DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

In a conversation about music recommendation services — LivePlasma, Pandora and the Music Genome Project, Last.fm, and the like — Robert Kaye of MusicBrainz.org relayed an idea that I found immensely appealing and maybe a little frightening too. It goes like this:

Invite a few close friends over. Have each bring a few songs that carry some personal significance. Have each friend introduce their songs, telling why each one is important and what to listen for. And then listen.

Impose no restrictions on what qualifies a song as significant. Paraphrasing Mr. Kaye, whether it’s because someone played the song for three days while crying his or her eyes out when a relationship ended, or because s/he just thinks the drum part is really cool… it’s all equally valid.

Robert acknowledged that one of the challenges is getting people to listen. If the group talks through the music, you’ve missed the point.

I find this idea deeply compelling, perhaps because it recalls a related activity that (as Robert observed) nobody does much of after college — namely, sitting down to actively consume music. This is absolutely true in my case. Although I have music playing most of the time, I’m invariably doing something else while it plays, even if that something is analysing the mix. This is a significantly different sort of listening; moreover, it is one which is less enjoyable than the sort of abandonment of consciousness that used to accompany music listening. I guess I’m a bit nostalgaic for the days when I made time for it.