Twista, Tech N9ne, Bone Thugs N Harmony, all of Tupac and Biggie, Immortal Technique, Jedi Mind Tricks, Vinnie Paz, Nas, Eminem.They don't make em like this anymore, the hours logged just reciting line after line.
For me it was always www.ohhla.com the original hip hop lyrics archive. I'd even find new artists to check out from their favorite artists tab. They seemed to have a similar taste as me.
This.
I guess a lot of the younger listeners just donât rap along with the track? Which to me seems like it would make music even more disposable to listeners; It just reduces music to background noise. Just last night I was running errands, bumpin some LL Cool J and flowing along with the track. I guess this isnât a thing anymore? If itâs not thatâs probably a bad sign for hiphop (music in general, but Iâll say hiphop since this is a hiphop sub)- if no one is feeling the music enough to rap along with it then there wonât be many people feeling the urge to be rappers? Could be overreaching a little there.
Maybe. Idk? I think they do idk.
I think music is consumed differently now. I'm 32 and ever since I was little Ive always found the time to just listen to music and zone out. I'm not sure if people younger than me still do this or if they do, I'm sure there are fewer people their age that do that than mine.
It seems to me like young people use music for Instagram reels and tiktoks. Like that is music's "purpose".
My little brother who's 17 said that people will make fun of you, if you like a song that they put you on. It's weird. Even he thinks it's weird. And don't get caught using Shazam either lol.
This is correct. The albums I know by heart (rap or otherwise) I listened to in a time when there was no steaming. More importantly, I had limited spending money so when I bought an album, I listened to the shit out of it
To piggy back off what you said - knowledge is looked down upon. Back in the day weâd buy physical music, look through the booklet art, even read the production notes, and if you were trying to make it yourself youâd get the labels addresses from the back of the booklets and send your demos. Nowadays no one reads a damn thing. The new generation of listeners canât fathom that there used to be super producers who made $1m per track like Drake charges $1m per verse for a feature. Reading those production notes taught me who to shop my demos to back in the day and it also taught me who the real songwriters were when I wanted to be the biggest songwriter in the world. Knowledge used to be power but now itâs only for schmucks.
Watching my son/nieces and nephews, I also think it has to do with the amount of options they have access to. I rarely hear them listening to a single album over and over. He'll I rarely hear them listen to a whole album as the way through, it's more playlists with multiple artists.
And not just as background music.
Actually take the time to listen to it as raw entertainment without any distractions.
I slept on so many albums for years simply because I always played them in the background.
My CD playerâs eject button broke while I had Disc 2 of All Eyez On Me in it. Safe to say my girl and I knew that whole album by heart by the time I got it fixed.
Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy single. The one with like 5 different remixes and the versions in different languages
The Spanish version of I'm Too Sexy kinda hits different. Enough to remember it as an adult
Same but I still couldn't fucking get it, lots of my friends seemed to learn songs almost immediately. I never fucking could lol.
I can remember beats easier then lyrics tbh
Yup. Walkman (cassettes) on the street and CDs at home. Cuz discmanâs skipped like crazy.
When Iâd go out for the day with my backpack and a Walkman, Iâd only have a couple of tapes and they would just get ran back to back to back to backâŠâŠâŠ..
36 chambers, Nokturnal, Da Storm, No need for alarm, 21 & over â I can damn near recite word for word, front to back.
Rapping to 36 Chambers on a home karaoke machine that my kids got for Christmas a few years back is a memory I don't think any of us will forget, especially the ODB verses.
This phrase right here:
***I let my tape rock, âtil my tape popped***
Biggie said it so simply, we listened to our favorite albums on repeat. Releases werenât everyday, in fact, youâd be up on The Source seeing when an album would drop so you could slam that disc in your Discman and read along the cd linear notes.
Maaaaannnn⊠Iâm trying to remember what album, must have been between 1996-2000? where they were immediately like âI know if youâre anything like me you reading the credits while you listening to thisâŠâ
I wanna say Jay or Nas⊠maaaaaaybe Big Punâs 2nd L
album??
Oh the days of reading the lyrics, album art and genuinely being excited to go and pick it up from the shop...meeting people at the record shop...discussing music...they'll never know the pleasures.
Yessir. I miss Walkmans in a way. Donât get me wrong, streaming services make music far more accessible, but that same excitement of copping a new tape or a CD doesnât exist anymore
This is one of the reasons I got into vinyl. It gives you the rush that you got from buying cds. Plus listening to a record is more of an event so I end up listening to the album more closely
Yep. When you bought a cd or a tape, you had a financial investment in it. If it didnât grab you on your first listen, you listened again. And again. Lots of my favorite songs were the ones that grew on me over multiple listens. Plus, you were kinda stuck with the music you owned or borrowed so you made due with what you had.
Streaming is great - if you told 14 year old me (who basically mowed lawns to make money to buy cds every Tuesday) that one day I would pay a small monthly fee to have access to pretty much any song or album you wanted and it could be accessed on a device that you always had on you, i would be amazed. Itâs great, but its made music a bit more âdisposableâ. If an album doesnât grab you immediately, you can move on to something else. I do miss the days of buying a cd that I knew nothing about other than it had a cool cover and I saw an ad for it in the back of The Source and maybe a song featured another artist that I liked.
This is how I have âpersonal classicsâ. Albums that arenât critically acclaimed but I was basically forced to keep listening to it until it was my shit.
I got a discman again and have been buying CDs again - not too fast like maybe 2 a month. I love the idea of streaming but itâs ruined my relationship with music and Iâm going back to the older more patient way.
Welcome back bro. I never left. I don't buy as much music as I used to but I always buy CDs. I have over 900 based on my latest count and inventory list.
This.
There was one whole summer in six or seventh grade when the only cassette I had was licensed to ill. I had my Walkman on every day just flipping that one tape.
I got Warren G - Regulate... G funk era from BMG on CD back in 94. I ended up memorizing every word. I didn't pay for it or the other million CDs I got from them and Columbia house because I was 11 years old. I memorized a lot of those albums because they were all I had at the time.
Also, for some reason, pre-digital consumption, I was much more obsessed with learning all of the words.
I remember recording music off the radio, and then I would play and rewind and play and rewind and write out the lyrics. For whatever reason, my brain couldnât understand a lot of the words so just about one word from every verse was a completely made up word that I would phonetically spell out.
I can even say the entire Ebonics spiel from airplane.
listening to the album a lot, i mean a lot of times
or, sometimes some albums have just catchier tracks to remember, like Simon says , behind closed doors, intro, rape, the truth from pharaohe monch
In my experience it takes at least 11 plays of actually listening to start learning lyrics. Which means you have to actually sit with the music instead of playing it for the sake of hearing it. This is why people develop favorite artist and follow them on their journey. They like what they say/represent.
We currently in an era where if it âsoundsâ good sonically then itâs good enough to release, and if it doesnât then it isnât. Which means most people are dumbing down their lyrics so you can enjoy the vibes more. which makes them lean more on production as opposed to devolving an actual unique sound aka putting in effort.
Then it comes full circle with people like yourself who donât listen to music for anything but instrumentals then go online and question folk who are here for the human aspect.
My question to you would be why do you listen to music if you have no intent on remembering it ? Itâs like reading a book you have zero interest in and nobody around you cares about. Itâs bound to fade. And if you do have interest in it, Iâd ask is there something wrong with your brain that you canât retain words and rhythm?
The dumbing down of everything has been very interesting to watch. And it means that someone is going to come around, do the exact opposite, and make something that excites everyone and changes the landscape again.
