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovsiankina_effect
  - molbioguy 4y ago
    Thanks. Come to think of it, that rings true in my experience.
FumblingBear 4y ago
I'm curious about other people's experiences with how they choose what music to listen to. Many of my friends carefully curate playlists on Spotify, or listen to the playlists they make for you. Others listen to the radio and just enjoy whatever comes on. On the other hand, I have a large library of music (~13k songs) and just kind of decide what I'm in the mood for on a whim. No playlists, just a large collection of albums that I manually select or tell Siri to play for me. This method doesn't even work with Spotify for me due to their 9,999 song limit for libraries so I had to change to Apple Music when it surpassed that amount. I don't think I've ever met another person who manages their music collection the same way so I'm curious about how rare it is. Shockingly, I manage to not fall into habits of listening to the same thing over and over, but actually enjoy the majority of the music somewhat regularly. If my entire library were put on shuffle, I could likely name the artist with around 80% accuracy and the song / album with maybe 50% accuracy. There are definitely ones that I get wrong, but with a library of that size, I don't think it's particularly realistic to memorize everything.
- sbf501 4y ago
  I'm the rare gen-xer who owns zero music (even after going to college during the "10 CDs for a penny" deals). It is all rented from spotify. I could create a playlist like yours with over 100k songs, but I often feel a specific mood and need to narrow down to a composer or work. For me, a free-for-all would involve a lot of skipping. Hope this helps you deduce rarity!
- nvllsvm 4y ago
  Similar situation here: ~23k songs, meticulously tagged, no playlists. However, I'm a little different in that I end up listening to the same handful of artist/albums/songs for a period days or weeks, then move on to something else.
  - FumblingBear 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing! I definitely get in moods where I listen to a particular album a lot in a short period of time too. I try to vary my listening but sometimes there's just an album that feels right for the moment.
inasio 4y ago
Recently seen to happen to a DJ in a Canadian radio station [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/canadian-radio-station-rage-against-the-machine-song-nonstop https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/canadian-radio...
reg_dunlop 4y ago
OP here Stumbled upon this article while researching reasons why Wes Montgomery is so good; Not because I was looking for an objective fact; Rather, just wanted to read some of the love others have for his voice While reading this article it struck me how well written the article is. Certainly the subject is relatable and Wes is more of a grace note than the melody of this article, yet the article was written by a human who has found Wes and elevated him to his pantheon of "repeatability", making this article ultimately worth reading and sharing. Maybe even....more than once
- pramodbiligiri 4y ago
  Nice article! Thanks for sharing. You could append “(2016)” to the title if the edit window is still open. Generally older articles that get posted to HN have it so that readers know it’s not new news. /cc @dang
unbalancedevh 4y ago
Very late to the discussion here, but I often put a single song on repeat and listen to it all day long. Well, "listen" to it -- it's usually something that I can tune out (heh) or fits as background music for whatever mood I'm in at the time. Could be anything from Timber Timbre's Hot Dreams to Air's Sexy Boy.
orbit7 4y ago
Interesting been hoping this topic would get discussed at some point.. I've noticed at certain times I get this happen to me. Nootropics can also seem to amplify the addictive effect. A few of these I think I listened in excess of 200x in a week. Some being particularly more addictive whilst driving. https://youtu.be/Q-AAVX6Re30 https://youtu.be/Q-AAVX6Re30 https://youtu.be/sN3C-CEJtyM https://youtu.be/sN3C-CEJtyM https://youtu.be/frCVrHATnLo https://youtu.be/frCVrHATnLo https://youtu.be/gPRtxgirjFQ https://youtu.be/gPRtxgirjFQ https://youtu.be/FvzgtCpVzcA https://youtu.be/FvzgtCpVzcA https://youtu.be/QxB0S6bxvEs https://youtu.be/QxB0S6bxvEs https://youtu.be/sIn1asgcZEU https://youtu.be/sIn1asgcZEU https://youtu.be/fPdKHueTseY https://youtu.be/fPdKHueTseY

220 points by reg_dunlop 4y ago

texaslonghorn5 4y ago

It's not unusual

madcaptenor 4y ago
To be loved by anyone
- jjulius 4y ago
  It's not unusual
  - legostormtroopr 4y ago
    To have fun with anyone.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      But when I see you
      - jjulius 4y ago
        Hanging about with anyone
        willjp 4y ago
        It’s not unusual - to see me cry
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
willhinsa 4y ago
This reminds me of the John Mulaney standup bit :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Gryt-rcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Gryt-rcc
- texaslonghorn5 4y ago
  Haha you got it, that's what I was going for. I was hoping someone would respond with the line.

pseudoramble 4y ago

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!”

