What’s a lazy music person (LMP)? One who loves music, but doesn’t actively seek out new music and hardly ever changes what he or she is currently listening to.
The top 5 signs that you may be a lazy music person:
- If you have 2 or more unused iTunes gift cards at any point in time. And you’re a chronic LMP if they are over a year old.
- If you ever stood in a store transfixed at hearing a new musical sound over some cheesy loudspeakers and then ended up racing to the nearest cashier to say “what CD is that playing now?”
- If you know every song on your iPod by heart and mentally begin the start of a song in the queue – whether by artist or alpha sequence – before the previous song ends.
- If you stare at your unused iTunes gift cards and try to talk yourself into shopping on the iTunes store: THE site-from-usability-hell (Non-LMPs don’t think twice about the crappy user experience on this site.)
- If you get regular emails from the iTunes store telling you that you have unused iTunes cash sitting in their store.
I’m a lazy music person and so is my husband – this is probably one of our least favorite common denominators.
Anyone who knows me would never guess that I’m an LMP because I love music. People I’ve danced with and gone to concerts with and just hung out with have seen me in the music ZONE. My friends who’ve driven with me in my car have also seen me in the zone, much to their chagrin, as I sang at the top of my lungs to the songs on the radio. So, knowing all this, how can I still be an LMP?
Well, I’m not sure if it’s genetic or what…but here are some real-life examples of how a lazy music person operates and may eventually end up embracing new music:
- MUSIC IS LITERALLY HANDED TO YOU
Friend creates a cool mix CD called, “Girls Night Out” and hands it out at a Bachelorette Party.
RESULT: Easy transfer of different music – I wore out the CD because I finally had something new to listen to (and the mix also featured some “classics!”).
- NEW MUSIC IS ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED
Same friend (who happens to be a Non-LMP) tells me that if I want to get better support from the IT Department, then I need to approach (a Non-LMP) fellow colleague and mention how cool Depeche Mode’s latest album is.
RESULT: (In addition to getting the IT support), I realized I hadn’t listened to Depeche in a bazillion years and checked out their new album online – saw there was a Touring the Angel concert in town and went…turned out to be one of the top 3 concerts I ever attended (and I’ve been to…hmmm…way more than you can imagine). The next time I was “passing by” a music store, I went in and bought Depeche’s CD.
- NEW MUSIC IS WITHIN REACH “WHILE” YOU ARE LISTENING TO IT
I walk into a small boutique in Chile and hear the most amazing music…my eyes get moist (for some reason, my eyes often get moist whenever I hear awesome music)…the young lady at the cash register sees la loca norteamericana getting misty while looking up at the speakers. I say in stilted Spanish, “Who am I listening to?” Young lady: “Myriam Hernandez.” I say, “Cuento cuesta, por favor?”
RESULT: I paid $28 USD for a used CD (it was the young lady’s personal CD). SECRET: I probably would have paid $40. Because it was there and it was available and I loved it. And because I’m an LMP.
Are you a lazy music person? Do you have an LMP story or comment to share? Tell me…what do you think the size of the LMP market really is??? If Starbucks can sell 4 million music CDs per year – not bad considering coffee is their core business – then I’m thinking there are many more LMPs out there than care to admit it.
At least the next time I get the courage up to visit the iTunes store, I won’t feel so alone.
FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE:
- Music lovers increasingly taking vinyl for a spin
- Not music to the ears (featuring the Top 10 list of songs to shop to)
- Summer’s beautiful melodies by Steve Whysall of the Vancouver Sun – a fellow LMP?
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Hello Jaculynn,
and what about live music? All the stuff about how to diagnose a LMP illness is about iTunes, CD’s and other recorded media. Right, you can’t listen to live music when you’re driving home – having whole music band at the backseat of your car could be a problem;) But, get back home, dress yourself and take your surprised husband to the club, where a live band plays, enjoy the music, food, AND fact that you’re doing something together – beating your “LMP diagnosis”. I”m sure that this will help you to get over your laziness. Here, at my page about music in Vancouver you can find some suggestions.
Watch out for music hangovers next day;)
Jay
Dear LMP:
That was a good CD and a fab Bachelorette Party. I still have it. I’ll make you another.
Here’s interesting. I live in the mountains. I look at mountains every day. I don’t think about mountains. Someone visits and gushes over mountains. To live life seeing mountains in all their majesty is a wonderful thing.
If you listened to music like i do, you would get callused. And then a shop girl in Brazil wouldn’t have such a cool story about someone that gave her $28 bucks for having such fine taste. You made her day. As you just made mine for publicly announcing that you like my mixtapes:-)
Amie,
It is a great CD! And it’s travelled with me to places like Florida where my Mom, sister and niece listened to it as well…My niece kept asking to hear the “banana song” – as in B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
I hope your day continues to be made…because the post also mentions that you’re a great advisor with it comes to “internal” PR/Comm – in addition to the “external” PR/Comm, of course.
So true!
Dear Jay (aka Vancouver realtor),
You are so right about the live music…from Jazz clubs, to stadium concerts, to quaint outdoor venues like Red Butte Garden in SLC (one of my favorites)…it’s a great way to cure lingering LMP symptoms. But the CDs must be sold at the concerts, otherwise my laziness is not enabled.
BTW, I loved visiting Vancouver and I will be sure to reference your page if I ever get lucky enough to visit V again one day. Thanks for your comment!
Dear JP,
well, Vancouver is a place which is worth to visit again. I don’t know how long you stayed here, but all the time in the world isn’t enough to explore the whole city, all the streets in downtown, magic places in neighbourhoods found by lucky accident, little shops hidden in backstreets and last, but not least, the wonderful nature surrounding town.
What a hilariously true post! My older sister is an LMP, Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” still plays in her car’s CD player. I’m the opposite of an LMP, a Hyperactive Music Person (HMP), which has it’s downsides as well. We don’t even listen to our iPod, we listen to Pandora or iPhone Pandora, the site which streams music likely to fit your taste after you tell it an example of a song you like (it’s called the Music Genome Project). Then, we go on to click the handy “purchase on iTunes” button, buy the song along with most suggestions in the “Based on your previous purchases you may also like” box on iTunes itself, and then never listen to any of the perfectly good music we paid for because we’re too busy learning new songs we’ll love on Pandora.
I cringe to see the songs I’ve downloaded that have “0″ listed under their “number of plays”! I should ban myself from Pandora for a while and enjoy what I already have, taking a lesson from you LMPs. 
Hello, my name is Jeff, and I’m a Lazy Music Person. I didn’t know that’s what I was until reading this post, but I can’t hide from it anymore. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend those iTunes credits they keep emailing me about on something hot right now that I’ve never heard of just for the pure surprise of it. Thanks.
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I am a LMP living with a HMP – We may need couples therapy. We reload the 6 CD changer in the house behind each other’s back. I expect my Loggins and Messina, Bette Midler, Jack Johnson, Cat Stevens, James Taylor and Doobie Brothers and instead, get…umm…I don’t actually know who it is because I’ve never hear it before. It sounds rappy or hip hoppy. Something with a number in the name I think.
Oh Lord. Why can’t he just listen to “normal” music???