What to Do When Your Music Gets Boring

There’s been a lot of travel posts lately, but today I’m happy to get back to the music with a post from Peter Lofthouse!

For many people, listening to the same old songs over and over again becomes boring after a while. When this happens to you, you’re left with a choice: put up with it, or do something about it. For those that choose to plod on through listening to their old tracks, they may well fall back in love with them eventually, but if you’re going to try and refresh your collection, where do you start?

Music

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

Refresh your collection

Sometimes, listening to the same songs can foster some contempt for them, no matter how much you love them. By creating playlists of these songs which put them in different orders, or finding live, acoustic or remixed versions of these tracks, you may well find new mileage in the songs. A good song remains a good song no matter how it is presented and you may find that listening in a new way can make the song feel new to your ears.

Go genre dipping

If you’re primarily a fan of a certain type of music, try something new. Whether you delve into the past and listen to antecedents of the style of music that you love, looking at the music which inspired your heroes or jump into something completely different, by widening your horizons, you can find some new songs which you can grow to love in turn.

For example, if you’re a fan of punk bands like The Clash, listening to reggae or R&B bands from the early 60s, as well as bands such as Iggy and the Stooges will show you how your music was forged, giving you a whole new genre to explore. To finance this change, you may well need to sell your old CDs, but taking the plunge can give your collection a whole new lease of life. If your CD collection is typical, there is bound to be something in there which is either surplus to requirements or indeed embarrassing to admit to owning. This could be a great chance to swap it for something worthwhile!

Find something new

Taking yourself completely out of your musical comfort zone can yield interesting and sometimes very pleasing musical results. Listening to a new radio station for example can give you access to whole new artists with back catalogues that you will have never heard and could potentially love. If you can find a physical record shop, go in and have a listen to something new and perhaps invest in a “best of” for an artist you don’t know.

If you live in an area which has a thriving live music scene, go out into the clubs, pubs and small venues and check out some of the new bands. Cities like Liverpool have many venues which host new and hungry acts in a range of styles most nights of the week, whilst many local bars or clubs play host to regular nights which could feature your next favourite band.

Author Byline

Peter Lofthouse is a wannabe musicologist and confirmed music nerd. When he’s not writing articles for a range of websites on subjects like the need to sell your old CDs, he is rehearsing with his own band as they search for world domination.