Buttons840 4y ago
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.
- doliveira 4y ago
  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
  - bigiain 4y ago
    What song? (I might have hit that count with Lebanese Blonde by Thievery Corporation a few years back...)
- bigiain 4y ago
  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 https://youtu.be/nlK0zYZLBGY

bhaney 4y ago

> I’ve listened to Montgomery’s Impressions recording for as long as an hour straight I've spent many consecutive days with the same song on loop for several hours a day. Was hoping this article would validate that a bit more, but I'll take what I can get.

nemo1618 4y ago
Yeah really, I've listened to the same 11-second loop for over an hour! (William Basinski's "El Camino Real") By the way, for all you loopheads out there, here's a protip: drop the song you're looping into Audacity and slow it down by 5%. It tricks your brain into processing the song as "new" again, so you can wring a few more listens out of it.

iainctduncan 4y ago

Can confirm, that Margulis book is great! So is her other one.

totetsu 4y ago

This reminds me of this classic bit of radio I stumbled onto. A WFMU DJ playing Bob Dylan's 17 minute long ballad about J.F.Kennedy 'Murder Most Foul' over and over for three hours. It's archived here. https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/92415 https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/92415

pronlover723 4y ago

That just reminds me, why is it ok that work cafeterias are fine playing music over and over that if I quoted would get me fired?

pfdietz 4y ago

I've found that if I play a song enough, I begin tuning it out. My brain interprets it as background noise with no information content.

ishjoh 4y ago

haha, i literally have been playing a song on loop all day today. I've probably heard it 30 or 40 times. I wasn't aware other people also do this. It's like the music is stuck in my head unless I listen to it. Then after listening enough I can let it go.

Transfinity 4y ago

Semi professional musician here. Repetition goes way beyond what the author mentions: - Most music is highly repetitive, often recycling 2 or 3 short segments (chorus, verse) with minor variations to fill out a whole song. Coltrane is known for his avant-garde composition, and even he repeats (often on a much smaller scale than a pop tune). - The work of being a musician is repetitive. Learning (memorizing) songs takes reps! Then you've got to keep them fresh, teach them to new band members, etc. You probably have a limited book, and you know what the crowd pleasers are. Unless you're big enough to have a following cutting a song you're sick of isn't a problem, but filling out a set might be. Between rehearsal, gigs and practicing at home I probably play through most of my band's book at least twice a week. - Being a musician is very physical, which means you're drilling exercises in your daily routine. As a brass player, I run more or less the same set of warmups, range builders and flexibility exercises every day. Drummers do rudiments. String players have their own shtick. As far as listening to music, I don't typically put something on repeat unless I'm trying to transcribe it. But I'll listen to a song, and there's a chance it'll play on repeat in my head all day (or all week!). Steely Dan and LCD Soundsystem are particular earworms for me. It wasn't until college I realized this isn't true for many people.

reid 4y ago
Beats on repeat repeating on me… LCD Soundsystem is great for this.
klodolph 4y ago
I’ll add to this—when writing music, a lot of people (myself included) make the mistake of not using enough repetition!
- grasshopperpurp 4y ago
  I think this is right. A lot of my favorite music finds ways to rotate what's repeating. It finds a balance of keeping the groove while still playing with the listener's expectations. But, to your point, if there isn't enough repetition, there's not enough to grab hold of. Obviously, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but for most applications, you want to give the listener engaged with your music. Beyond, or beneath, song structure, I've noticed that experienced songwriters repeat notes in their melodies more often than people starting out.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago

Somewhat related - I've been listening to Snarky Puppy on repeat on and off for months now. Highly recommended for the modern jazz fan. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52RKVKBFM328OwddSMRQS9BYOA3oVDgl https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52RKVKBFM328OwddSMRQS9BY...

