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I've experienced something of a shift during the past year in what I listen to; twelve months ago my list of favourite LP's, for example, would have contained several by The Fall, Sonic Youth, The Stupids etc amongst instrumental artists. I have found that I now listen mainly to, and much prefer, instrumental pieces.
My current favourite artists (this means for the past year or more) are people like Aphex Twin (in any of his guises), Piratio, Shinra, several classical composers (eg Geminiani, Janacek), Shinra, Horace Silver, Austin Kershaw, Psalm Drummers, Abdullah Ibrahim and many more.
In the cases of people like David Sylvian or Sonic Youth, I find myself still listening regularly, but mainly to their non-vocal compositions. Some of Sonic Youth's SYR stuff (numbers 1, 3 and 6) has taken on a whole new level of meaning, as has Sylvian's Approaching Silence.
I've always rated those people very highly anyway, and many of them would have been on a list of top music, but they don't currently mingle with spoken/vocal pieces in my listening as much as they used to. I'm just not getting what I used to out of 'songs', and nothing new interests me vocally.
Perhaps the trend will change again, who knows.
I think I like the fact that instrumental music is sort of more adaptable, and can mean more to me. Music without vocals lacks the restrictive meaning that lyrics attribute to a piece.
This is probably the biggest change in my listening habits since I first listened to John Peel in 1986.
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