[Closed] Listening to an Album - All the tracks in the right order

You after suggestions mike? After watching Made of Stone last week, I was reminded just how bloody brilliant this is from start to finish...

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I think about this a lot as I lazily switch my player to shuffle.
In the age of the download ,will musicians stop making an effort on album play order?

hopefully not as long as Radiohead are making music. It is becoming a lost art.

In the age of the download ,will musicians stop making an effort on album play order?

The days of the album are probably over. Young folk nowadays just steal the tracks they like so there's pressure to make every track a singalong single.

I miss the days of the well constructed album with 2 sides and everything in its proper place.

Mike,yeah I listened to Amok in the proper order coming in this morning 🙂

A lot of the music I listen to is still all about the "album" or collection of songs that tell a story. Take some of the tracks out of context and they are less than the sum of the parts.

Linkin Park, Thousand Suns works really well as a complete album, as does Random Access Memories.

I can't stand shuffle mode - it's okay to shuffle the entire iPod, but shuffling a single album is a waste.

I've listened to 2 new albums in the correct order this week (cos I bought the CDs)
Child of Lov - Child of Lov
!!! - Thr!!!er
plus revisited White Stripes - Icky Thump

mostly have the iPod on shuffle though.

I think the last couple of albums I've listened to that way were both by Pink Floyd... The Wall and Wish You Were Here.

Both awesome.

I really should do that again sometime. Reminds me of the days I spent listening to all those vinyl LPs as a child.

mp3 player with limited capacity means I very rarely have a full album so mostly it's a bunch of tracks on shuffle, there's something nice about the fact that once in a while the weather, trails, your uphill-fitness/downhill-gnar and shuffle all combine to give a fantastic bit of riding with the perfect soundtrack.

In the car I normally listen to CDs in order, don't drive very often tho, certainly not an album length drive anyway.

I hereby challenge you to download and listen to the new Daft Punk album all the way through without having a sneaky funkadelic boogie round the house 😀

The Streets - A grand don't come for free. It has a storyline running through the whole album.

[i]I hereby challenge you to download and listen to the new Daft Punk album all the way through without [s]having a sneaky funkadelic boogie round the house [/s] [/i]getting bored and putting something far more interesting on.
I failed (twice).

bencooper has it.

In my mind, the artist has usually put some thought into the running order. I respect that.

A lot my favourite albums grew on me with repeat playing. Favourite tracks get replaced with new favourites the more you listen. I definitely think that is being lost with the volume of music people have on their devices these days. Also it's too easy to click next, rather than listening to the whole album. I'm not sure people live with their albums the same way as before the digital download era. It's a shame because it probably impacts the way a lot of bands make music.

Saying all that, I wouldn't like to go back to cassettes and walkmans.

Ben Cooper hits the nail on the head.

My Top 5 Great albums to listen to start to finish -

Mirage - Camel
The Look of Love - ABC
Sgt Pepper - Beatles
Ladykiller - Ce Lo Green
What's the story - Oasis

Depends on the record. Some albums are written to be heard sequentially, other are just a bunch of songs with the duff tracks spread between the good ones. Buying music on cassettes taught me how to listen to music, particularly noise and free jazz, because I'd not want to waste walkman batteries fastforwarding.

Do it all the time with Spotify at work. The last one was gorky's zygotic mynci, How I Long To Feel The Summer In My Heart.

Oh and we had Sheik Yebouti yesterday afternoon. Cue raised eyebrows from those who'd not heard it before.

In a similarish vein. Making a mix tape was always so much more fun than arranging them on your iPod.
You'd sit there listening to the song,getting into it and thinking what song should follow it. Then you'd flick through your albums and enroute find albums you'd forgotten all about.
Aah, to have the time to spend a whole evening putting together 90 minutes of music. To have the space to have all my gear out.
Music is such an important medium,they don't parade a statue around before football matches,no one chooses what painting they want at their funeral. It seems though ,the easier it is to get the more it's impact diminishes.

Clockwork Angels, out just last year, has to be listened to in the right order to be fully appreciated. Best album I've heard in years and years.

zippykona- How right you are.

I have never once had my ipod on shuffle. I do spend a lot of time putting different playlist together for various moods/occassions though

Far more fun! 😀

Always in the order the artist has put it in. You wouldn't read a book or watch a film in 'shuffle' mode so why do it to an album.

You wouldn't read a book or watch a film in 'shuffle' mode so why do it to an album.

Because that's a terrible analogy?

Hmm the missus is home back to shuffle 🙁

I normally listen to music when travelling so use shuffle to avoid having to select the next album / track. However last weekend I painted the lounge and listen to several complete albums. Really forgot how good a complete album can be.

still listen to complete albums (well on the ipod mostly)

Last nights offering was the new eels album - Wonderful Glorious (which it is)

One of things I can do that I have always amazed myself by being able to do is not having a clue what track is coming next on an album until about 5 seconds before the end of the track before when I can suddenly sing it. That'll be a lost phenomenon with the yoof of today!

Will normally listen once all the way through, then unless its a very special album( breakup or something like that) I probably never do again. I do make playlists though, and they're never shuffled, that would be wrong, and bad things would happen

Violent Femmes: Violent Femmes....

The ending songs, just tie it all up.

Sniffle.

You wouldn't read a book or watch a film in 'shuffle' mode so why do it to an album.

Because that's a terrible analogy?

Why? A lot of albums tell a story (like a book or film) as you listen to the tracks in sequence. Hitting shuffle just makes the album become a collection of songs. It will still be a good collection of songs if you like the artist but listen to it from start to finish and as talked about above it can become a greater thing to enjoy.

