I have a shorter musical attention span than I used to. It’s a strange thing to admit on a blog that usually advocates deep listening, but since the streaming era started, I’m sure that the number of times I’ve listened to a song for 30 seconds or less has spiked.
It wasn’t always this way. Even in the heyday of CDs, I would rarely use the skip button. I thought that sitting through an album’s weak songs was important for some reason. Like it built character or something. (Plus, CDs were so expensive that to skip parts of it was to admit that you’d made a bad purchase.)
These days, however, 30 seconds feels like an overly generous trial period. If I’m not interested after 10 seconds, I’ll probably skip. I don’t feel great about this, and I realize that I’m part of a problem that’s been written about plenty in the past few years.
But here’s the thing: I think a short attention span is an important skill to have when listening to music in the Spotify age. In fact, “short attention span” might be the wrong phrase; it’s more like a sharpened sense of what I like. There is so much music available – literally far more than can be heard in any lifetime – that it’s helpful to be able to recognize a song or band that works for you.
I do sometimes worry that I’m missing out on those bands whose music you really have to “work” to appreciate. I’ve wondered whether my 2020 self would have taken the time to get to know an album like “Since I’ve Left You” by The Avalanches, a record whose sonic layers require patience to wade through. Have my ears become so lazy that only the easiest, most accessible pop will pull me in?
Well I’m happy to say that I’ve recently discovered the work of Siriusmo. I’ve been listening to his 2011 and 2013 releases pretty steadily, and it’s some of the quirkiest, most frantic, most intriguing music I’ve heard in a long time.
The bass line of “Congratulator” is off the charts. “Doctor Bleak” sounds like a 16-bit alternate version of the rave scene from “Blade.” “High Together” starts with 43 seconds of sporadic applause that becomes incrementally less enthusiastic, which I find both funny and poignant for reasons I can’t quite explain. The song goes on to chop up vocals from the “Sesame Street” theme song.
Part Aphex Twin, part Daft Punk, Siriusmo’s music is engrossingly weird stuff.
But then, placed inconspicuously on the back half of 2013’s Enthusiast, there’s this song. It’s a warm keyboard oasis in a harsh electronic landscape, and I could listen to it all day.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The percussion is great, not just because it’s syncopated, but also because it’s understated. Almost sounds like a beanbag being dropped on the snare drum.
2. The Rhodes piano. There’s a sweet spot right between jazz and electronic that can only be properly exploited through the Rhodes piano. See week 392 for more.
3. After two minutes, the song has cycled between three distinct sections. Siriusmo didn’t really need a fourth or a fifth, but provides both: the fourth, at 2.14, is delightfully dark, while the fifth, at 2.53, is deliriously peppy. Maybe he just got bored and wanted more variation in the track. Short attention span perhaps?
Recommended listening activity:
Reading the first sentence of each chapter of your favourite book.