Thursday, July 7, 2016

An Album a Night in Its Entirety

Photo Credit: Me
Working at an university has taught me one that, and that is to always expect some interesting surprises or ideas. While talking with a few of my students recently, I was surprised to discover how few of them listen to whole albums in their entirety. Now this really shouldn't surprise me so much. After all we live in the age of Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, and so on. Young people don't just put a CD on. Most listen via their mobile phone, tablet, or computer. So this fact of non-album listening really shouldn't surprise me so much. Yet it does.

I guess it comes down to the choice we consumer make when we listen to music. Purchasing single tracks we like from say an iTunes. Another is enter genres we enjoy, and let algorithms select our sounds. Or we can put a record on a turntable, and listen to an entire piece. Now I'm not saying there is a right way or a wrong way to listen to music. Each has its own merits. And I for one have done all on a consistent basis. Plus each offer their own unique experiences.

However in reviewing my recent trends in how I listen to music, I feel like that I am becoming more of a "putting my iTunes on shuffle" kind of a guy. I almost feel like I'm being a little lazy, and that my attention span is becoming shorter and shorter. So I've decided to change it up a little bit. So beginning two nights ago, and for the foreseeable future, I'll be listening to one album a night, in its entirety. And I'm going even more old fashion, and listening on a CD player or on vinyl.

Thus far, I have really enjoyed the experience, and I feel that by focusing on the entirety of the piece, I begin to remember the original reasons why I've enjoyed a particular artist. I've also selected albums that I have not listened to in a very long time, or ones that I do not have imported onto my computer. Below are the selections I have chosen thus far.

Moby: Animal Rights
Green Day: Dookie
Rogue Wave: Out of the Shadow
Zaz: Self-Titled
Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros: Streetcore
Beck: Mutations

2 comments:

Matt Maldre said...

When you listen to the album in its entirety, are you doing other things?

Chi-Town Kid 83 said...

I try not to be, but I usually end up going online. For the purposes of my experiment, I did my best not to do anything else, but listen to the music. I was successful part of the time, but not all of the time.