I am an enthusiast but not a musician. So somewhere in the middle I guess? I try to go to several live shows every year, I’m aware of when someone I like puts out new music, I seek out unknown artists because I do love live performances more than recordings.

I care enough about sound to buy Klipsch Bluetooth speakers on sale for the portable ones, all wired earbuds sound fine to me, as do the Google speakers we have paired to do stereo in the living room. I don’t have the sort of ears that can tell great from good speakers, but can’t listen to music on my phone speaker like my kids & husband can, those are so bad it bothers me.

Music to me is art and entertainment, I don’t think I’d call it content.

it’s complicated. from crappy speakers, hate all music. with a good enough sound system i like music in movies and shows, but i don’t like if it’s played as just music. and i hate listening to music in a car regardless of quality

I am not sure what u mean by “care” but as someone who grew up isolated music has always been my best friend… or to be more accurate the best coping mechanism haha, you can coast through your moods and twists and turns of your life much better when you have a song to match your innerstate, idk but its like a way to validate ur internal emotions (which can get intense) in a safe way, nothing better than screaming “so give me reasonnn, to prove me wrong” after feeling betrayed🫣

Had a conversation with someone just today about how we feel like music is our purpose in life. So, an average amount, I guess.

I care. I have good speakers (KLH 1973. $1 At a garage sale :) ). I have sane music software (libre elec). I download albums. I never use a streaming service. Commercial interruptions are unknown in my house.

• Equipment: yeah, I have a decent set of speakers at home and headphones to listen while on the move. Sound quality matters, so a decent set is worth it for me.
• Albums vs random: I got used to listening stuff album-wise (with some albums not doing listening to their entirety takes away from the experience). As for favorites:
  • “Feathers & Flesh” and “Dance Devil Dance” by Avatar,
  • “Dead & Alive” by Parasite Inc.,
  • “Faceless” and “The Oracle” - Godsmack.
  • “Mezmerize” - SOAD
• Listening as the only activity: yeah, though more often than not I listen to music to drown out the world.
• Talk with others about it: too often. Though I’m afraid there’s very little ppl in my immediate surroundings that can dig into what I listen to 😅
• Spending time searching for music: not anymore, have a base I enjoy.
• Art or content: art. The feeling of chills going down my spine on a particularily well-constructed chorus / instrumental part is like no other feeling for me.

I’m a music whore.

I am a self-taught vocalist of 19 years going of hobby. I tend to attribute many songs as themes for emotions, people, and all assortment of things.

I wouldn’t say I’m an audiophile though, because I know peak audio quality is 320kbps and CD-quality alone is more than sufficient. I also really care enough to want as clear of a sound as possible.

I am also one of the few that has a hard time tiring out of some songs, even when I’ve listened to them over hundreds of times. Additionally, I am melting in the new experience of new songs I discover or that have been released for the first time.

And I think platforms like Spotify are shit.

Music is art and therapy to me. Helps me process and feel emotions when I don’t really want to talk about them in real life.

I like all sorts of music and it helps me relax and unwind, commiserate when I’m sad, or get hyped up when I’m doing something active.

Do you care about having decent enough devices to enjoy it or do you just buy the cheapest pair of earbuds to silence the world around you?

I have some nice headphones and a decent enough dac/amp (subjective obviously, I tend to go for good cost/performance), to me there’s a floor I’ll want to use, cheap Sony buds were mine. If it doesn’t absolutely destroy the music (tinny, compressed, etc. Crap devices can really make things unpleasant, there are cheap buds that aren’t crap).

Do you have favorite albums or do you just hit play on a random playlist and zone out?

It’s all mood dependent, I do absolutely have favourite albums, but I often listen to a playlist of albums either my partner or I have found.

Do you ever listen to music just to enjoy it and nothing else?
Yes, definitely.

Do you talk with passion about your favorite songs/albums/artists?
All the time, my partner is also really into music so we talk about it all the time. I totally share albums and stuff to colleagues and friends, I tend to listen to a lot of different genres so have a bunch to chose from. I tend to have more favourites in terms of recent listens, some exceptions though.

Do you spend time searching for music?
Yeah, all the time. Some weekends I’ll just browse bandcamp and find albums that sound interesting to me. Totally a couple’s activity for my partner and I, very regularly share finds with each other or things that we might think the other would like. Sometimes also do playlists up of stuff we think might expand the other’s listening, different genres or styles we might have missed or glazed over.

