I have two musicians on my last.fm account as neighbors and one has herself as her second most played artist while the other only has eleven plays for himself. My knee-jerk reaction is that the latter is more “normal” or “proper” and that the former’s conceited but I admit that that’s a pretty ignorant viewpoint on my behalf so I’m curious what other musicians think.
Assuming your work has been recorded and you have it in your collection, how often do you listen to it for pleasure? And are you the vocalist, instumentalist, songwriter, composer, or some combination thereof?
It sounds odd. The only reason I ever listen to any recording of me playing is to (neurotically) analyse it. Is it possible that this person is doing the same, rather obsessively?!
I have to admit audio-narcissism. If I can’t listen to my own tunes why should anyone else. I listen to them every few months. If I make a new recording I listen to it ad nauseum, somewhat critical and somewhat proud, and varying amounts of either as time passes.
That’s my situation. I listen to our recordings a billion times, but mostly during the mixing stage. Songs need to be referenced against other songs, on different equipment and monitoring situations, and analyzed a billion other ways. By the time a record’s done, I’ve heard it so much that I never want to hear it again.
Not taking away from anything you say, I didn’t mean ‘analyse’ in any such technical sense - just listening to a recording of a performance and wanting to crawl into a corner. Feeling like my teeth are being pulled out. With hot pokers.
And then I make my pupils listen to recordings of themselves
It depends - 99% of the stuff I’ve done I don’t listen to; no reason why not I guess…just don’t.
I do have a few tracks, however - ones that mean something to me, like a basement track when my current band first played through a few songs - that remind me of a special moment. I probably find myself listening to a song off that maybe 1 - 2 times a year - when I am having a bad day, it reminds me of what is important, kinda like looking at pictures of my kids…
Just finished the mixing phase of our CD and I don’t want to listen to it for at least a year. I don’t dislike it, I just hardly want to know about it anymore. I write the songs, sing them and play guitar on them, so I can’t really get away from myself when I hear it. BLEEECCCHHHH!
I’m not a musician, but I wonder if the person described in the OP might actually be marketing their music. They put it in their playlist so others will see it and hear it, not to listen to it themselves. Probably hoping to start a viral tidal wave.
last.fm is a music networking site and she has her own page with free songs and samples on there (it’s how she found me; I downloaded a song and she sent a request to be neighbors or friends or whatever they’re called on the site) so it’s unlikely she’s using her own profile for such.
I have a CD which would be best described as a demo disc. I sing, play guitar, and keyboards, and program the drums. There are some parts of some songs that I quite like. I don’t like my singing much and will generally only listen to the instrumentals, maybe once or twice a year.