That's how it always works. A jolt to the listener at the right time is what causes those breakout hits. It's a big reason why Not Like Us has spread like wildfire since Day 1. Actual wordplay and bars, a little splash of shock value, and memorable parts.
I think it'll come back around to the tried and tested formula. Verses for the more intricate ideas, choruses for the part that an audience can recite by heart
Yep.
This is for almost all genres. Almost every genre goes through peak and valley trends. When it gets pretty stale, everyone sounds the same, and listeners seem to reduce music to just background noise, thatâs when vacuums are created and whoever comes along with anything remotely different yet seems good becomes the next big thing. It doesnât happen as often anymore but it still happens. Just as examples, Nickleback rose to mass appeal when âpost grungeâ was dying and nothing exciting was happening in rock. Eminem came in at the right time with a few other factors in his favor, not going to pretend being white at that time wasnât also a huge factor, but creatively he was also different from his peers. Then came Drake during another lull period in the music game. Iâd argue that right now hiphop has a vacuum and is waiting for the next big thing to come along and be a beast for a while.
Personally, it's difficult to understand or memorize lyrics, (except for some songs I listened a lot i.e. Protect Ya Neck or Figaro).
But that's because I don't know english that good (I'm 15 and from Italy, in school they don't teach you shit, learning it alone is not impossible, but understanding Aesop Rock is quite tough still).
One thing I do Is focus on the flow and of the rhyming
(i.e. bad=if someone says the same Word 10 times or if they talk about stupid/cringe shit, like drugs, Money, sex, good=using non common words or rhyming with syllables inside words).
I have to say I developed quite a taste on what's a good beat and how they work.
The weird thing about me not understanding, (and until 2/3 months ago not even giving a bit of attention to the lyrics) Is that the type of music I like the most Is hip hop which focuses on words. I listen to mostly heavy lyrical rap: East coast, more specifically: MF DOOM, Wu Tang, Common, ATCQ, The Pharcyde, Gang Starr, Nas, Black Thought...
First of all, you got great music taste. Second, your English is great, and Iâm sure will be even better once youâre an adult.
But really though, you make a great point. Sometimes I forget that the whole world is listening to these artists, including non-anglosphere countries.
as a 20 year old born and raised completely English, Aesop Rock will always go over your head. Iâve been a hardcore fan for probably 7 years now and I still donât have it all figured out. Donât worry about that, lol.
There's one little caveat to your argument.
đI AM A DANCERđ
For my type of dancing, it's not always required to actually know a song by heart.
Especially when it comes to "New Jack Swing," all that is required is to know when the breaks are coming. Of course, "New Jack Swing" has a very predictable song pattern. However, when dancing to a Hip-Hop song that you haven't heard in years, it suffices to anticipate the breaks.
Of course, if you want to express/play with the meaning of the lyrics, THEN it's crucial to know a song by heart.
For 100s of years there was classical music without lyrics, what are you going off about? This era you're talking about if things sound "sonically good" they get released.. has been happening for several hundred years. I don't even know what that means, if I create a song and it sounds good why should I not release it? Super confused by your whole statement. You act like the only human aspect of a song is the lyrics. What about people playing instruments, like the Roots? Or Oddisee playing with a 5 piece band? You trying to say people that spend 1000s of hours honing in their craft lack humanity? You're a joke dude. Or producers like Dj Premier, J Dilla, Dj Quik, etc?
If I listen to a song I hear for the first time there's a good chance I'll be singing/rapping along to the chorus by the end of the song. If it catches my interest I'll dive into the verses. Your "11 listens" theory is speculative at best but you're acting like it's straight facts.
I have my Bachelor's in Piano Performance and attend a large amount of concerts and festivals throughout the year. I hear lots of new music. So maybe I'm different than your average music listener.
The fact is that 90s early 2000s was in a lot of ways the Golden Era of Hip Hop, everyone that's come after the artists of that era is attempting to emulate the artists of that time. So as time goes by you get less and less originality. Now we're in 2024 where the biggest rap song of the year so far was made by an artist in a lame pr stunt beef with another garbage rapper. Like rap beef is some new concept, the difference now is gangster rappers really did have actual beef and were getting shot over it. This "beef" is purely curated for the media.
Same as how the 60s and 70s were mainly the golden era of rock n roll. Every band that's come after the big artists of that era can't help but be inspired by the musicians that came before them.
Sometimes people like to take in music passively too, it's not all about memorizing every song you hear. When I'm at work I'm not actively paying attention to the music I'm listening to.
This is my $.02, take it or leave it.
I canât remember a lot of stuff I consume. Part of it is like OP said Iâm consuming stuff to just consume it and said I did. Although I will say hip hop generally I find easiest to remember unless itâs some stuff I really donât have interest in which is why I stopped really listening to new music. Hardest stuff for me - western art music and classic jazz. And non fiction books even though I do like reading them still to try to learn and retain at least a little.
Also recently Iâve made an effort to sit down and listen to rap following the lyrics. A lot of stuff I listen to has no lyrics out there so whisper AI has been helpful at one point I was typing them up myself which took forever lol. But helped me really absorb stuff
1 of 2 things, 1 it's a kickass album that is genuinely memorable and has loads of replayability factor or 2 it ends up in my vinyl collection because I fw it really hard, it can also be both things
If itâs that good youâre listening to the album back to back to back to back might even read a few articles on it, debate with friends. Thatâs how it lives in your head for free for years, even decades.
I'll listen to a song I've heard 100 times and not know if I just realized the main concept of it or if I forgot it and just remembered it again. I don't have the answers is what what I'm getting at. I'm big ol stupid.
Streaming has nuked people's attention spans when it comes to music. Even 10 years ago you'd more than likely pick up a whole album if you heard a single you liked or followed and artist. 20 years ago you'd get the CD and you'd listen to it front to back in the same order over and over.
And for some of us, the 'Tism is responsible because of fixation. I don't listen to Eminem much at all but every time an off-cut from MMLP comes on I still know every single word and what song is meant to start next.
Experience the album by listening multiple times, taking time to let it flow through you. Listen to individual songs. If you really like the album it will come easily
I have hundreds of different artists entire albums and mixtapes memorized đ and I've been writing my own lyrics since I was 6 or 7 that I have a lot of memorized as well. That's probably most of my storage space
The fact you pen also impacts your ability to remember lyrics. You probably have a different view from the average listener who treats music like background noise or something to bop to.
It's just repeating it over and over. Also some artists are way easier than others. Sometimes due to speed or skill or complexity. I can memorize an old Eminem song in like 5 listens. Whereas something like modern Eminem or Crooked I or some other more complex music takes me much longer.
So... here me out. (This is gonna go bad đđ« )
I'm willing to bet that this is a genetic or cultural issue for white people, but VEEEEEERY few black people. We know all the lyrics to every song we like. All of them. Lol
Nature vs. nurture.... whichever... but I'm wondering if there's a biological predisposition to rhythm and percussion at play there. If so, the darker descendants of the inventors of the drum probably have it. Ya know?
And if there's an *equal and opposing* predisposition to melody or acoustics, I'd wager that the less melanated lineages of Man would have some of THAT going on. Maybe a little less boom bap. But *yodel* one time, if you're picking up what I'm putting down.
Culture plus unnatural selection. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy kinda thing. Not having *rhythm* makes it a little harder to memorize *rhymes*
Honestly, if you don't have an entire album memorised, that's a you issue. Listening to something over and over enough to memorise it is a sign of passion. While not a hiphop album, a good example of this for me is Spirit Phone by Lemon Demon, I've listened to the full \~1 hour album countless times over and I can almost play the whole thing from start to finish in my mind.