acomjean 4y ago

I do listen to some songs over and over. Though after 3 or 4 times I usually switch it up. I do like albums.. Or sometimes one song can last like 30 minutes. (Phish does this). It’s great to drive/work to because it does have a rhythm that moves. https://youtu.be/UuzclQBJwWs https://youtu.be/UuzclQBJwWs

bigiain 4y ago
Back in the beforetimes, when I went to an office, I'ed play Chameleon by Herbie Hancock when I rode the bicycle in. It's just under 16 minutes long, and I'd use it as a way to time my ride, aiming to get door to door before the song finished. https://youtu.be/UbkqE4fpvdI https://youtu.be/UbkqE4fpvdI

smitty1e 4y ago

Can't abide hearing the same stuff repeatedly. We have more material now than we could ever get through in several lifetimes. No more than once a day per tune, please.

bigiain 4y ago
> Can't abide hearing the same stuff repeatedly. It depends. Sometimes I'm doing "critical listening" and I'll repeat the same song many times carefully examining the interplay between instruments, vocals, effects, rhythms, whatever - and intentionally re listening to it over and over so I can concentrate on one specific interplay each time through. Sometimes I'm just drowning out next doors power tools of vacuum cleaner, and one song on repeat is just as good as a playlist. But I grew up in the golden era of albums, and I love to listen to a whole album in the order the artist carefully curated them into. I _can't_ listen to a single song off Dark Side Of The Moon, I need to hear the entire album end to end. (And I will stab anyone who plays the songs out of order - let that be a warning to any Spotify engineers or product managers I ever meet...)
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  The thought alone of playing Dark Side Of The Moon on shuffle makes me shudder. Why anyone would butcher albums that way is beyond me. Even my own playlists (of electronic music, which doesn’t tend to be released as albums) very quickly attain a ‘canonical’ order to my own ear. It’s jarring when the anticipation of the next track is disrupted.
  - copperx 4y ago
    While I agree and feel the same jarring effect when listening to songs outside their album context, I've accepted that as the past of commercial music. The present and future lies on listening to singles.
bhrgunatha 4y ago
I have what feels like an infinite backlog of bands and albums I want to listen to. My quirk is deep dives. I'll discover a new band or style to me, then listen to as much of it as I can. Very often someone's whole catalogue at a time. I'll occasionally repeat an album many times - recent examples are both Pixvae's albums or Ott's new album Heads (after 8 years waiting)!

throwawaycuriou 4y ago

I really enjoyed this book which covers the subject deeply https://www.amazon.com/Repeat-How-Music-Plays-Mind/dp/0199990824 https://www.amazon.com/Repeat-How-Music-Plays-Mind/dp/019999...

flobosg 4y ago
That book is mentioned throughout the article ;)

bemmu 4y ago

Back in my first job we had a CD drive but somehow only one music CD, so me and the other guy in that office just kept listening to that one all day. Now despite access to all the music in the world, I still have per-project playlists. So I might listen to the same ten songs again and again for weeks on end, as starting the soundtrack quickly puts me in the mood to resume work where I last left off. I've also adopted a mild superstition that it's bad to listen to the soundtrack for a project that failed.

rob74 4y ago
With me it's similar: I don't play individual songs on repeat, I play whole albums (mostly on Spotify however, not on CD). But I change the album once in a while. Listening to new music or one of those endless Spotify playlists doesn't allow me to concentrate on programming, the music has to be familiar.

aarondf 4y ago

I often listen to the same song on repeat for days in a row during periods of intense work. Usually "Djohariah" by Sufjan Stevens. It helps that it's like 17 minutes long. But I also listen to "Saturn" by the same artist, which is only 3 to 4 minutes long. It kinda puts me in a trance.

Barrin92 4y ago

" And is it cognitively normal -- not to mention socially normal -- to listen to so many songs[...]on repeat, day after day after day?" Even provided it wasn't normal, how any person engages with art is up to them and it doesn't require someone else's approval. No need for your tastes to be normal. And as Nabokov used to point out, a good reader, that is an active and creative reader is a rereader. Same goes for music. Many incredibly talented people spend their entire lives studying and playing a handful or maybe only even one composer, so why shouldn't listeners do the same.

