In this age of "instant gratification," it's easy to get lost in the onslaught of what's available to us. Anyone can get news that happened just moments before by opening his or her favorite news website. I have fallen victim to downloading music through torrents and any time I hear about a band or a new album, all I have to do is wait five minutes (which in some cases is a long time) before I have it in my iTunes library.
I'm quickly approaching 10,000 songs and with so many options, one might think that I would never have to ponder what to listen to. I've noticed, however, that because I have so many choices, it's become easy for me to forget what I have and I can't remember what I enjoy listening to.
An Entertainment Weekly "Best of the Decade" issue was published at the end of the year and one of the top albums was The Blueprint by Jay-Z. I had heard a lot about Jay-Z, but never really listened to him. There were a few things that I really enjoyed; His remixes with Linkin Park and Coldplay mostly. When I saw the article on The Blueprint I jumped onto Vuze (my torrent client of choice) and within minutes, I was downloading the album along with the two sequels.
It wasn't until yesterday when I went on a bike ride that I decided to listen to my latest download. I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed. I am a big fan of what Eminem has done with hip-hop so I assumed that Jay-Z would blow me away, but I really hated it. Nigga this and nigga that. Here an F-Bomb there an F-Bomb everywhere an F-Bomb. What the hell is a "hova" anyway?! I ended up stopping mid-ride and switching to Weezer which instantly pumped my adrenaline up and made for a much more enjoyable ride.
Because I am constantly downloading music, I get my mind wrapped around the last five albums that I've added and can't remember anything else that I have. Last night, however, I was playing with my new iPod Touch when I gave the Genius feature a try.
Genius is a tool in iTunes that finds similar songs to the one that you're currently listening to. For example, if I were listening to a country song and then accessed the Genius feature, iTunes would create a playlist of country songs by other artists as well as the one playing. It's really a cool feature.
Anyway, I remembered how much I loved The Postal Service and decided to see what Genius recommended. As I sat and played with my iPod, I was thrown back into a familiarity of what I love to listen to. Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Ben Folds, The Shins, Travis, and so much more. It was so nice to be brought back to what I had been missing. I had been in such a music funk lately and being reminded of these bands was refreshing and fun.
Instant gratification has its ups and downs, but it's nice that we have a technology like Genius to instantly bring us back to the ups.
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