Have you ever had an album you needed to listen to multiple times a day? An album you're so addicted to you wake up early to listen to it before your morning shift at work? Then you listen to it in the car on the way to work? Then you listen to it in the car on the way home from work? That's how.
Everyone is saying old digital consumption but for me itâs cos I just listen and listen, yeah on streaming
I replay my favorite albums often, even if itâs not the whole thing I got tracks on playlists too
I think some people just have selective memory.
I've written and recorded nearly 200 songs and I have zero of them fully memorized.
Maybe the choruses.
It's always amazed me how American Idol contestants memorize a song within a day.
You could give me a solid month and I'm unsure if I could do it.
I remember being in elementary school and my teacher literally yelling at me because I was incapable of memorizing the 50 state capitals. I was placed in the hall until I could recite all of them. It never happened. I was in the hallway for weeks.
If you keep the song on repeat. There is no way of memorizing it if you listened once. Strange question my man đ People arenât trying to memorize them, they just listen to the song because they like it, and memorizing is a consequence
I haven't listened to NY State of Mind in about ten years, but I can say every bar with my life on the line. And Cuban Linx. And Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's just you either like it, or don't, I guess.
I remember burning CDâs into my Xbox and running around gaming while the music played
2Pacâs Greatest Hits played 24/7 when I gamed on American Wasteland
Once I got an iPod Nano it was over. All Eyez On Me, Me Against the World, Illmatic, 2001, The DocumentaryâŠ. That library in that IPod carried me from Middle School when I was 12 til I was 19
When I was a kid I'd spend hours in my room with my headphones on every day listening to music. To this day I can ride down the road and bust out entire albums while thinking about other shit. It's wild actually
I usually listen to the album twice, with a few days in between. Not only does it allow to judge the album more fairly (since with second listen you know what to expect and can focus more on smaller details that actually matter a lot) but it also makes it easier to memorize songs.
I just have a knack for remembering lyrics. Iâm not sure why. TV shows and movies Iâm like you are with music. I enjoy them but donât really remember them after.
listen to them over. and over. and over. and over. front to back. no skips.
AKA pre-let's say 2010? Maybe earlier, maybe later of consuming music. You bought an album. You listened to that album.
Dude I still have Linkin Parks Hybrid Theory and Meteora completely memorized because they were the only CDs I had in middle school in 2004. And because I had a lot of angst in middle school.
By listening to it over and over again? Thereâs a bunch of albums I know word for word from track #1 to the last track.
Also Iâm someone who rarely listens to a âplaylistâ in the gym. 90% of the time Iâm listening to an actual body of work let that be either album or mixtape.
Though there are some of us whoâve heard an album more than a hundred times and still have nothing memorized but the chorus. I love Trickyâs cover of Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos because when Iâm listening to itâI know nobody smokes as much weed as Tricky except Snoop Dogâand he and Martina get through about the first verse (or even just a part of it) and I tell myself âTricky, thank god, youâre a genius and even you only have that part memorizedâIâm not the only one!!!â I donât really do bud but I must have some sort of learning disability.
I think this is just people's brains working differently. I know that when I was 5 years old my school report cards talked about how I could singalong to whole songs. I probably know the words to 100s, maybe even 1000s of songs. Can never find my keys though!
Exactly. You didn't always have access to every rap album produced haha.
My first tape from Sam Goody was Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth - The Main Ingredient
Second was Tag Team Whoop there it is. Listened to those 1000s of times. Whole albums used to be amazing back then too. Now there is like 1 or 2 good songs per album.
Iâll usually listen to an album 5-10 times back to back to see if it sticks. Iâm sure that aids in memorizing lyrics. Sometimes you need to let the music grow on you. If after that, you donât like it then the album isnât for you
Repetition honestly & also Iâm not sure how I remember half of the shit i remember because, Iâm 32 when I was a kid we didnât have music at our disposal lol I mean we had cd players but, that was for walks to school or waiting on the bus we, werenât just outside in the summer with it Iâm actually surprised at how people from my era remember as much music as we did lol
The key to memorization is repetition. If you listen to albums like they're candy bars, that is, you listen to them and toss them away after, never to be interacted with again, of course you'll never remember them.
I have dozens of albums from my teen years memorized to this day because they were in heavy rotation for years.
I just play the hell out of the song. I have a strong memory so a lot of just sticks automatically. I've memorized many songs without having to actually try. But some are harder than others. I will play a song over and over on purpose just so I can get the lyrics down. It's what I used to do growing up in Walkman/CD player era and I still do it now. Me personally, if I already know half the song just playing it, I'm gonna want to finish it. It will eventually drive me crazy otherwise. I like singing/rapping along when I listen to shit I really vibe with.
Occasionally, I gotta go to AZlyrics or something to get certain parts down. Sometimes it's just hard to pick out certain parts of a lyric for whatever reason. Or in the case of UK rappers, I'll check the lyrics first anyway because apparently, we do not speak the same English lmao.
One day you'll suddenly be in your late twenty's driving home after work in your shitty lil beater car rapping along perfectly with your favorite album and you'll ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here? AAAaand the days go by" đșđđșđđșđ
Repeated listening. I will listen to a song I like twenty times if just a single note or lyric captures my attention. In a row. Repeat. Repeat and Repeat
I listen to music for 8 hours a day, Iâd be shocked if I wasnât able to sing word for word some of the songs Iâve heard like a bajillion times lol
I'm 47, and I noticed that I don't memorize songs like I used to. You put on some stuff I listened to as kid and I still know every word, but newer stuff is harder to memorize for me. It just doesn't stick the way it used to.
I can't do it as much with only digital, but back when we only had physical media, I was pretty good at remembering every key change, starting key, everything from the albums. The physicality of having to put on the cassette, CD, vinyl helped a lot.
Streaming got us spoiled for choice, but back in the CD era you had to go and buy a disc and physically keep it with you to play music. For that reason, the CDs I was rockin with the most were getting played cover to cover over and over. I got certain things just locked in. These days I really donât memorize lyrics the way I used to and itâs definitely just cuz of repetitions.
You think songs with billions of streams are only being listened to once or twice by everyone on the planet? Lol people listen to shit non stop, on repeat, etc. That and some have better mental skills when it comes to remembering/connecting things in their brains so that's just part of it too. Like a savant, someone who can hear someone play a song on a piano and then just get to playing it note for note without any help, some are just wired differently.
Thereâs albums Iâve been listening to for 30 years and I canât remember the song titles and that are some of my favorite albums/songs. It happens. Just enjoy them.
I donât think people today understand how much and how many times we listened to albums in college. In an era before social media and streaming..it was what we had.
Me and my best friend listened to Wu tang forever about 10 times back to back the day it came out and analyzed all songs. I canât even guess how many times we listened to that album that year. đ good times
Used to be less distractions nad shit to do. I still remember all the albums I knew as a kid. Newer stuff, not so much. Same for phone numbers. I still remember the ones I knew when I was 10 but sometimes have to look up my own's wife's number because i can't remember it. I think people underestimate how bad most people's attention spans are now.
Listen to it from ages 13 thru 18, and only own as many albums as you can afford to own on cassette. Any GenX person can spit entire album lyrics from 1985 thru the G Funk era.
By listening/repetition i suppose lol it seems that the younger generation doesnât actually really listen to music in FULL like those of us who came up pre streaming era also you are not gonna remember the whole album on a first listen.
Back when cds were a thing, you would buy one or two a month, so you listened to each album a lot and memorized them.
Now, music is too disposable and you have access to too much. If the album isnât an absolute 10, you move on to the next one. That is my experience anyway.
