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How do you digest an album

post #1 of 6
11/22/05 at 10:10pm
Thread Starter 
I have the constant experience of not being able to truly digest an album for quite a while. It can easily become just one running track in my mind until I'm pretty familiar with the material.

Lately I've been taking albums that escaped me for a while and leaving them in the car cd player for at least a week. My car sound SUCKS, and I still have the feeling of losing chunks of an album when listening in the car but things start to grab my attention over time. Case in point Broken Social Scene's new album has been in my car for a while. When I first listened to it on the headphone rig I didn't care for it. The songs were too non-descript, and I couldn't latch onto anything. Now it's back on the headphones for the first time and every nuance is grabbing my attention. Maybe listening in lo-fi has made me appreciate the production more.

I really can't get into classical music because it's so hard to latch on to anything. The car thing doesn't really work there because I hate listening to classical music while driving.

So, how to cure musical ADD?
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post #2 of 6
11/22/05 at 10:29pm
I think there is a lot of pressure when you intently listen to any new material. That self-titled Broken Social Scene is a good example because their last album was so great that it puts a lot of pressure/hype on this latest one to deliver something even better.

What I like to do is just let it play and do other things to keep myself busy. The songs will sort of seap into my brain gradually and then I start listening intently after several run throughs. I guess it's sort of like burn-in with new gear. You don't want to make any judgements prematurely. And even after that I start listening to the album in chunks, usually surrounding the track that I like early on. Then it spreads, hopefully to the rest of the album.

But when I was younger and I'd pick up a new cd after hearing a single on the radio, I'd always put too much pressure on myself to immediately like the cd because I just plopped down $15 for it. I would run through every song after listening to the track I was familiar with and if it didn't catch my attention immediately I deemed it "filler". That was a poor method.
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post #3 of 6
11/22/05 at 10:48pm
The only way to cure this is more more cowbell.
(in the background, Pigs (Three Different Ones) begins...)

Well, and just listening. I often find albums I haven't heard in awhile start to grow on me.

I was listening for the fulfillment of an expectation of it, not listening to the content that was there. Once that has worn off, I can really listen to it.
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post #4 of 6
11/22/05 at 10:49pm
I put it in my Boombox and clean house baby. Many of cd has grown on me that way.
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post #5 of 6
11/23/05 at 12:29am
Listen to it over and over, even if you dont like it the first couple of times. You don't actually have to focus hard on the music, just listen to it. If you still can't get into it after listening 5-8 times, then chances are you aren't going to get into it at all.
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post #6 of 6
11/23/05 at 4:18am
I find that when I kind of vaguely like an album but the songs are very similar in style and attitude that it helps to just listen to a few songs for a while, get to know them, and then move on to a few more, etc. You might want to listen to one or two movements a few times and then get to know the rest of the cd.
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