Music is art to me, I love looking at the evolution of genres, hearing influence between genres (some genres have similar roots and cross over, but also really interesting to hear totally unique takes). I like collecting records if only for the large format, some albums have amazing art on them. I do also use music as a coping mechanism, was something I used to help handle undiagnosed ADHD for years, would always have music on to drown out surroundings.

Music isn’t something I take super seriously. It’s background noise to listen to at work or while driving to help keep me focused instead of my mind taking over and giving me reasons to have an anxiety attack. I listen with whatever wireless earbuds I can find at a decent price and can last long enough to not die during my work shift. I appreciate it more when used well in films or videogames, but on its own I don’t really think much about it.

Without music there would be no grace in the world. It is my church. Without music life would be diminished, not augmented.

Do you care about having decent enough devices to enjoy it or do you just buy the cheapest pair of earbuds to silence the world around you?

I think good quality devices are important for the experience, but I stay in the sub $500 range for portable. Diminishing returns with honest claims at least. Get expensive enough and there’s just snake oil scams or bling cringe at the very top. My surround sound speakers I’ve been re-using most of them on multiple receivers since 2014 and won’t replace them unless they break. They were mid range at the time. I’ve replaced the center speaker and sub woofer with better ones.

Do you have favorite albums or do you just hit play on a random playlist and zone out?

Do you spend time searching for music?

I go through phases where I’ll browse Bandcamp for a few hours as an example, buy a few albums and then listen to the same album(s) on repeat almost every day for awhile if I find any worthy of that. That’s usually because of the lyrics primarily, and relating to what the artist is singing about strongly. This happens most often with modern/recent Psychedelic Rock. I’ll post a song from a local band for a bonus: https://youtu.be/1iyfXDFBgHw

I listen to F.M. radio when commuting, and discover new artists to lisyen to this way pretty often. Usually I screenshot the playlist history on CKUA app and then look them up at home later. Really only that one station: https://ckua.com/ donor sponsored radio. My favourite segment is The Road Home: https://roadhome.fm/ which conveniently is scheduled as I’m getting ready for work and ends when I arrive to work. The host lives alone in the forest in a cabin wood fire heated with his dogs. He mixes spoken word, poetry, music, letters people send him, stories, and more all together. Wild life noises and the fireplace can be heard in the background whenever he’s talking. Often birds and squirrels. It’s most excellent. This is 50/50 with commuting. I also like total silence with earplugs in while driving half the time.

Or my YouTube playlist on regular YouTube (ReVanced for screen off playback) which I’ve been adding to ever since 2006. I don’t use any other music streaming services and pay for none.

There’s also my NAS and bittorrent, but I’ve been buying music a lot more often these days. I like vinyl which is why I use Bandcamp so much. Usually you get a digital copy when buying vinyl, though I do buy digital only too.

Do you ever listen to music just to enjoy it and nothing else?

Yeah, usually that’s through the Shortwave application on Linux. Both on my desktop and living room PC. That’s for internet radio. I pay less attention to it. Background noise for chores, web surfing, or hosting dinner dates.

Do you talk with passion about your favorite songs/albums/artists?

No because nobody I know cares about music I like :(

TL;DR is music art or content to you?

Art! Usually.

I care a decent amount. I won’t spend insane amounts on equipment because I simply don’t hear a quality difference, but both my pairs of headphones were around 250€. I can honestly tolerate most 10€ trash for a bit with some eq adjustment but it’s just noticably worse.

I often spend half an hour or even two hours in the evening just listening to music when I was supposed to just go to sleep. In that case I usually click from youtube video to youtube video, I find that MVs can also add a lot to the experience. Otherwise I mainly have one playlist that I put most songs I like into, if they fit the general vibe of what I want for my generalist playlist.

I always feel a need to share the music I love with ppl but everyone I know either doesn’t care or follows the same artists anyway. So since you asked… (this is gonna be mostly japanese, and mostly metal)

Probably my current favorite artist is Release Hallucination, japanese prog metal with jazz influences. The drum patterns tickle my brain in the right way. Sisters is probably my favorite from them.

There’s also Utsu-P, who imo is an incredible songwriter and lyricist who in his newer songs does all sorts of metal genre fusions, usually but not always with vocaloid vocals. Musically, I love Gorgon the most (best genre description would be… trap metalcore with a speedcore breakdown?). I also always find myself coming back to An Alien’s I Love You because I just find the song very touching, in spite of my japanese being very basic and thus only understanding like a fifth of it without subtitles. He also has a pretty cool band called Ohayo Gozaimasu.