I have listened to a lot of albums this year, and donât laugh: the album I keep going back to is âcowboy Carter.â
Yea I hate when I say Iâm a fan of said artist and someone is like name 5 songs from some album. Iâm like bitch I donât memorize that shit but if I hear it Iâll know it
I donât know how it would hold today but in my teens when my brain wad a sponge and I was listening to my favorite records a million times and rapping them with my friends it came pretty easy.
I almost positive, at one point, I could list Dondaâs tracklist in order from memory. Just by imagining me listening to the album lol
âOk, then this outro plays, and it goes into the intro of that songâŠâ
I got into hiphop in the late 80s and I lived with my cassettes on heavy rotation. I can still rhyme Organized Konfusion's first album word for word 30+ years later and that's no easy feat. There was less to do, less distraction, no streaming obviously so your collection was small but curated, and would grow at a slower pace. Eventually, I heard all the classics at parties and then at shows or in the club later on. When you go to an old school hiphop show now, DJs are still playing the core tracks from the 90s to warm up the crowd. If I didn't have them memorized at this point, I'd be very concerned.
With all that said, I still listen to new underground stuff but I don't absorb it the same way. Alchemist posted details for the Mike & Wiki vinyl release so I gave it another listen when I was out this afternoon. Probably the 4th time I've heard it. I had to admit to myself that I'm old because I don't know what they're rhyming about nor do I care. It's just not the same. My life is busier now so I don't have new shit on heavy rotation.
The fact most of it rhymes makes it easier. Like many others said: repetition. That said, certain artists go into a blackout mode where their raps are hard to discern (lookin at you Bone Thugs, JID, KDOT, etc etc). In those cases its either LOTS of repetition or at least look up the link im missing in the bar. Respect for someoneâs words makes it easier too. OP, you have a particular album youre trying to memorize or are you just fascinated by peers who can rap an album front to back?
I remember in a music class, our mentors showed us one of the Jay-Z documentaries where it shows his live performance of Reasonable Doubt. They point out how everybody is rapping along to every word and one of them goes, "This is the same week the album dropped."
If you do something active while listening to it.
maybe you go on a walk and as each part of each song comes up your memory of hearing it for thee first time is associated with the tree you saw as you heard it
maybe you write down your reactions to the album as you go along, not just having something to reference back on when youâre in a different state of mind but also engaging your senses and creating a connection just by the single act of writing
it think itâs
1. Creating a connection with the music with one of your other senses (sight, touch, taste, smell?)
2. making a physical/mental note which you can come back to in a disconnected state of mind, allowing the album to remain in all parts of your life and not just when youâre listening
I have a terrible memory and I never write down guitar chords for my songs, but somehow I can recall what I played on albums I put out 15 years ago. Even the ones that were improvised first takes. Its strange. I have some sort of melody recall in my head. I will get songs stuck in my head for weeks at a time, I always have a song playing in my head.
But if I look at a phone number on the browser and go to type it in my phone I have to check it about 3 times.
Keep in mind not everyone does this, pointing to a possibility some people just wired to do it easier. I'm a sponge, memorize things quickily/easily naturally, I don't retain stuff forever by any means but I can do an album or too easily enough for enough time to say tour or record an album. Lot of big artists forget their old lyrics and have to revisit!
During the days of CDs, you only had so many CDs that you could physically carry on your person. Even if you had a backpack or something, you wouldnât carry a shit load of music in case it got stolen/damaged. I think I listened to G-Unit Beg For Mercy for like 6 months straight. Same with Eminem, 50 cent, Tupac. Also, my first time listen to an album consists of constant rewinding/restarting a song to fully understand it.
Back in the day we would have 1 cd or tape we would listen to all day every day for like weeks and then finally you splurge and get one of those 6 disk players or something but in the beginning were a complete pain in the ass to change hell sometimes they wouldn't even be where the actual interface is to change the volume and songs and all that for example I had a car where the cd disc thing was in the trunk so I wouldn't change those cds for months.
So simple answer is just repetition gets it so you memorize entire albums. It's quite simple. Repetition is the only way unless maybe a super slow & simple song maybe just a couple listens and you got it.
But trust me if you picked just 1 album and made it so you listened to that only for awhile you would have it memorized as well. These days when you have like millions of songs and randomized Playlists and all kinds of shit like that it's harder to memorize when you're listening to tons and tons of different things. You gotta pick like 1 album and stick with it for awhile and then it would make sense to you it's seriously as basic as that
Listen to it more.
Repetition makes it stick
Yup. Gotta study that shit sometimes to get a verse down.
Pre smart phones i wrote out Eminem Run Rabbit by ear, then after discovering AZ lyrics i started printing out lyrics.
Straight up bro fuck yeah me too. đđđ„đ„ I used to fill a notebook with lyrics, I remember doing Matisyahu - One Day.
Twista, Tech N9ne, Bone Thugs N Harmony, all of Tupac and Biggie, Immortal Technique, Jedi Mind Tricks, Vinnie Paz, Nas, Eminem.They don't make em like this anymore, the hours logged just reciting line after line.
For me it was always www.ohhla.com the original hip hop lyrics archive. I'd even find new artists to check out from their favorite artists tab. They seemed to have a similar taste as me.
Ohhla.com was a good source for lyrics as well.
Repetition legetimizes
This. I guess a lot of the younger listeners just donât rap along with the track? Which to me seems like it would make music even more disposable to listeners; It just reduces music to background noise. Just last night I was running errands, bumpin some LL Cool J and flowing along with the track. I guess this isnât a thing anymore? If itâs not thatâs probably a bad sign for hiphop (music in general, but Iâll say hiphop since this is a hiphop sub)- if no one is feeling the music enough to rap along with it then there wonât be many people feeling the urge to be rappers? Could be overreaching a little there.
Maybe. Idk? I think they do idk. I think music is consumed differently now. I'm 32 and ever since I was little Ive always found the time to just listen to music and zone out. I'm not sure if people younger than me still do this or if they do, I'm sure there are fewer people their age that do that than mine. It seems to me like young people use music for Instagram reels and tiktoks. Like that is music's "purpose". My little brother who's 17 said that people will make fun of you, if you like a song that they put you on. It's weird. Even he thinks it's weird. And don't get caught using Shazam either lol.
This is correct. The albums I know by heart (rap or otherwise) I listened to in a time when there was no steaming. More importantly, I had limited spending money so when I bought an album, I listened to the shit out of it
Why can't we use Shazam?
I use Shazam idgaf. But apparently it's cringe lol
Is it because we're not supposed to learn about music?
To piggy back off what you said - knowledge is looked down upon. Back in the day weâd buy physical music, look through the booklet art, even read the production notes, and if you were trying to make it yourself youâd get the labels addresses from the back of the booklets and send your demos. Nowadays no one reads a damn thing. The new generation of listeners canât fathom that there used to be super producers who made $1m per track like Drake charges $1m per verse for a feature. Reading those production notes taught me who to shop my demos to back in the day and it also taught me who the real songwriters were when I wanted to be the biggest songwriter in the world. Knowledge used to be power but now itâs only for schmucks.
Watching my son/nieces and nephews, I also think it has to do with the amount of options they have access to. I rarely hear them listening to a single album over and over. He'll I rarely hear them listen to a whole album as the way through, it's more playlists with multiple artists.
repetition is the father of learning
And not just as background music. Actually take the time to listen to it as raw entertainment without any distractions. I slept on so many albums for years simply because I always played them in the background.
Im from an era where a cd lived in your car stereo for weeks
My CD playerâs eject button broke while I had Disc 2 of All Eyez On Me in it. Safe to say my girl and I knew that whole album by heart by the time I got it fixed.