kieckerjan 4y ago
Interesting that you bring that up (rereading). I found that the first and foremost reason to learn at least a few poems by heart is that you will be able to "reread" them at will without the printed text: on the bus, in the shower, etc. It helps you appreciate the text so much more.
pawsforthought 4y ago
Active listening is a real pleasure. Qualitatively, it’s a very different experience to having music on in the background while doing some other activity, and it merits listening on repeat. Mentally separating out the different voices in the composition, listening for how they enter and exit the soundstage, how that layering of sound builds up the texture of the music, not to mention melody, harmony, dynamics, pacing, phrasing, repetition, structure, timbre, rhythm, and the interplay of all these factors.

pupppet 4y ago

I'll sometimes play a new song on repeat with some strange aggressive need to hear it over and over, and then the very next day wonder why I was so into that song.

weinzierl 4y ago

Neither the article mentions it nor is it somewhere in the comments so far: Common TikTok wisdom seems to be that listening on repeat is an ADHD thing. I wonder if there is something to it or if it's just one of those oft repeated 'facts' that run by themselves after a while?

quinnjh 4y ago
On tikTok _everything_ is an adhd thing. The algorithmic loop practically gives you it.
vineyardmike 4y ago
I came here looking to see this comment, but I think honestly TikTok is really damaging for people wrt mental conditions and understanding them. There is a TON of mis-information and "I have condition x and behavior Y" correlation/causation BS on TikTok. There's articles of people developing "tik tok tourettes syndrome" from watching videos of other with Tourettes. There's a growing literature of the affects of follow-along mental health conditions coming from watching other people on media with certain issues. I've seen a ton of TikTok ADHD claims that are BS or are "normal" but people shared as ADHD symptoms. I don't know how, but I suspect this sort of mis-information is bad for society. That said, I'm not a doctor/psych but I think its true that this is also an ADHD behavior. The article talks about how the author will listen to certain songs forever, but I think the ADHD behavior is a binge-and-forget type behavior, which seems different, and more related to the hyper-focus aspect of ADHD. Source: I have adhd, do this with music, and recreationally learn about ADHD for fun.

joebob42 4y ago

I'm terrified of this. I've no idea why, but if I hear a song too many times in a couple day period I have a night of fever dreaming where I wake up over and over again to the song in my head. It's like my brain has over conditioned the pathway for that song and as soon as it starts trying to dream it falls into it and the dream breaks and I wake up. It happens to me a couple times a year and when I hear any of the songs it's happened with before I feel a deep physical revulsion. I kind of wonder if it's a symptom of something but am otherwise more or less 100% neurotypical so I think it's just a weird quirk.

tptacek 4y ago
Exact same thing with me, to the point where I have to deliberately avoid listening to some tracks to avoid insomnia triggers. It wears off with most tracks, but I still can't hear "See-Line Woman".
zelphirkalt 4y ago
What about music without singing? Does it happen listening to that as well?
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  Yes. I've had this happen with various Ace Attorney soundtracks[1]. The best bit of advice I found to beat the earworm was to play the song to the end in my head. Which didn't help a bit, because every song on those soundtracks has a loop point. [1]: example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-QiKy-iEkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-QiKy-iEkQ
ehnto 4y ago
I hope you never have to work retail, they often have the same approved songs on repeat all day. I worked at a gym, and to this day, there are songs I don't even like that pop up in my head. 3 years of hearing them every day just about drove me spare.
- dls2016 4y ago

jspash 4y ago

"But this gem of musical dervish-ness" Hits on the key point, in my opinion. Repeating songs, phrases, rhythms can by hypnotic and put the listener/performer into a trance-like state. Something that can be quite enjoyable and even addictive. I find that listening to music with lyrics simply won't do it for me. It must be instrumental only. Something like Keith Jarrett, Earthless or a good Frank Zappa vamp. Time no longer has meaning. It's wonderful!

NonNefarious 4y ago

Sadly, the enjoyment of popular music has been so decimated by dynamic compression that I rarely repeat a song mastered (or, heaven forbid, "remastered") since the mid-'90s. What should be very catchy music is now a fatiguing wall of noise that you just don't want assaulting your eardrums any more.

creativenolo 4y ago
I often wondered what the term / production technique was, and "dynamic compression" it is. Makes me think of Oasis records from the early 90s that were mastered to be the loudest sounding songs on the pub jukebox, and they were, then.
- NonNefarious 4y ago
  Yep. It's so insidious, stupid, and destructive. Every recording artist and consumer has superb fidelity available, and yet today's music sounds like absolute shit. I have 45s from the '80s whose sound quality utterly destroys all-digital masters from the last decade. And that's not a digital-vs.-analog thing; I can make MP3s out of those 45s that will still destroy "lossless" versions of the same song on Apple Music.

