Not alphabetical. Not chronological. Autobiographical.

I think it was around Thanksgiving that I started posting the albums I was listening to as status updates on Facebook. I’d like to think I started because I’m just that resistant to coming up with clever soundbites — I’m more of a long-form, old-school kinda guy (or something pretentious like that). But honestly, I think it was mostly out of sheer laziness.

I’ve basically kept it up ever since, injecting non-album updates every few days or so. I don’t have an iPhone (yet), so the posts don’t sync up exactly “live” in time. I’ll put on a record and not realize I’m committing to the whole thing until halfway through, and I’ll post it. Or I’ll return from a shopping trip during which I listened to two albums, and I’ll post them, followed by the record I just started. And so on. Also, in case anyone cares, I don’t always finish the album I post. Life interrupts, or my interest fades.

I was a little surprised but mostly just pleased with how my album posts generated more comments than almost all of my “regular” updates. People chimed in quickly: “One of my favorites,” “Any good?” “I prefer Boys for Pele,” etc. The exchanges were brief, but it seemed to capture something of the communal spirit of this *cough* social network. People from radically different eras of my life would agree on an album, and it was…nice.

But the other effect this has had is more internal, I guess. I’d hate to think I’ve been forcing a kind of eclecticism on myself over the last few months, just to show off what broad tastes I have. But it’s entirely possible that a little of that has been going on, subconsciously. Leaving that aside, though, it’s not so much the eclecticism that bothers me as…well…eclecticism by another name: fickleness.

For a way more scholarly dive into what I’m getting at, check out this Salon piece (excerpted from n+1) by Nikil Saval. In it he says, “As certain foodies score points by having eaten everything — blowfish, yak milk tea, haggis, hot dogs — so the person who knows and likes all music achieves a curious sophistication-through-indiscriminateness.” Ouch. But it’s true, right? Saval ties this to the digitization of music, which I think is largely true. But I also think getting older has something to do with it.

I’ve talked about this with my brother Scott many times, how liberating it feels at first to lose some of your twentysomething indie rock snobbishness and start to appreciate, say, the Grateful Dead. While it’s fun to loosen up and discover a virtually endless world of “first listens,” it’s a bit of a slippery slope. Open-mindedness in relation to music, combined with the all-you-can-eat nature of the access we have to it currently…adds up to me listening to things once, maybe twice…and then shelving them.

Put another way, if Facebook existed when I was seventeen, and I was posting albums like I am now, a couple days’ postings might look like this:

• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Rainmakers – Tornado
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• Simon and Garfunkel – The Sounds of Silence
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs
• The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs

I’m willing to accept the fact that music doesn’t provide me with as many emotional nutrients as it might have when I was younger, that a certain percentage of my listening these days is going to be a lighter, delighted-but-detached, nerdy activity. And I’m not saying I want to give up or discount “nerdy listening” — because it’s just plain fun. But the attention I used to give to every album I obtained, just the sheer number of spins I’d devote… There’s something to be said for that.

I was a huge Oasis fan, all the way through their career. Following them was the closest analogue to the devotion I used to practice as a younger person, picking up physical — even “deluxe” — versions of their albums and listening to them over and over. I recently did this with Liam’s post-Oasis band, Beady Eye. As a “super-fan,” I had more drive than usual to play Different Gear, Still Speeding over and over. Upon first listen, some of the songs made me wince, and I thought maybe there’d be two keepers total; I would definitely not recommend this to friends. But then with the fourth, fifth, sixth spin…melodies that seemed elusive — or just rote — revealed their hum-ability. They’d stick in my head, propelling me through work days, nudging me to go back and play it again…

Isn’t this how music’s supposed to work? How it used to, how it still can? I think so.

I can’t promise myself anything because it’s a crazy, busy world, but I’m writing this down as a pledge to myself. To not skip around so damn much. To live with albums more, to stick with them. To allow myself to get caught in / surprised by / addicted to records like I used to more often.

So…more often, please. More often, then.