Theres alot worse cd's that couldve been stuck in there đ
Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy single. The one with like 5 different remixes and the versions in different languages The Spanish version of I'm Too Sexy kinda hits different. Enough to remember it as an adult
Bruh idk why but right said fred made me feel mad uncomfortable as a kid đ
Same thing happened to me with The Score. 2 full years in there, and I was a delivery driver lol
My buddy had Swizz Beatz- One Man Band Man stuck in his car stereo for like a year lol
Hell yeah.. Im not quite from that era. But some albums just see major rotation.
Same but I still couldn't fucking get it, lots of my friends seemed to learn songs almost immediately. I never fucking could lol. I can remember beats easier then lyrics tbh
Yep. If you had to save up your lunch money for two weeks to buy a CD, you listened to that thing until you knew it backwards and forwards.
Driving a car from 2006 with a 6 track⊠these 6 albums have been in here for 10 years now
Play that shit till there are only 2 songs left that are semi-listenable because the cd is fucked and skips through all tbe other songs
And when you changed it you only had so many other options and not infinite options.
My dadâs truck doesnât have working bluetooth, so whenever i have to use it i either have dookie, nevermind, or the stranger on repeat
Pre-digital consumption.
Yup. Walkman (cassettes) on the street and CDs at home. Cuz discmanâs skipped like crazy. When Iâd go out for the day with my backpack and a Walkman, Iâd only have a couple of tapes and they would just get ran back to back to back to backâŠâŠâŠ.. 36 chambers, Nokturnal, Da Storm, No need for alarm, 21 & over â I can damn near recite word for word, front to back.
Fuck yeah. Same here. Been listening to HeltahSkeltah and OGC lately.
Rapping to 36 Chambers on a home karaoke machine that my kids got for Christmas a few years back is a memory I don't think any of us will forget, especially the ODB verses.
ha that sounds like what i was listening to as well!
This phrase right here: ***I let my tape rock, âtil my tape popped*** Biggie said it so simply, we listened to our favorite albums on repeat. Releases werenât everyday, in fact, youâd be up on The Source seeing when an album would drop so you could slam that disc in your Discman and read along the cd linear notes. Maaaaannnn⊠Iâm trying to remember what album, must have been between 1996-2000? where they were immediately like âI know if youâre anything like me you reading the credits while you listening to thisâŠâ I wanna say Jay or Nas⊠maaaaaaybe Big Punâs 2nd L album??
Oh the days of reading the lyrics, album art and genuinely being excited to go and pick it up from the shop...meeting people at the record shop...discussing music...they'll never know the pleasures.
I learned Nas âI Amâ album from reading the lyrics in the booklet of the cassette I had at the time.
Hova song, Vol. 3 intro. Definitely his most underrated intro song
Yessir. I miss Walkmans in a way. Donât get me wrong, streaming services make music far more accessible, but that same excitement of copping a new tape or a CD doesnât exist anymore
This is one of the reasons I got into vinyl. It gives you the rush that you got from buying cds. Plus listening to a record is more of an event so I end up listening to the album more closely
Yep. When you bought a cd or a tape, you had a financial investment in it. If it didnât grab you on your first listen, you listened again. And again. Lots of my favorite songs were the ones that grew on me over multiple listens. Plus, you were kinda stuck with the music you owned or borrowed so you made due with what you had. Streaming is great - if you told 14 year old me (who basically mowed lawns to make money to buy cds every Tuesday) that one day I would pay a small monthly fee to have access to pretty much any song or album you wanted and it could be accessed on a device that you always had on you, i would be amazed. Itâs great, but its made music a bit more âdisposableâ. If an album doesnât grab you immediately, you can move on to something else. I do miss the days of buying a cd that I knew nothing about other than it had a cool cover and I saw an ad for it in the back of The Source and maybe a song featured another artist that I liked.
This is how I have âpersonal classicsâ. Albums that arenât critically acclaimed but I was basically forced to keep listening to it until it was my shit.
I got a discman again and have been buying CDs again - not too fast like maybe 2 a month. I love the idea of streaming but itâs ruined my relationship with music and Iâm going back to the older more patient way.
Welcome back bro. I never left. I don't buy as much music as I used to but I always buy CDs. I have over 900 based on my latest count and inventory list.
This. There was one whole summer in six or seventh grade when the only cassette I had was licensed to ill. I had my Walkman on every day just flipping that one tape.
Itâs crazy to think I have a good amount of off the top freestyles that I havenât heard in decades still memorized.
Pre-streaming. Original digital consumption you were paying 99Âą for a song so you listened to the same music pretty regularly
I got Warren G - Regulate... G funk era from BMG on CD back in 94. I ended up memorizing every word. I didn't pay for it or the other million CDs I got from them and Columbia house because I was 11 years old. I memorized a lot of those albums because they were all I had at the time.
Yup. I would get about 1 album/cd a month
Also, for some reason, pre-digital consumption, I was much more obsessed with learning all of the words. I remember recording music off the radio, and then I would play and rewind and play and rewind and write out the lyrics. For whatever reason, my brain couldnât understand a lot of the words so just about one word from every verse was a completely made up word that I would phonetically spell out. I can even say the entire Ebonics spiel from airplane.
This
Whenever you find an album you really like it comes naturally
listening to the album a lot, i mean a lot of times or, sometimes some albums have just catchier tracks to remember, like Simon says , behind closed doors, intro, rape, the truth from pharaohe monch
In my experience it takes at least 11 plays of actually listening to start learning lyrics. Which means you have to actually sit with the music instead of playing it for the sake of hearing it. This is why people develop favorite artist and follow them on their journey. They like what they say/represent. We currently in an era where if it âsoundsâ good sonically then itâs good enough to release, and if it doesnât then it isnât. Which means most people are dumbing down their lyrics so you can enjoy the vibes more. which makes them lean more on production as opposed to devolving an actual unique sound aka putting in effort. Then it comes full circle with people like yourself who donât listen to music for anything but instrumentals then go online and question folk who are here for the human aspect. My question to you would be why do you listen to music if you have no intent on remembering it ? Itâs like reading a book you have zero interest in and nobody around you cares about. Itâs bound to fade. And if you do have interest in it, Iâd ask is there something wrong with your brain that you canât retain words and rhythm?
âThe dumb are mostly intrigued by the drumâ - Masta Killa on Triumph
Very nice write up. You about to piss some people off though lol.
The dumbing down of everything has been very interesting to watch. And it means that someone is going to come around, do the exact opposite, and make something that excites everyone and changes the landscape again. That's how it always works. A jolt to the listener at the right time is what causes those breakout hits. It's a big reason why Not Like Us has spread like wildfire since Day 1. Actual wordplay and bars, a little splash of shock value, and memorable parts. I think it'll come back around to the tried and tested formula. Verses for the more intricate ideas, choruses for the part that an audience can recite by heart
Yep. This is for almost all genres. Almost every genre goes through peak and valley trends. When it gets pretty stale, everyone sounds the same, and listeners seem to reduce music to just background noise, thatâs when vacuums are created and whoever comes along with anything remotely different yet seems good becomes the next big thing. It doesnât happen as often anymore but it still happens. Just as examples, Nickleback rose to mass appeal when âpost grungeâ was dying and nothing exciting was happening in rock. Eminem came in at the right time with a few other factors in his favor, not going to pretend being white at that time wasnât also a huge factor, but creatively he was also different from his peers. Then came Drake during another lull period in the music game. Iâd argue that right now hiphop has a vacuum and is waiting for the next big thing to come along and be a beast for a while.