yair99dd 4y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_psychological_operations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_psychological_opera... It can be hell

JetAlone 4y ago
"In the War on Terror, the US used the songs "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem, the Meow Mix theme song, and "Fuck Your God" by Deicide to torture.[6]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyZDq76T74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyZDq76T74 Now we got an extended club version MeowMixTape, on Youtube, for kids!
- amelius 4y ago
  Did they pay the royalties?
  - JetAlone 4y ago
    That's a great question. I don't know.

hiccuphippo 4y ago

And then there's this. People making 10 hour long videos of the same song on repeat: https://youtu.be/4T0QUdQu7RY https://youtu.be/4T0QUdQu7RY https://youtu.be/xm3YgoEiEDc https://youtu.be/xm3YgoEiEDc It must be a challenge or something.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
I don't know why these exist, because YouTube does have a loop function.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  It didn’t always have that loop function. It’s also not available on all platforms, eg if you wanted to chromecast it or play on a smart tv.
- cypress66 4y ago
  Sometimes there are gaps at the beginning or end. These videos make the song loop perfectly.
dredmorbius 4y ago
At least choose something musically interesting! https://yewtu.be/watch?v=rp8fYbrWLKg https://yewtu.be/watch?v=rp8fYbrWLKg

imgabe 4y ago

Glad I'm not weird for listening to "Running up that Hill" on repeat after watching Stranger Things

space_ghost 4y ago
It's literally on repeat in a separate tab right now. Excellent choice.

trwhite 4y ago

You can loop part of a song using loopsome.com

garage_dev 4y ago

I sometimes play the same song on loop for days; especially when I am trying crack a complex algorithm or trying to come up with the system design of a large pipeline. My hypothesis being: with every repetition the song move toward the "background of my mind" such that I am not spending too much "compute time" on the song itself; the sound is still there, helping me ignore external noises and therefore I am able to focus more on the task at hand. PS: 2 songs that have helped me Between The Bars, Elliot Smith Memorial, Russian Cirlce ft Chelsea Wolfe

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

senorqa 4y ago

Back in the day, together with my friend we played this trance tune on repeat for straight 5 days at the office :) both of us remember of this till this day and occasionally I play it for 10 or 15 times on repeat to honour that week :) James Holden & Julie Thompson (Nothing 93 returning mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8cRAjFB1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8cRAjFB1w

andybak 4y ago
James Holden's recent (last decade or so) work is incredible. I saw Animal Spirits live and it is a gig that I truly treasure having seen. I'm not a huge fan of trance and more conventional dance music so his evolution has been quite interesting.

tener 4y ago

Needs year tag: 2016.

jmiskovic 4y ago

I'm opposite; more than one hearing of same song per day and something inside gets triggered. Books, movies, shows, I need to wait something like two years before I can enjoy them again. My mind for some reason dislikes repetition. For background music I put on chill-hop which has a lot repetition inside individual songs but the live stream doesn't repeat tracks. I've noticed than my enjoyment in any song peaks at around 3rd or 4th listening. After that I can enjoy a (good) song for hundred more times but it will never exceed that feeling of familiarity combined with freshness. I tried putting the "Impressions" track on loop for 20 mins. It's a great melody and quite engaging listen, but I was distracted each time the song jarringly looped back to beginning.

rmbyrro 4y ago
The dopamine release diminishes the more you repeate. People who enjoy repetition (in this context) are maybe doing that more as a calm or focus mediator, rather than pleasure.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
This would indicate that your pattern storage and recognition of songs lasts up too two years. Given a songs "unique" data density, and your listening habbits, we could computate the storage capacity of music in your brain, until brain internal compression degrades the recognition to nil. Lets find out how many terrabytes of you are made of this. Who m i to disagree, i travell the world and the 7 seas..
scns 4y ago
I feel kinda similar, would like to know your opinion to this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WNB9JN_2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WNB9JN_2o
- jmiskovic 4y ago
  Works great, cozy and doesn't draw attention.
pornel 4y ago
I have the same! I wish music players and recommendation systems had support for this. I'd like an option "This song is great, but stop playing it for a month or I'll start to hate it".

