Popmatters’ Rob Horning:

I used to think that having too much music was a problem I would want, but I appreciated music a lot more when it was scarce. When it was scarce, I was much more likely to look for reasons to include songs in my life rather than reject them. Constraints make music meaningful.

…I’ve recently begun the quixotic project of trying to listen to all the music I have and sort out which songs I actually like so I can find them more easily. But since I’ve started, I never listen to music for sheer pleasure or distraction anymore; it’s systematic, Sisyphean work, as more unheard music keeps getting added to the pile.

“The Hype Cycle,” at n+1 Mag:

[T]he problem with hype is that it transforms the use value of a would-be work of art into its exchange value. For in the middle (there’s no end) of the hype cycle, the important thing is no longer what a song, movie, or book does to you. The big question is its relationship to its reputation. So instead of abandoning yourself to the artifact, you try to exploit inefficiencies in the reputation market. You can get in on the IPO of a new artist, and trumpet the virtues of the Arctic Monkeys before anyone else has heard of them: this is hype. Or you issue a “sell” recommendation on the overhyped Arctic Monkeys: this is backlash. But there are often steals to be found among recently unloaded assets: “Why’s everybody hatin’ on the Arctic Monkeys?” says the backlash-to-the-backlash. The sophisticated trader is buying, selling, and holding different reputations all at once; the trick in each case is to stay ahead of the market. And the rewards from this trade in reputations redound to your own reputation: even though the market (i.e., other people) dictates your every move, you seem to be a real individual thinking for yourself.