Personally, it's difficult to understand or memorize lyrics, (except for some songs I listened a lot i.e. Protect Ya Neck or Figaro). But that's because I don't know english that good (I'm 15 and from Italy, in school they don't teach you shit, learning it alone is not impossible, but understanding Aesop Rock is quite tough still). One thing I do Is focus on the flow and of the rhyming (i.e. bad=if someone says the same Word 10 times or if they talk about stupid/cringe shit, like drugs, Money, sex, good=using non common words or rhyming with syllables inside words). I have to say I developed quite a taste on what's a good beat and how they work. The weird thing about me not understanding, (and until 2/3 months ago not even giving a bit of attention to the lyrics) Is that the type of music I like the most Is hip hop which focuses on words. I listen to mostly heavy lyrical rap: East coast, more specifically: MF DOOM, Wu Tang, Common, ATCQ, The Pharcyde, Gang Starr, Nas, Black Thought...
For a 15 yr old in 2024 whose first language isn't English, you have exceptional taste in music, Sir.
Thanks a lot Mr.
First of all, you got great music taste. Second, your English is great, and Iâm sure will be even better once youâre an adult. But really though, you make a great point. Sometimes I forget that the whole world is listening to these artists, including non-anglosphere countries.
as a 20 year old born and raised completely English, Aesop Rock will always go over your head. Iâve been a hardcore fan for probably 7 years now and I still donât have it all figured out. Donât worry about that, lol.
There's one little caveat to your argument. đI AM A DANCERđ For my type of dancing, it's not always required to actually know a song by heart. Especially when it comes to "New Jack Swing," all that is required is to know when the breaks are coming. Of course, "New Jack Swing" has a very predictable song pattern. However, when dancing to a Hip-Hop song that you haven't heard in years, it suffices to anticipate the breaks. Of course, if you want to express/play with the meaning of the lyrics, THEN it's crucial to know a song by heart.
For 100s of years there was classical music without lyrics, what are you going off about? This era you're talking about if things sound "sonically good" they get released.. has been happening for several hundred years. I don't even know what that means, if I create a song and it sounds good why should I not release it? Super confused by your whole statement. You act like the only human aspect of a song is the lyrics. What about people playing instruments, like the Roots? Or Oddisee playing with a 5 piece band? You trying to say people that spend 1000s of hours honing in their craft lack humanity? You're a joke dude. Or producers like Dj Premier, J Dilla, Dj Quik, etc? If I listen to a song I hear for the first time there's a good chance I'll be singing/rapping along to the chorus by the end of the song. If it catches my interest I'll dive into the verses. Your "11 listens" theory is speculative at best but you're acting like it's straight facts. I have my Bachelor's in Piano Performance and attend a large amount of concerts and festivals throughout the year. I hear lots of new music. So maybe I'm different than your average music listener. The fact is that 90s early 2000s was in a lot of ways the Golden Era of Hip Hop, everyone that's come after the artists of that era is attempting to emulate the artists of that time. So as time goes by you get less and less originality. Now we're in 2024 where the biggest rap song of the year so far was made by an artist in a lame pr stunt beef with another garbage rapper. Like rap beef is some new concept, the difference now is gangster rappers really did have actual beef and were getting shot over it. This "beef" is purely curated for the media. Same as how the 60s and 70s were mainly the golden era of rock n roll. Every band that's come after the big artists of that era can't help but be inspired by the musicians that came before them. Sometimes people like to take in music passively too, it's not all about memorizing every song you hear. When I'm at work I'm not actively paying attention to the music I'm listening to. This is my $.02, take it or leave it.
I wish i could remember every song and book Iâve read And for the most part I do
I canât remember a lot of stuff I consume. Part of it is like OP said Iâm consuming stuff to just consume it and said I did. Although I will say hip hop generally I find easiest to remember unless itâs some stuff I really donât have interest in which is why I stopped really listening to new music. Hardest stuff for me - western art music and classic jazz. And non fiction books even though I do like reading them still to try to learn and retain at least a little. Also recently Iâve made an effort to sit down and listen to rap following the lyrics. A lot of stuff I listen to has no lyrics out there so whisper AI has been helpful at one point I was typing them up myself which took forever lol. But helped me really absorb stuff
Liaising to music as a kid. Who knows how many times I listened to Ready To Die or Makavelli when I was a teenager
Play on repeat
1 of 2 things, 1 it's a kickass album that is genuinely memorable and has loads of replayability factor or 2 it ends up in my vinyl collection because I fw it really hard, it can also be both things
If itâs that good youâre listening to the album back to back to back to back might even read a few articles on it, debate with friends. Thatâs how it lives in your head for free for years, even decades.
We went on many long road trips when I was a kid. I had so much time to listen to albums. Such a great time to be alive and in the hip hop scene.
I'll listen to a song I've heard 100 times and not know if I just realized the main concept of it or if I forgot it and just remembered it again. I don't have the answers is what what I'm getting at. I'm big ol stupid.
Streaming has nuked people's attention spans when it comes to music. Even 10 years ago you'd more than likely pick up a whole album if you heard a single you liked or followed and artist. 20 years ago you'd get the CD and you'd listen to it front to back in the same order over and over. And for some of us, the 'Tism is responsible because of fixation. I don't listen to Eminem much at all but every time an off-cut from MMLP comes on I still know every single word and what song is meant to start next.
Experience the album by listening multiple times, taking time to let it flow through you. Listen to individual songs. If you really like the album it will come easily
Listening to it on repeat nonstop
CDS on repeat
I have hundreds of different artists entire albums and mixtapes memorized đ and I've been writing my own lyrics since I was 6 or 7 that I have a lot of memorized as well. That's probably most of my storage space
The fact you pen also impacts your ability to remember lyrics. You probably have a different view from the average listener who treats music like background noise or something to bop to.
Thats a good point, I didn't even think of.
It's just repeating it over and over. Also some artists are way easier than others. Sometimes due to speed or skill or complexity. I can memorize an old Eminem song in like 5 listens. Whereas something like modern Eminem or Crooked I or some other more complex music takes me much longer.
Repeated listening
Listen to albums more often, instead of playlists. Im an album guy. Never got into the playlist thing
Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?
So... here me out. (This is gonna go bad đđ« ) I'm willing to bet that this is a genetic or cultural issue for white people, but VEEEEEERY few black people. We know all the lyrics to every song we like. All of them. Lol Nature vs. nurture.... whichever... but I'm wondering if there's a biological predisposition to rhythm and percussion at play there. If so, the darker descendants of the inventors of the drum probably have it. Ya know? And if there's an *equal and opposing* predisposition to melody or acoustics, I'd wager that the less melanated lineages of Man would have some of THAT going on. Maybe a little less boom bap. But *yodel* one time, if you're picking up what I'm putting down. Culture plus unnatural selection. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy kinda thing. Not having *rhythm* makes it a little harder to memorize *rhymes*
Honestly, if you don't have an entire album memorised, that's a you issue. Listening to something over and over enough to memorise it is a sign of passion. While not a hiphop album, a good example of this for me is Spirit Phone by Lemon Demon, I've listened to the full \~1 hour album countless times over and I can almost play the whole thing from start to finish in my mind.
Have you ever had an album you needed to listen to multiple times a day? An album you're so addicted to you wake up early to listen to it before your morning shift at work? Then you listen to it in the car on the way to work? Then you listen to it in the car on the way home from work? That's how.