hexo 4y ago

I do not agree at all. It's just not normal to listen to a single song for 35 times in a row unless you are musician working on it. It's even weirder when you play it loud, harassing your coworkers.

andybak 4y ago
Your first part just sounds judgemental (unless you mean it in a strictly statistical sense) but I agree fully with your second sentence. Tolerance for repeated listening is such a personal thing that someone who does it in a group setting has to be some kind of sadistic sociopath.
- _tom_ 4y ago
  Nah, just thoughtless is enough. "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity"
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  Everybody seems to assume that tolerance for non-repeated listening cannot be a personal thing too. The issue is respect for shared space, whatever the preferences.

Fred27 4y ago

This guy found an interesting way to repeat-but-not-repeat a favourite bit of music. https://medium.com/@alexbainter/generating-more-of-my-favorite-aphex-twin-track-cde9b7ecda3a https://medium.com/@alexbainter/generating-more-of-my-favori...

musikele 4y ago

My wife plays the same song over and over. This may be acceptable for those who listen songs on repeat, but it's terrible for those who live with them.

seper8 4y ago
Haha I feel this so much. Only a few minutes ago I asked my girlfriend to pick a few new songs to listen to...

blueflow 4y ago

Related: Linkin Park Man https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/843/303/10e.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/843/303/10e...

wvh 4y ago

The brain looks for rhythmic and melodic resolution, and in lots of popular music – and popular classical music – themes tend to resolve in 4, 8 or 16 bars. However, in some Latin American music, themes continuously develop, telling a story with "jazzy" chords that don't completely resolve immediately, and in other music, such as some classical music and even black metal, the challenge is for the brain to be willing to go into unresolved dissonance; one famous example is the Tristan chord, where the resolution takes rather literally the time of a whole Wagner opera. It would be interesting to see a study on the correlation between musical taste and delayed gratification in general, though of course different situations require different musical choices – one wouldn't pick something that requires mental focus when cleaning the house.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Some bands specialize in extended cover versions of songs, like this 45 minute version of Witchita Lineman, which is a similar phenomenon: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4

amadeuspagel 4y ago

> Usually, they’re what I’d call “creative types,” as with architect Zaha Hadid, who before her death in March told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs program about her propensity to play films and songs on a loop while she painted and did other work. Maybe everyone listens to music on repeat (which is why every music app has that feature), including creative types, but creative types are more likely to be interviewed about what music they listen to and how?

jonnycomputer 4y ago
yeah, probably.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

xg15 4y ago

Everyone should be able to enjoy art in the way they like - but be considerate of the people around you. The article starts with the anecdote that his son was seriously annoyed by the song - and then goes on to counter him with basically "but it's such a great song, it would be a shame if I could only listen to it for 3 minutes!" That's the musical equivalent of getting out your Triple Onionator with extra garlic for lunch and, when your coworker complains, shutting him up with "but it's so tasty!!" Please be nice to your non-repetitionist fellows and wear some headphones.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
There are some songs that I think I enjoy because of their brevity. I sort of look forward to the encounter, pine for the song again when it's over. Rather than put it on repeat though I always shuffle, preferring to (impatiently) await our next visit. (My music library is such now that it can be a while before it comes along again.)
- reg_dunlop 4y ago
  wow. what a great comment There must be a certain amount of discernment and refinement that comes with savoring songs in such a way... though having built said music library must have been fun.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    I was looking through my playlist (sort by duration) and the obvious example that leapt out at me was Simon and Garfunkle's Bookends (under 90 seconds).
    - reg_dunlop 4y ago
      Seems boring; Would rather move to Canada and make juice

freetime2 4y ago

As a side note on the design of that website, I noticed that they play a rather unusually long confirmation animation when you click Accept on the cookie consent, prior to removing the banner. This feels like the exact opposite of what most users probably want, which is to make the banner go away as quickly as possible. Especially on mobile where the banner takes up a significant portion of the screen. I don’t typically comment on UX design for HN links, but that one literally made me do a double take… I loaded it up again in incognito mode just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

QuantumSeed 4y ago

It occasionally happens that I put a song on repeat and leave it running for hours, much to the annoyance of many past roommates. I have no explanation for why I find it appealing, but I'm relieved to read that it's apparently not uncommon.

