My Music Listening Habits Are Embarrassing!

Here is the transcription of my most recent video blog:

(And here’s the audio on AnchorFM)

Hey friends, it is Queen Mab, and today I’m going to talk to you about listening to music. So I think I’ve always been very insecure about my music consumption tendencies for a lot of different reasons, but one of the big things that I notice about myself is that it’s very difficult to get myself to listen to anything new – especially in this age of iTunes, Spotify, whatever – where there are these endless libraries where I can just pick stuff that I know all the time. 

And I’m not really sure what that’s about. I think I feel a lot of shame about that, because I’m like, “Well, I’m a musician, so I should be wanting to hear new things all the time!” I think some of it might be a neurodivergence thing, because you know, I can listen to the same song over and over for a long time. And I can eat the same food over and over for a long time provided it’s something that I really like. And I think for me personally – I can’t speak for all neurodivergent people – I think that is a depth of processing thing. So whatever this thing is, I’m processing it very, very deeply, and so I don’t mind hearing it a lot or eating it a lot, because there’s always something new that’s activated each time, because I’m not done processing it.

That’s also the reason that I think I don’t LOVE to listen to new stuff all the time, because it’s a lot to take in. I remember when I was a kid – or maybe like, an adolescent – the biggest way that I would hear new music was on the radio, okay? And you know, that was in the days when there was a certain number of songs in rotation, and then they would put in some other things here and there – it was probably about the right ratio of stuff I knew to stuff that I didn’t know. And I’m sure they had psychologists that measured that ratio very carefully so that they would sell lots of advertising spots, okay?

Nowadays, it’s hard to figure out where to go to hear new stuff. And it’s hard not to put a lot of pressure on myself – again, because EVERYTHING is available, right? So because everything is available on Spotify or wherever, I should be listening to new stuff all the time, right? But I have to honor my own capacity, and that’s kind of a tough thing to do. 

The other thing is – I’ve had people say, “Oh, well, why don’t you listen to satellite radio?” Well, I have never had a car with that capacity…so satellite radio is embarrassingly something that I have yet to experience. 

The other thing is I really use music as like…caffeine. Like it’s what I do to get myself through the parts of the day that I don’t really wanna do…like getting dressed for work…or cleaning…or you know, any other…sometimes laundry folding. The problem is if I’m doing a chore, it’s very easy for me to just go off and start listening to the music and not do the chore, so for chores, I have to do podcasts, okay? And that’s talk. That’s the other thing – I’m listening to a lot of talk. Like…come on, I’m a musician! I’m not supposed to do that!

Anyway…whatever. So what I’d like to hear from you is…how are you getting your new music? What works best for you? And if you have something that you really like to listen to that you think I should check out, please let me know what it is…because like I said, I gotta listen to some new stuff. Anyways…if you like what I’m talking about, you can visit queenmabmusic.com for more of my content. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe, and I hope to see you virtually or in person at my solo show on October 19 at the Santa Monica Playhouse. Thanks. Bye!