So does this mean that only properly decrepit old duffers go to those gigs where a band plays a classic album in its entirety?

I've been to a good few of those. Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space being the best. Hmmmm... might bung that on now actually 😀

You wouldn't read a book or watch a film in 'shuffle' mode so why do it to an album.

I was just thinking last week how frustrating it is that any time I want to look something up in a dictionary I have to read the entire two volume set cover to cover.

In contrast,Spotify and Youtube now takes away some of the chance of buying a rubbish album on the strength of a couple of good tracks.
I have more than a few crap CDs that were bought after hearing a single 🙂

CaptJon - Member

The Streets - A grand don't come for free. It has a storyline running through the whole album.

Absolute rubbish to say that people don't make albums anymore.

Maybe the people you listen to don't...

8)

Don't know if that smiley is smug enough, but will have to do.

Absolute rubbish to say that people don't make albums anymore

Don't think anyone was suggesting that.

More that they will end up being ignored by the masses and so [b]SOME[/b] bands might stop making the effort to plan out an album set.
🙄 < not sure if those raised eyes go high enough 🙂

😛

gofasterstripes - Member
Violent Femmes: Violent Femmes....

The ending songs, just tie it all up.

Sniffle.

I always listen to albums right through in the correct order without skipping tracks.
I would like to think the artist has put a deal of effort into arranging the running order and therefore to get the best out of the music, that's how it should be heard.
I still buy loads of CDs every month. Call me old fashioned, but to me, downloads just seem throwaway and of no great worth, where a physical album can be likened to a piece of art.
The ability to cherry-pick and download single tracks is a product of the short-attention-span generation and artist albums shouldn't allow it IMHO, I think it's disrespectful to the artist, however I can see that choosing just the tracks you really like from v.a. compilations is handy and saves you money.

I guess your point of view depends on how serious you are about collecting and listening to music. I can see maybe, that many "pop" music fans are only really interested in current individual songs for the duration of their popularity, whereas I still play years-old albums over and over.

I hereby challenge you to download and listen to the new Daft Punk album all the way through without [s]having a sneaky funkadelic boogie round the house[/s] getting bored and putting something far more interesting on.

For most people music is just background noise isn't it. Like TV or even a film. Do a bit of ironing, cook dinner, listen to music simultaneously. Shame really.

I've just listened to the new Boards of Canada LP which sounded good.

wordnumb - Member
You wouldn't read a book or watch a film in 'shuffle' mode so why do it to an album.
I was just thinking last week how frustrating it is that any time I want to look something up in a dictionary I have to read the entire two volume set cover to cover.

Good point. The last time I listened to Phillips Test Disc One, all the way through 30 minutes 1kHz 0dB I was secretly pining for 60 seconds 300Hz -6dB left.

Maximo Park, our earthly pleasures....brilliant.

It's pretty much the only way I listen to albums, really - and the main reason why I'll always buy albums, probably on physical media.

There always used to be a bit of a method to them, too, as shown by various Chemical Brothers albums:
- 1st track rocking, 2nd track a bit quiet, 3rd track pretty good, 4th fantastic. 5-8 filler, 9 surprise hit, then tail off to the end.
Or: 1st track quiet, 2nd track top notch, 5th track awesome, tail off somewhat.

Exile on Main Street, Exile on Coldharbour Lane, Youth and Young Manhood - all albums I've listened to recently from start to finish, and all work better that way.

Best I can think of though is Neon Handshake by Hell is for Heroes- turns out if it takes you years to get your debut out, you can polish it to unholy perfection. They did one of those stupid "Whole first album in a row" shows in London last year and it was bloomin magnificent. 10 years on and still as fresh and exciting as day one.

More recent, David Comes To Life by the mighty ****ed Up... It's a narrative but also the frankly less good songs in the middle make the fantastic start and incredible ending even more fantastic and incredible. I thought I was too old to have albums knock me out like that.

Back in black. AC/DC. It is wrong to hear the tracks out of sequence. it has to be listened to in order. I start to sing the next song as the previous one finishes

Discovery by Daft Punk is a brilliant example of this, it actually feels like a journey. Watch the animated movie of the album if you can find it on youtube. It's called interstella 5555.

Frank Ocean's Channel Orange and Gorillaz's Plastic Beach are also really good to listen to from start to finish.

I nearly always listen to albums all the way through.

A good example is any of Nick Cave's work - he put the songs in that order for a reason!

Don't get the chance as often as I'd like but inspired by discovering new I indie record shop has opened within walking distance of my house I dug out my double 12" gatefold of Baroness's The Blue Album, damn, there's a slab of wax.

Oh yes. Some great examples up there^^. 😀

My additions to nicely sequenced albums:
Old: "Arthur" by the Kinks
Oldish: The Final Cut
Less old: Dog Man Star, Pills Thrills & Bellyaches, and Parklife
Recentish: 'The Last Day Of Summer' by White Denim.

Also for the OP, "His 'n' Hers" is wonderfully well ordered.

Some albums are so ingrained in my psyche that I can hear a song randomly on the radio and then not only automatically start the next track on the album in my head as the first one finishes, but I'm also disappointed when the DJ either speaks or just mixes in the next completely different track on their playlist!
I also experience the same kind of disappointment when songs don't follow each other that have no connection whatsoever - other than randomly being on any one of quite a few 'mix' tapes that I used to listen to a lot at work years ago.

Iron Maiden's Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son is one of the few I listen to in the correct order

Dio's Magica is another one that springs to mind