The other day I caught this interview with Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood in The New Yorker. He had this to say about the negative impact of mp3s:

The downside is that people are encouraged to own far more music than they can ever give their full attention to. People will have MP3s of every Miles Davis’ record but never think of hearing any of them twice in a row—there’s just too much to get through. You’re thinking, “I’ve got ‘Sketches of Spain and ‘Bitches Brew’—let’s zip through those while I’m finishing that e-mail.” That abundance can push any music into background music, furniture music.

Greenwood's description here paints a slightly outdated picture of the youngest members of the iPod generation — we know teens are increasingly opting to stream versus own music — but it made me wonder about the relationship between music consumption and attention. After all, we know the  negative impact multitasking can have on productivity. If teens are listening to internet radio or streaming sites while surfing the web, talking on the phone or doing their homework (possibly all at the same time!), it's easy to imagine songs becoming white noise or a distraction. Either way impeding the ability to register new artists or bands who are playing. Especially without a DJ announcing the names of tracks or artists in between songs. It's also interesting to note that researchers say listening to instrumental music (sans lyrics) is less distracting from other tasks than listening to music with lyrics.

This could also help explain the finding in the NPD report we shared back in March that suggested downloads had slowed down among UK teens, with only 26% reporting they  downloaded at least once a month (down from 42% in 2008). On that note,  I'm curious to know how many of teens' new favorite artists are discovered purely on these sites alone, without real-life friends first making a recommendation to keep a look out for them.  In some ways, I think the state of continuous partial attention presents yet another dimension to the challenge musicians and record companies face in motivating fans to invest in music, whether through downloads or the purchase of concert tickets and/or merchandise.

Categorized under: Movies & Music

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