mgdlbp 4y ago

Reminds me of a cool hackathon project I saw a few years ago, The Infinite Jukebox. It finds pairs of beats in a song that sound alike and during playback has a chance at each beat with of jumping to its paired match, creating a seamlessly looped version of the song with added novelty from verses and choruses having varying order and length. The original hack, done on song that works particularly well, is still up: http://infinitegangnamstyle.playlistmachinery.com http://infinitegangnamstyle.playlistmachinery.com The playback code often gets stuck looping the first beat when loaded for the first time or when the tab loses focus, which is fixed by reloading. It works quite well on songs with repetitive elements and instrumentation divided cleanly between beats. The original site for submitting arbitrary songs is broken, but a fork is hosted by someone else. Here with an instrumental piece it works well on: https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_go.html?id=1LaCW0R8Q7oIY3tKtDgZOw https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_go.html?id=1LaCW0R8Q7oIY3tKtD... An interesting series of posts on the creator's blog explains it works, how it interacts with the structure of pop songs, and how the parameters can be tuned for individual tracks.[1] And it's open source,[2] though the beat splitting is based on an API from (a company since purchased by) Spotify. It seems that once the initial processing is complete, the playback is purely client-side; this is probably why snapshots of the site at archive.org are fully functional, quite remarkably for such interactive content.[3] There's also a variant where one playback 'needle' skips to similar parts of the track and one plays straight through, so that verses and choruses overlap as in a canon: https://eternalbox.dev/canonizer_go.html?id=7GhIk7Il098yCjg4BQjzvb https://eternalbox.dev/canonizer_go.html?id=7GhIk7Il098yCjg4... [1] https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/ https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/ [2] https://github.com/UnderMybrella/EternalJukebox https://github.com/UnderMybrella/EternalJukebox [3] https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://labs.echonest.com/Uploader/index.html?trid=TRORQWV13762CDDF4C https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://labs.echonest.com/Up...

jonnycomputer 4y ago

I do this. A lot. Play the same song over and over and over. Often this is just in appreciation of a particular song (do this a lot with Yeasayer tracks). But these days, I most often do the repeat while I'm programming or writing; I want to keep in a particular zone-emotional and mental. Here are some tracks I've done this with (a good "music for programmers" list, actually). Meeting in the Aisle - Radiohead Sketches - Daniel Lanois Jolie Cycliste Sous la Pluie - Galerie Stratique In Threes - Loscil Gelis - Natureboy Flako Closed Circuit - Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings - Biosphere Unknown - Kutiman Rainforest Suite - Robert Rich Surface Currents - Kutiman Structures from Silence - Steve Roach Le Ballet des Mouches - Michel Moulinie ** No Partial - Rhythm & Sound Mango Drive - Rhythm & Sound Minus - Robert Hood Echoes of Nothing I - Kyle Gann,, Aron Kallay from the Beyond 12 compilation Night Vigil I - Michael Harrison Sun Inside The Sun Loscil Remix - Souns, Loscil Black Monk In The Dunes - X.Y.R. ** This (and the rest of the album Chrysalide) is a brilliant brilliant gem, and almost impossible to find, except here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWvXb6jVpw&list=PLh2Bth4KYIoA_Oyk5uUkgLJdlx8v5mNGA&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWvXb6jVpw&list=PLh2Bth4KYI...

h2odragon 4y ago

Before CDs, I laboriously made a tape with Queen's "We Will Rock You" repeated over and over. I wanted it for car stereo demonstrations, but when others found I had it I sold dozens of copies, mostly to people who just liked the song. Nobody was interest in my Mozart supercuts, alas.

parenthesis 4y ago

I'm right in the middle of pretty much only being able to listen to Zac Zinger's Sanma Samba. I've listened to it for hours the past few days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=434xCyCSXBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=434xCyCSXBg Another record I had this with recently was Change - Paradise (I've just put this on, and no I'm not at all sick of it!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4aSg3u0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4aSg3u0s

rpigab 4y ago

Like humans do.

molbioguy 4y ago

Somewhat the opposite, but are there tips/tricks to get a song stuck in head -- sort of in a controllable manner? I enjoy having songs stuck in my head, but usually it's not the song I want!

cropcirclbureau 4y ago
It's my personal experience that songs that I haven't played to the end get are more likely to get stuck. What's more, it's usually the span around the point at which I stopped the playback that keeps echoing on andon andonandon. Same thing with any other media. I remember books I've left midway with incredible detail. Books I've finished, I find hard to remember titles let alone the name of the main character. I believe it's called the Ovsiankina Effect[0]. And as someone who's had a relatively bad memory, it freaks me out. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovsiankina_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovsiankina_effect
- molbioguy 4y ago
  Thanks. Come to think of it, that rings true in my experience.

