Having grown up late 90s into the 2000s I went from buying cds to lime wire to spotify.
In the last 6 months I have found such a greater appreciation for just putting on a whole album and listening to it front to back.
I feel there is a huge loss when going from one artist to another to another all random.
Today I am listening to Refused, The Shape Of Punk To Come
Yeah, I never really got it when people started listening to things on shuffle. I like albums. I recently got rid of Spotify and going back to just having albums and VLC on my phone is so nice.
True of some albums, not all. A lot of albums just have one good song. One of the best concerts I ever went to was a playthrough of an entire album because it was its 10th anniversay and I’d listened to it so many times I knew exactly what was coming next. Best feeling
Yeah, it really depends on the album and the way the artist has put it together. Any sort of “mix” album if matters very little the order you play it in, or which songs. Something Iike a concert recording, an (e.g. Pink Floyd) album where one song transitions to another, or a Rock Opera that tells a story across songs, the specific songs played and order can matter a lot!
I’ve got my own music collection on a self-hosted server which I can stream to my devices, and would love to have some sort of “not a singular/standalone” flag for songs which really don’t fit or sound good outside of the larger album when I’m playing random/mix mode.
A fun counterpoint to the “albums weren’t meant to be shuffled” argument is Apollo 18 by TMBG.
On the track list, “Fingertips” is track 17, followed by “Space Suit” at track 38. That’s because Fingertips is actually 21 mini songs (mostly 10 seconds or less), each with their own track, that are supposed to appear randomly between full songs when you listen on shuffle.
On the other hand, modern streaming services usually just have a single track for Fingertips, so I’m now used to hearing those 21 mini songs in the original, “play it straight through” order.
I mean they do play Fingertips as a single song live, because it’s hilarious and fun.
This varies. Some albums are absolutely meant to be listened to back to back in order. Others are just a collection of songs and nothing is lost by missing them into a random playlist.
I largely agree with you here. I recently left Spotify and have been growing my locally hosted music library and instead of building my own playlists I’ve just been tuning into whole albums. I’ve found that most albums (not all, some albums seem to just be thrown together) have a flow to them and are just much more enjoyable when listened together.
good albums should
there are lots of albums that aren’t good albums
that said, the albums I listen to often are absolutely front to back listening
Yeah unfortunately I disagree. There are plenty of albums where I like literally one song and don’t much care for anything else on it.
Or albums where the artist gets “creative” and interleaves tracks of noise with the songs.
I got a record player and have been buying vinyl recently, so listening to whole albums is pretty much default, and it’s been amazing, I agree. But that’s not a necessity with the CD changer I got to stack under it, or streaming. I do love returning to real album listening, but music is a very personal thing.
Great Refused album though.
I don’t think there is any “proper” way to do something you enjoy so long as you enjoy it. I don’t like the idea that if you’re going to do something like listen to music that you have an obligation to it in a specific way. Art and experiencing art are both subjective acts, there may be a lot of ways to do it wrong, but there is no way to do it “right.”
except Tool’s Lateralus while on psychedelics, absolutely skip that last song.
That’s quite an arrogant thing to say. Why do you think you have any saying in how other people consume art?
Ease up turbo
There are maybe a dozen albums I like enough to listen to from head to toe.
If a lot of cases, the band knows they only have a few really good tracks and struggle to put enough on the album for it to sell.
Are you referring to Pink Floyd’s A Collection of Great Dance Songs?
No, not at all. There are usually only a few pieces i like.
That’s because you grew up in an era where the Album wasn’t an art form any more. Today it’s just a collection of random songs.
In the 60s, the Beatles made the album an art form of its own, and other bands embraced the model. The cover(s), the inner sleeves, even the labels on the records, all became part of the artistic conception.
The music was carefully programmed, with a compelling opening, and a closing song at the end of side one. Then the flip, and side two has to open with a bang, and end with a big finish. The songs between were expected to carry the vibe of the album forward, and many albums were even built around a story, called Concept Albums.
When it was finished, that LP album was a fully contained artwork by a true musical artist, the way a book, or painting is the final representation of those artists artistic concepts.
It started to fall apart during the CD era of the 90s, when every package was essentially the same, and the artwork was too small to make a strong impact. Them things went fully digital, and people could just cherry pick their favorite tracks, and the concept of an album as art collapsed.
How do you cherry pick Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, or The Wall? Or The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper, Abby Road, Revolver, Rubber Soul? Led Zeppelin IV? The Who’s Who’s Next? The Cars debut album?
Today, artists generally don’t think in terms of full albums, just individual songs. It’s the equivalent of a corporation only being concerned about the current quarter’s results, and not considering the long term ramifications of that sort of thinking.
This is my bearing. The stuff I love most, and want to listen to most, also tends to be stuff that is so good, the entire album is good.
I’m a novice musician, producer, and sometimes rapper because I can’t sing for shit but I agree.
An album is like a film to me, songs are scenes and they fit because it’s a piece of a bigger story. My favorite hip hop albums are The Cool by Lupe Fiasco and APOS by Cunninlynguists (it flips to their newer two sometimes) but I love those so much because they tell stories (they’re technically concept albums) and feel great by themselves too. So on the opposite side, it’s hard to make an album that is cohesive together and amazing individually. Not all artists are that impressive.
I hate the shortening of songs and even I have fallen to it but I feel good musicians try to make good albums and not just singles. Doesn’t even have to be a concept album. I really like Kendrick’s last two albums, prior more than latter as the beef will age the latter but flow is also important.
I can talk forever on this but it may just be a sign of the times changing art for the worst.
