Before, I didn’t pay much heed to listening to entire albums. I was more interested in sampling new tunes, imagining choreos while listening and picking songs that matched my mood.
Then, one of my good friends introduced me to the art of whole-album listening. “It takes some getting used to… you need to have the time and mental space for it.”
Indeed. After listening to Khruangbin’s entire Con Todo El Mundo , I shared with him that I hadn’t listened to the songs in order. He was pretty pissed.
“ALWAYS LISTEN IN ORDER”
I laughed, wondering what’s the biggie. There are no rules, innit?
I did some digging and prodding and saw this in one of the internet articles:
In the amount of time it takes you to commute to work or get 10,000 steps, you can enjoy an album the way it was meant to be listened to, in its entirety. That’s precisely what an album is, a body of work. The individual tracks come together to create a bigger picture.
How would it feel if you went to the opening of an art gallery and there was one photograph hanging on the wall? You wouldn’t read every other chapter in a book, would you? What about going to a play and seeing only the middle act? Listening to an album from beginning to end is the only way you’ll get the full impact, as the artist intended.
Makes a whole lotta sense. After listening to the above 3 albums in its entirety, I feel different. I’m not quite sure how to put the feelings into words, but I just feel a little more connected to the music; to the artist.
The article said this too:
Listening to an entire album can bring you so many different places. It can be a jaunt into new territory or it can be like a visit to an old familiar friend. It can be a respite from a long day or a boost of energy to carry you through that long day. Easy as it is to cherry-pick tracks digitally, whether you’re streaming or spinning it’s worth settling in for a longer listen.
What I’m feeling is more focus and a sense of groundedness. My energy is not as scattered as it was prior to listening to the albums. Interesting feeling.
I’m still getting there in terms of understanding the artist’s intention for sequencing the songs in a certain way, or sussing out the character of the album but I don’t have to rush myself to do so.
All I have to do is go with the flow, wherever this new insight into album-listening takes me. I don’t think I can ever NOT listen to the entire album again. As I write this, I’m listening to Timbaland’s Shock Value album, in sequence of course!