FumblingBear 4y ago

I'm curious about other people's experiences with how they choose what music to listen to. Many of my friends carefully curate playlists on Spotify, or listen to the playlists they make for you. Others listen to the radio and just enjoy whatever comes on. On the other hand, I have a large library of music (~13k songs) and just kind of decide what I'm in the mood for on a whim. No playlists, just a large collection of albums that I manually select or tell Siri to play for me. This method doesn't even work with Spotify for me due to their 9,999 song limit for libraries so I had to change to Apple Music when it surpassed that amount. I don't think I've ever met another person who manages their music collection the same way so I'm curious about how rare it is. Shockingly, I manage to not fall into habits of listening to the same thing over and over, but actually enjoy the majority of the music somewhat regularly. If my entire library were put on shuffle, I could likely name the artist with around 80% accuracy and the song / album with maybe 50% accuracy. There are definitely ones that I get wrong, but with a library of that size, I don't think it's particularly realistic to memorize everything.

sbf501 4y ago
I'm the rare gen-xer who owns zero music (even after going to college during the "10 CDs for a penny" deals). It is all rented from spotify. I could create a playlist like yours with over 100k songs, but I often feel a specific mood and need to narrow down to a composer or work. For me, a free-for-all would involve a lot of skipping. Hope this helps you deduce rarity!
nvllsvm 4y ago
Similar situation here: ~23k songs, meticulously tagged, no playlists. However, I'm a little different in that I end up listening to the same handful of artist/albums/songs for a period days or weeks, then move on to something else.
- FumblingBear 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I definitely get in moods where I listen to a particular album a lot in a short period of time too. I try to vary my listening but sometimes there's just an album that feels right for the moment.

inasio 4y ago

Recently seen to happen to a DJ in a Canadian radio station [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/canadian-radio-station-rage-against-the-machine-song-nonstop https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/canadian-radio...

reg_dunlop 4y ago

OP here Stumbled upon this article while researching reasons why Wes Montgomery is so good; Not because I was looking for an objective fact; Rather, just wanted to read some of the love others have for his voice While reading this article it struck me how well written the article is. Certainly the subject is relatable and Wes is more of a grace note than the melody of this article, yet the article was written by a human who has found Wes and elevated him to his pantheon of "repeatability", making this article ultimately worth reading and sharing. Maybe even....more than once

pramodbiligiri 4y ago
Nice article! Thanks for sharing. You could append “(2016)” to the title if the edit window is still open. Generally older articles that get posted to HN have it so that readers know it’s not new news. /cc @dang

unbalancedevh 4y ago

Very late to the discussion here, but I often put a single song on repeat and listen to it all day long. Well, "listen" to it -- it's usually something that I can tune out (heh) or fits as background music for whatever mood I'm in at the time. Could be anything from Timber Timbre's Hot Dreams to Air's Sexy Boy.

orbit7 4y ago

Interesting been hoping this topic would get discussed at some point.. I've noticed at certain times I get this happen to me. Nootropics can also seem to amplify the addictive effect. A few of these I think I listened in excess of 200x in a week. Some being particularly more addictive whilst driving. https://youtu.be/Q-AAVX6Re30 https://youtu.be/Q-AAVX6Re30 https://youtu.be/sN3C-CEJtyM https://youtu.be/sN3C-CEJtyM https://youtu.be/frCVrHATnLo https://youtu.be/frCVrHATnLo https://youtu.be/gPRtxgirjFQ https://youtu.be/gPRtxgirjFQ https://youtu.be/FvzgtCpVzcA https://youtu.be/FvzgtCpVzcA https://youtu.be/QxB0S6bxvEs https://youtu.be/QxB0S6bxvEs https://youtu.be/sIn1asgcZEU https://youtu.be/sIn1asgcZEU https://youtu.be/fPdKHueTseY https://youtu.be/fPdKHueTseY