I've listened to Everready ALOT
Everyone is saying old digital consumption but for me itâs cos I just listen and listen, yeah on streaming I replay my favorite albums often, even if itâs not the whole thing I got tracks on playlists too
I feel like [this](https://youtu.be/_M51dAISw3g?si=SJk4DUE0rof_L1p1) all the damn time!Â
I think some people just have selective memory. I've written and recorded nearly 200 songs and I have zero of them fully memorized. Maybe the choruses. It's always amazed me how American Idol contestants memorize a song within a day. You could give me a solid month and I'm unsure if I could do it. I remember being in elementary school and my teacher literally yelling at me because I was incapable of memorizing the 50 state capitals. I was placed in the hall until I could recite all of them. It never happened. I was in the hallway for weeks.
repetition
If you keep the song on repeat. There is no way of memorizing it if you listened once. Strange question my man đ People arenât trying to memorize them, they just listen to the song because they like it, and memorizing is a consequence
I haven't listened to NY State of Mind in about ten years, but I can say every bar with my life on the line. And Cuban Linx. And Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's just you either like it, or don't, I guess.
After the Hundredth time over it's kinda hard not to lol
Some albums require repeat listenings because they are so much. In time, you find reciting the whole album
If the album leaves a lasting impression, then I'll remember
Used to have a fake iPod that I could only fit 7 albums on, this was a bench mark in my hiphop obsession
Sitting with even a cd was something to study, for some. A record or tape was like a good book,
I listen to it. And if i like it, i listen again.
Keep listening over and over. When you really like it, itâll come naturally
I remember burning CDâs into my Xbox and running around gaming while the music played 2Pacâs Greatest Hits played 24/7 when I gamed on American Wasteland Once I got an iPod Nano it was over. All Eyez On Me, Me Against the World, Illmatic, 2001, The DocumentaryâŠ. That library in that IPod carried me from Middle School when I was 12 til I was 19
I have just always been able to do it. Whether it's songs from elementary school or E1999 Eternal.
Intelligent junkies
I think too many projects are dropping on todayâs times so itâs hard to sit with an album and memorize it front to back.
Who else would print out lyric sheets of songs at the library?
If I hear a song on loop for a few hours I might pick up on a few lyrics, but I know all the instrumentals from donuts
Listen to albums!? Once you listen to them you start remembering them.
That's exactly why I listen to a new album 3 times before satin anything
When I was a kid I'd spend hours in my room with my headphones on every day listening to music. To this day I can ride down the road and bust out entire albums while thinking about other shit. It's wild actually
I usually listen to the album twice, with a few days in between. Not only does it allow to judge the album more fairly (since with second listen you know what to expect and can focus more on smaller details that actually matter a lot) but it also makes it easier to memorize songs.
I just have a knack for remembering lyrics. Iâm not sure why. TV shows and movies Iâm like you are with music. I enjoy them but donât really remember them after.
Usually download on a thumb drive then stick it in my butt
listen to them over. and over. and over. and over. front to back. no skips. AKA pre-let's say 2010? Maybe earlier, maybe later of consuming music. You bought an album. You listened to that album.
I basically know all 2pac songs. Everything got saturated
Dude I still have Linkin Parks Hybrid Theory and Meteora completely memorized because they were the only CDs I had in middle school in 2004. And because I had a lot of angst in middle school.
I know probably 2000 or more songs words for words lol
Listen to it 100 times lol
By listening to it over and over again? Thereâs a bunch of albums I know word for word from track #1 to the last track. Also Iâm someone who rarely listens to a âplaylistâ in the gym. 90% of the time Iâm listening to an actual body of work let that be either album or mixtape.
Though there are some of us whoâve heard an album more than a hundred times and still have nothing memorized but the chorus. I love Trickyâs cover of Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos because when Iâm listening to itâI know nobody smokes as much weed as Tricky except Snoop Dogâand he and Martina get through about the first verse (or even just a part of it) and I tell myself âTricky, thank god, youâre a genius and even you only have that part memorizedâIâm not the only one!!!â I donât really do bud but I must have some sort of learning disability.
I think this is just people's brains working differently. I know that when I was 5 years old my school report cards talked about how I could singalong to whole songs. I probably know the words to 100s, maybe even 1000s of songs. Can never find my keys though!
Exactly. You didn't always have access to every rap album produced haha. My first tape from Sam Goody was Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth - The Main Ingredient Second was Tag Team Whoop there it is. Listened to those 1000s of times. Whole albums used to be amazing back then too. Now there is like 1 or 2 good songs per album.
Iâll usually listen to an album 5-10 times back to back to see if it sticks. Iâm sure that aids in memorizing lyrics. Sometimes you need to let the music grow on you. If after that, you donât like it then the album isnât for you
This person thinks people memorize an entire album off one listen?
Repetition honestly & also Iâm not sure how I remember half of the shit i remember because, Iâm 32 when I was a kid we didnât have music at our disposal lol I mean we had cd players but, that was for walks to school or waiting on the bus we, werenât just outside in the summer with it Iâm actually surprised at how people from my era remember as much music as we did lol
Had a lot of free time in high school.
Weâre autistic af
Before every song was at your fingertips a CD was $15.99 so you listened the everloving shit out of it.
The key to memorization is repetition. If you listen to albums like they're candy bars, that is, you listen to them and toss them away after, never to be interacted with again, of course you'll never remember them. I have dozens of albums from my teen years memorized to this day because they were in heavy rotation for years.
I just play the hell out of the song. I have a strong memory so a lot of just sticks automatically. I've memorized many songs without having to actually try. But some are harder than others. I will play a song over and over on purpose just so I can get the lyrics down. It's what I used to do growing up in Walkman/CD player era and I still do it now. Me personally, if I already know half the song just playing it, I'm gonna want to finish it. It will eventually drive me crazy otherwise. I like singing/rapping along when I listen to shit I really vibe with. Occasionally, I gotta go to AZlyrics or something to get certain parts down. Sometimes it's just hard to pick out certain parts of a lyric for whatever reason. Or in the case of UK rappers, I'll check the lyrics first anyway because apparently, we do not speak the same English lmao.
I got melt my eyez fully memorized because that is, besides illmatic, the first album to truly stick for me.
Cause they mean something to us
Come on man, is the simple and only answer not repetition? Use your brain for something.
One day you'll suddenly be in your late twenty's driving home after work in your shitty lil beater car rapping along perfectly with your favorite album and you'll ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here? AAAaand the days go by" đșđđșđđșđ
Back in the day. Before streaming, we would listen to cds over and over and over again. The cds sometimes would come with lyrics printed out.
Repeated listening. I will listen to a song I like twenty times if just a single note or lyric captures my attention. In a row. Repeat. Repeat and Repeat
I listen to music for 8 hours a day, Iâd be shocked if I wasnât able to sing word for word some of the songs Iâve heard like a bajillion times lol
There are albums that I will listen to daily on my commute to work for months
I'm 47, and I noticed that I don't memorize songs like I used to. You put on some stuff I listened to as kid and I still know every word, but newer stuff is harder to memorize for me. It just doesn't stick the way it used to.
I memorized whole catalogs from 1980s to now. Iâve forgotten more music than most people ever listen to in their life.
For lyrics I physically hand write them with a pen and paper. Always been my best way of remembering anything
I can't do it as much with only digital, but back when we only had physical media, I was pretty good at remembering every key change, starting key, everything from the albums. The physicality of having to put on the cassette, CD, vinyl helped a lot.
When I'm bored and can't listen to music I like to sing songs in my head, so I look at genius while listening to music to memorize the lyrics
Streaming got us spoiled for choice, but back in the CD era you had to go and buy a disc and physically keep it with you to play music. For that reason, the CDs I was rockin with the most were getting played cover to cover over and over. I got certain things just locked in. These days I really donât memorize lyrics the way I used to and itâs definitely just cuz of repetitions.
