Jump to content

The 80-20 principle of listening to jazz albums


Robert Middleton

Recommended Posts

Ever heard of the 80-20 principle?

It states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the actions. And 20% of the results come from the other 80% of the actions. 

More or less. 

In jazz collections, I hypothesize that 80% of your jazz listening is from 20% of your albums. And the other 80% get just 20% of your listening time. 

More or less. 

For instance: I buy about 100 or so albums a year from the current year. 

And I'm lucky if I have 15 or 20 that I like enough to listen to over and over again. And the other 80 mostly get ignored after hearing them once or twice. 

The problem is that I have albums going back to the '50's. Thousands of 'em. And I know that some I will never listen to again in my lifetime. 

Is this true for you? Do you care? Does your unlistened-to-music miss you? 

Cheers, RM

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert,

Your theory sounds plausible. Speaking for myself, I think it's likely that the majority of my listening comes from a relatively small slice of my collection pie.

Then again, it's always enjoyable to (re)discover a disc that's been sitting on the shelf for years unplayed. That's part of the fun too.

Edited by HutchFan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
 
 
1
1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

Then again, it's always enjoyable to (re)discover a disc that's been sitting on the shelf for years unplayed. That's part of the fun too.

Yeah, I keep discovering old stuff that I kinda missed the first time around. I listen to most of my jazz on iTunes through a pre-amp and amplifier, so my whole collection is at my fingertips. I create a lot of segmented playlists so I can easily get back to the music I enjoy the most. 

50 minutes ago, felser said:

Have lots I'll never listen to again, but don't know exactly which ones in many cases.  Most of the ones I am sure I'm done with, I try to move on to a new home.

Kinda wish I could get rid of more stuff. But I'm attached... Every once in awhile I get rid of something I just don't like. But everything else is on tap 24/7. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Robert Middleton said:

Ever heard of the 80-20 principle?
It states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the actions. And 20% of the results come from the other 80% of the actions.
More or less. 
In jazz collections, I hypothesize that 80% of your jazz listening is from 20% of your albums. And the other 80% get just 20% of your listening time. 
More or less. 
For instance: I buy about 100 or so albums a year from the current year. 
And I'm lucky if I have 15 or 20 that I like enough to listen to over and over again. And the other 80 mostly get ignored after hearing them once or twice. 
The problem is that I have albums going back to the '50's. Thousands of 'em. And I know that some I will never listen to again in my lifetime. 
Is this true for you? Do you care? Does your unlistened-to-music miss you?

It is true in my case. But over time the 80 and 20% sections do shift. I.e. there are periods when I revisit items I have not listened to for a long (or even very long) time.
Yet there remain records that I am certain I will never listen to for the rest of my life. But do I know now which ones they are? No - so for the time being they are keepers (on the premise that it is nice to have the music ready to listen to when I feel like it). But at times I wonder what unlistened-to music I am missing out on. Though I am not one of the bookkeepers' mentality who runs checklists for listenting to music in a set row in order to "work off" what he has. So the unlistened-to music will have to wait until its time comes (which may come or not - but again: Do I know if it actually won't come? Not yet, I am afraid ...)

Edited by Big Beat Steve
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had my iPod classic for Jazz expanded to 768 GB. I've filled it with all of my usual suspects as well as assorted other things that I was once enamored with or curious about. Shuffling by song, album, and artist has helped me to curate a collection (playlist) of tunes that I enjoy coming back to. I import as ALAC files, so I'm happy with the fidelity, the portability, and the options for listening. 18,000 tunes spanning 470 GB. Then again I have many times that over in CDs to also visit and revisit. A good problem to have.

So 80/20 seems reasonable but I'm working on changing that up.

As FZ said, "Without deviation from the norm progress is not possible."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me the ratio is probably close to 40 - 60, or even 30-70. I make a special effort to regularly go through my large CD collection to pull out things to play that I have not heard for quite some time. Also as I began collecting back in the 1950's. some things that I especially like have been played so frequently over the years that I tend to often put them aside so I can hear those recordings  played infrequently at best. 

Another factor is that up until the past couple of years I was buying a large number of new recordings or reissued CDs on a regular basis and played them most often. But I decided 2 or 3 years ago that I would stop buying new CDs except for the one or two a year that I "must" have. That has allowed me more opportunity to go back through my collection to listen to those that have been passed over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I would agree that for any given 5 year period, 80% of my listening does probably come from 20% of my collection.

But looking back over the last 25 years, my interests have always been shifting, and so which 20% of my collection I was listening to the most has always been a moving target.

I'll get on a big late 60's and 1970's Japanese kick and HALF my listening will come from that corner of my collection for a 2-3 years.  Or I'll get on a big mid-to-late 60's German and middle-European kick, with a little eastern (former-)Soviet block thrown in for good measure) -- and that'll be HALF of everything I listen to for a couple years.

I used to listen to tons of Miles 15-25 years ago, but nowhere near as much any more.  Some here would surely accuse me of having blinders on to some areas of jazz (guilty as charged - for instance, my Monk and Mingus exploration has been practically nil, and my Coltrane collection is kind of shockingly thin, and always has).  But I often find one "new" (weird) old title that sends me down a rabbit hole trying to find more similar stuff, and then within a year or two I've got 20-25 albums that fit into some very small subgenre that I barely even knew existed 5 years before -- all the while, my Ellington exposure is still limited to about 15 titles (most from after 1960), which I do get around to spinning about once every 5-10 years.

So, yeah, the basic premise of 80/20 does apply to me, but my interests do move around over time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...