aesthetic atrophy

Name: Jay Bennett

Most played song on my iTunes: (tie) "Better Things" by Magnetic Fields and "Bad Blood" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Favorite single of 2010: "Summer Nights Lakeside" by Gospel Claws

Favorite concert of 2010: Mike Watt and the Missingmen at the Rhythm Room

Favorite record of 1970: The Stooges' Fun House

Estimated amount of music I listened to in 2010: 192 hours of new music, or eight days' worth.

Ideal length of a record: 11 songs and/or 35 minutes. This really isn't debatable.

Favorite insult left on one of my posts: (tie) "You pile of old cock" and "You should just fucking die."

I was wrong about (good to bad): She now it just sounds cloying as hell. Also: Gorillaz' Plastic Beach. Another A-. I still like the song with The Fall's Mark E. Smith, but I can't even listen to this record now.

I was wrong about (bad to good): Foxy Shazam, which I initially gave a D. It's pure cheese served on a Queen-size platter, but few relatively unknown bands sound bigger than life so seemingly easily. Also: Best Coast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I ripped Bethany Cosentino a new one for her simpering lyrics back in July, but I can't deny the bright spots on Crazy for You.

Biggest surprise: MGMT's Congratulations. Their first record was mall pop of the blandest variety, even though it was dressed up as Indie (yes, with a capital I). Turns out they were slumming all along, because Congratulations is very nearly a psychedelic rock tour de force a challenging gem of a record that succeeded on its own retro terms.

Biggest disappointment: After releasing in 2008 the stellar Primary Colours, a record that Spoon declared as the biggest influence on their making the critically acclaimed Transference, the Aussie band Eddy Current Suppression Ring dropped the ball on what was supposed to their breakout, Rush to Relax. The formula hadn't changed between records, but the material wasn't too hot.

Biggest trend that I should've loved but grew weary of quickly: Lots of bands from Strange Boys to Best Coast to Dum Dum Girls to countless others

But the numbers really don't tell the story. Nothing Not New started as an exploration of one of my pet theories, something I call "aesthetic atrophy." It's even on Wikipedia, defined as "the diminished capacity to appreciate new or unfamiliar music or other sensory stimuli . . . typically accompanied by the sufferer's retreat to familiar and comfortable works."

To test that theory, Jay did an extreme experiment, fully immersing himself in new and unfamiliar music, doing his best to appreciate it. It wasn't about being a critic nearly as much as it was about trying to cheat nature and recapture the fervent love of new music he had in his younger years.

Did it work? Is aesthetic atrophy real? If so, is it unavoidable as we age? Did bingeing on new music, spending a year without the warm comfort of the classics, change Jay's taste? What new stuff did he actually like, anyway?

As the project draws to a close, these are the questions I wanted to ask. So I picked up a six-pack of Bohemia and a couple of caramel-filled churros from a store down the street from New Times' headquarters, and we sat in my office talking about music for nearly two hours, while tape rolled.

Here's a heavily edited and abbreviated version of that conversation:

Martin Cizmar: You graded records throughout the year; now how would you grade yourself? How do you think you did with sticking to the agreed-upon parameters of the Nothing Not New experiment — listening to a new record every weekday and not listening to any of your old music collection so you could focus on new stuff?

Jay Bennett: As far as getting up my reviews, I'd give myself a solid B+. I made it through July 31 without missing a post. I never should have missed that first one of August, because that set the tone for the fall. There were periods after July 31 where I did really well and didn't miss a post for two or three weeks, but there were some fallow periods. As far as not listening to any old music, I'd give myself another B+. During weekdays, I did not listen to anything out of my collection. On weekends, I did once in a while, because I'd have people over and they'd want to listen to something, and it would have been unrealistic to say, "Sorry, guys, we can't play that."

MC: In the end, what album did you listen to the most during 2010?

JB: I would say when I got The Hold Steady record, I listened to that quite a bit. The Screaming Females record, when I got that, I played it in the car all the time. I listened to Surfer Blood a lot. We actually bought the Sharon Jones record because my wife, Laura, was into it. We bought the Budos Band record because Laura was into it. The Deerhunter record, the Soft Pack record — stuff that's all in my top 10. Basically, I just went through my top 10 on iTunes, and the stuff that was played most is the stuff that ended up in my top 10 albums of the year.

MC: What was your favorite song of the year?

JB: A song by the Hold Steady called "Our Whole Lives" is right up there. "Night Work," by Scissor Sisters, is a great song. "Human Rocket" by Devo. "Bad Blood" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club — the whole BRMC record is average, but I love that song. The LCD Soundsystem song "I Can Change" was another one. But I'm not really a big shuffle person — I don't really think that's the way to listen to music. I like to listen to as much of a record as possible, which is why I don't like these hour-and-15-minute records. It's so hard to get through them, and they front-load the record with the best songs, so there's little reason to make it to the end. It's kind of frustrating to me.

MC: Is there a record you now love that you're pretty sure you never would have listened to without the Nothing Not New project?

JB: I would say 90 percent of the stuff I really liked. Because, based on the whole aesthetic atrophy thing, I simply wasn't listening to new music. I used to buy a shitload of new music. It was a thing I used to do — every week, I'd go to the record store and buy one or two, maybe even three new records. But over the past 10 years or so, I stopped doing that, so if I hadn't done Nothing Not New, I probably wouldn't have bought much new stuff at all. If I were in L.A. or something and it was, like, "Let's go to a record store and drop $100," I'd probably buy a lot of reissues or some obscure thing from the '60s that I'd always wanted to hear. But most of the new stuff, while I would be aware it was out — I'd hear the names and read about it — I wouldn't actually ever hear it. In recent years, I've read more about new music than I actually listen to.

MC: What about Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest, your favorite record of the year?