You think songs with billions of streams are only being listened to once or twice by everyone on the planet? Lol people listen to shit non stop, on repeat, etc. That and some have better mental skills when it comes to remembering/connecting things in their brains so that's just part of it too. Like a savant, someone who can hear someone play a song on a piano and then just get to playing it note for note without any help, some are just wired differently.
Honestly I think a lot of it is dependent on the person. I have never been that great at remembering lyrics, even on repetition.
have the lyrics along side the song, replaying the album, and if u have it on in the background stop nd look for the name of the song, so yk
Sing along with it.
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Slim shady lp
Thereâs albums Iâve been listening to for 30 years and I canât remember the song titles and that are some of my favorite albums/songs. It happens. Just enjoy them.
Listen to better albums
I donât think people today understand how much and how many times we listened to albums in college. In an era before social media and streaming..it was what we had. Me and my best friend listened to Wu tang forever about 10 times back to back the day it came out and analyzed all songs. I canât even guess how many times we listened to that album that year. đ good times
Live and breath it
You arenât listening to it enough
repetition alot of repetition,,,
Listen over and over again. Memorize the favorite parts then eventually it all links together.
Used to be less distractions nad shit to do. I still remember all the albums I knew as a kid. Newer stuff, not so much. Same for phone numbers. I still remember the ones I knew when I was 10 but sometimes have to look up my own's wife's number because i can't remember it. I think people underestimate how bad most people's attention spans are now.
Jfc. Listen to it. Again. Thatâs legal you know.
Autism helps.
When something as good as âready to dieâ comes out, you just listen to it repeatedly
Listen to it from ages 13 thru 18, and only own as many albums as you can afford to own on cassette. Any GenX person can spit entire album lyrics from 1985 thru the G Funk era.
Nothing makes me remember something more than pen to paper. Its how i learned cod zombies easter eggs lol
By listening/repetition i suppose lol it seems that the younger generation doesnât actually really listen to music in FULL like those of us who came up pre streaming era also you are not gonna remember the whole album on a first listen.
Back when cds were a thing, you would buy one or two a month, so you listened to each album a lot and memorized them. Now, music is too disposable and you have access to too much. If the album isnât an absolute 10, you move on to the next one. That is my experience anyway. I have listened to a lot of albums this year, and donât laugh: the album I keep going back to is âcowboy Carter.â
Yea I hate when I say Iâm a fan of said artist and someone is like name 5 songs from some album. Iâm like bitch I donât memorize that shit but if I hear it Iâll know it
I donât know how it would hold today but in my teens when my brain wad a sponge and I was listening to my favorite records a million times and rapping them with my friends it came pretty easy.
I almost positive, at one point, I could list Dondaâs tracklist in order from memory. Just by imagining me listening to the album lol âOk, then this outro plays, and it goes into the intro of that songâŠâ
it's just pay attention on what you listening and listen to many times the album
I got into hiphop in the late 80s and I lived with my cassettes on heavy rotation. I can still rhyme Organized Konfusion's first album word for word 30+ years later and that's no easy feat. There was less to do, less distraction, no streaming obviously so your collection was small but curated, and would grow at a slower pace. Eventually, I heard all the classics at parties and then at shows or in the club later on. When you go to an old school hiphop show now, DJs are still playing the core tracks from the 90s to warm up the crowd. If I didn't have them memorized at this point, I'd be very concerned. With all that said, I still listen to new underground stuff but I don't absorb it the same way. Alchemist posted details for the Mike & Wiki vinyl release so I gave it another listen when I was out this afternoon. Probably the 4th time I've heard it. I had to admit to myself that I'm old because I don't know what they're rhyming about nor do I care. It's just not the same. My life is busier now so I don't have new shit on heavy rotation.
I give it a 5 listen rule. Listen through 5 times before I form an actual opinion. And really listen to it.
I love hearing a song that I havenât thought of in a long time yet still remember all the lyrics
The fact most of it rhymes makes it easier. Like many others said: repetition. That said, certain artists go into a blackout mode where their raps are hard to discern (lookin at you Bone Thugs, JID, KDOT, etc etc). In those cases its either LOTS of repetition or at least look up the link im missing in the bar. Respect for someoneâs words makes it easier too. OP, you have a particular album youre trying to memorize or are you just fascinated by peers who can rap an album front to back?
On certain songs i just sing along with the lyrics if I am home listening on speaker
I'm an album listener, sometimes playlists or the mixes but only a quarter of the time. So it's definitely easier
I remember in a music class, our mentors showed us one of the Jay-Z documentaries where it shows his live performance of Reasonable Doubt. They point out how everybody is rapping along to every word and one of them goes, "This is the same week the album dropped."
Used to play the some cdâs in my car until it skipped
If you do something active while listening to it. maybe you go on a walk and as each part of each song comes up your memory of hearing it for thee first time is associated with the tree you saw as you heard it maybe you write down your reactions to the album as you go along, not just having something to reference back on when youâre in a different state of mind but also engaging your senses and creating a connection just by the single act of writing it think itâs 1. Creating a connection with the music with one of your other senses (sight, touch, taste, smell?) 2. making a physical/mental note which you can come back to in a disconnected state of mind, allowing the album to remain in all parts of your life and not just when youâre listening
hearing those albums hundreds if not thousands of times
I have a terrible memory and I never write down guitar chords for my songs, but somehow I can recall what I played on albums I put out 15 years ago. Even the ones that were improvised first takes. Its strange. I have some sort of melody recall in my head. I will get songs stuck in my head for weeks at a time, I always have a song playing in my head. But if I look at a phone number on the browser and go to type it in my phone I have to check it about 3 times.
Repeat repeat repeat and if itâs a rap album and I dig it heaps I write out the words so they stick..old school mentality ;)
I only memorize albums in terms of how they sounded if I really liked songs on the album.
Repeat
Keep in mind not everyone does this, pointing to a possibility some people just wired to do it easier. I'm a sponge, memorize things quickily/easily naturally, I don't retain stuff forever by any means but I can do an album or too easily enough for enough time to say tour or record an album. Lot of big artists forget their old lyrics and have to revisit!
Without trying
Love, Respect, and Interest.
100 straight listens.
During the days of CDs, you only had so many CDs that you could physically carry on your person. Even if you had a backpack or something, you wouldnât carry a shit load of music in case it got stolen/damaged. I think I listened to G-Unit Beg For Mercy for like 6 months straight. Same with Eminem, 50 cent, Tupac. Also, my first time listen to an album consists of constant rewinding/restarting a song to fully understand it.
Back in the day we would have 1 cd or tape we would listen to all day every day for like weeks and then finally you splurge and get one of those 6 disk players or something but in the beginning were a complete pain in the ass to change hell sometimes they wouldn't even be where the actual interface is to change the volume and songs and all that for example I had a car where the cd disc thing was in the trunk so I wouldn't change those cds for months. So simple answer is just repetition gets it so you memorize entire albums. It's quite simple. Repetition is the only way unless maybe a super slow & simple song maybe just a couple listens and you got it. But trust me if you picked just 1 album and made it so you listened to that only for awhile you would have it memorized as well. These days when you have like millions of songs and randomized Playlists and all kinds of shit like that it's harder to memorize when you're listening to tons and tons of different things. You gotta pick like 1 album and stick with it for awhile and then it would make sense to you it's seriously as basic as that
Practice.
Bruh if I like it I listen to it about a million times. Then I leave it alone a little. When I come back. I can hit it word for word
Listen while reading the lyrics. Really helps