@jjss49 , interesting that you went with the analogy of food and particularly comfort food. Yes, there is no doubt that many people listen to old familiar music to avoid encountering anything new or challenging. As a former chef, I both understood and had little patience for such diners, because they were never going to understand my art, even as they enjoyed the food at their own level of perception.
What I was getting at was the complete opposite. Returninng to known music opens up that which is strange, startling and unknown about it. The brain can focus on the details and structure that previously escaped attention. Thus, the long term relationship versus one night stand metaphor Is an inversion. When I think back to my (too many) one night stands, the novelty was only skin deep, whereas my relationship with my wife of 20 plus years continues to reveal surprising features and things I didn’t know.
Of course both are important and the human seeks novelty. I’d argue that our age hits that balance incorrectly, which is one reason that the early days of digital went for quantity over quality—an error that is very slowly being corrected in the main stream.
What I am driving at is less about Technical platform superiority (not a topic I find interesting in the least), and more about the art of music appreciation. In fact, I would put purchased high quality digital files in the same boat as vinyl—with replay equipment determining merits of each.
Purchased collections are finite. For those of us who don’t possess collections of 100000 songs, the curated and limited collection has a greater potential to allow us that deeper form of musical appreciation. It isn’t automatic or even necessary—as the comfort food analogy makes clear—but from a behavioral perspective, a more limited collection stands a better chance of openIng more people to greater and more attentive listening than streaming.
That’s my empirical assessment, and unless someone has data showing this is incorrect, a contrary opinion will be just that. I would be fascinated, however, to read if anyone has done a statistical analysis of how people listened to streamed versus purchased music.