Then there’s this great german metalcore band (very poppy and catchy sound, but high variety in song styles and meaningful lyrics) called Future Palace, we’re on lemmy so I’ll just link the song that’s not-so-subtly about the palestinian genocide.

Then there’s kobaryo who does just about every EDM genre under various aliases, though his main thing is speedcore. His entire latest album is just great - all the credited featured artists are just him under different aliases.

Honorable mention to the little subcommunity of metal vtubers doing mostly covers, many of which I like better than the original, such as this cover of make them suffer’s song contraband which was apparently my most listened to song last year.

Last but not least my favorite singer is also a Vtuber, by the name of Roca Rourin, who does regular karaoke streams that I enjoy so much I try to schedule other things around so I don’t miss them, and then I just listen to her sing for an hour. She does a lot of 80s songs, classic rock, and jazz, but also a little bit of everything. By nature of them being karaoke streams there’s often a little scuff, but imo that just adds to the charm and my god the voice on this woman. This is a good example of one of those. She also has a great cover of The Pretender.

I could continue but this would go on forever lol.

In spite of the obvious genre bias, I enjoy a wide variety of music when I’m in the mood for it. The only hugely popular genre I can’t get into is hip hop/rap, but even that has a few exceptions.

There is a popular question “If you were to lose either sight or hearing, which one would you chose?” and my answer is always: i could live with never reading with my eyes again, i couldn’t live with never hearing music again.

So yes, music is a big part of my life.

I use it as a tool, to support a specific mood or situation. For example I have a few playlists that help me get into a flow state for work (the Brotato OST is great for this, also my anime playlist). I use a specific album to help me calm down when I’m having a bad headache. I listen to epic music while cooking or doing housework (recently: Two Steps From Hell).

But I also listen with intent, especially for my favourite artists, or artists I just recently discovered, or albums I just recently bought. I like to find my favourite song in each album, so I want to listen closely, and sometimes write down my thoughts about a song, or quotes from the lyrics.

And I also make music myself: I am a member of a local women’s vocal group/choir. The genres of music we’re singing isn’t really something I would listen to at home (metal doesn’t really lend itself to be sung by 40 women with a median age of 50+ unfortunately) but I’m not necessarily doing it for the songs themselves: it is just so much fun to sing together! I love hearing our voices come together, I find immense joy in joining my voice with others.

So, yes: music to me is art, and content, and community.

I love music.

I care, a lot. But this wasn’t always the case.

Before I was 13, I didn’t care much about music at all. Sure, I liked some songs I heard on the radio but I didn’t own any albums in any format. I considered music to be a harmless but mostly pretty meaningless.

Then my 7th grade music teacher gave me a really low grade, on the sole basis that I couldn’t sing in tune or play an instrument. I got good grades on the written tests, but this apparently meant nothing to her.

So purely out of spite I decided to learn how to play an instrument and sing. Getting music classes wasn’t an option due to my parent’s economic situation at the time, so I used my savings and bought my friend’s old acoustic guitar. I found good intro books from the library and started practicing.

I listened to the radio and recorded a few acoustic guitar songs on tape, so I could practice playing and singing along with them. This must have been a terrible few years for my family, but slowly I started to get the hang of it.

During this time I discovered some bands I really liked and copied their albums from LP’s from the library. My dad brought me an old discarded boombox from his work, it was big but had an excellent sound. I also scrounged enough money to buy a secondhand Walkman, so I could carry the music with me.

In high school I formed a few bands with my friends, I played rhythm guitar or bass, depending on the genre. We weren’t good, but I loved it. In university I had a chance to minor in music, which opened up whole new worlds for me. I learned to sing properly and had piano lessons.

By this time music had become a big part of my identity. I almost always had something playing on the background, if I wasn’t listening actively.

Nowadays I don’t have as much time for music as I’d like, but I’ve got myself a really good vintage Hi-Fi setup. It’s amazing to discover small things in songs I never noticed before in songs I have listened for decades. My gear may not look like much, but it’s got what counts.

When I was younger, I couldn’t afford good gear but now that I have some musical education and have learned to listen", I can’t really enjoy the music if the sound system is crappy. If it’s in the background it’s fine, but I just can’t use bad headphones anymore.

I listen to music from a large variety of genres, but hiphop/rap is something I just can’t get into. I’ve tried several times to approach it with an open mind, but there’s something in that genre that just rubs me the wrong way.

I don’t care if the music is a jokey meme thing or considered a masterpiece of it’s genre, if it clicks with you it’s good. I love symphonies as much as I love old simple folk tunes.