The Lost Art Of Listening To An Album
The vinyl album has made a slight comeback in recent years. I find it strange to write that sentence.
I don’t listen to a full album anymore like I used to do. I have procured a list of songs that I have liked throughout my life and they are all on my Spotify app. Don’t hit me, I know I should listen to music on Bandcamp. All I want to do is listen to the music that I like!
Even my car doesn’t have a cassette or CD player. It’s all Bluetooth; Those Vikings have infiltrated everywhere on the planet!
The first album I had was the Beatles ‘Sgt Peppers Heart Club Band.’ I found it on top of a garbage can, in an alley. It was the yearly big trash day when you could throw out anything and my friends and I would go trash hunting. We usually looked for big foam cushions so that we could make goalie pads out of them. I eyed these albums on top of a trash can and went for them. There were two Beach Boy albums and the Beatles album. Gold! I scored!!!
I wasn’t too impressed with the Beach Boy albums and all of their harmonies. The Beatles album altered my consciousness. I loved ‘Lovely Rita’ and ‘A Day In The Life.’ I was smitten. My life changed, my synapses grew and connected. I was maybe nine or ten years old. There was such a chemical change in my body, I think I started growing hair on my legs and arm pits. My voice lowered and I had to start using deodorant because my pits started to express themselves. This was somewhere around 1969–1971.
In the 70’s I discovered Queen’s ‘A Night At The Opera’ album and my world took another turn. They were like the new Beatles to me and I was hooked. All of their albums were masterpieces. Not only that, all four of them had an intelligence about them, Brian May was a Theoretical Physicist, Roger Taylor is a Biologist, John Deacon was a student of electronics, and Freddie Mercury was simply pure talent.
I was at my brothers high school movie night, where students would create their own movies and show them in the school’s theater. I heard the song “Changes” from David Bowie for the first time. I was gobsmacked. I automatically was taken to another level, a higher consciousness. I called my classmate twice to find out who wrote that song; His brother used it in his movie that night. The album that it was on was so different to anything I had ever heard up until then.
I would listen to my album collection over and over on an old record player my parents had in our dining room, and I never ever got sick of them. Every song from the first one to the last one on the album filled me with immense joy. While my brothers played their sports and hung out with their friends, I was happy to stay home and sit next to that old record player and let the music consume me.
There was an art to placing the needle in the gaps between songs if I wanted to listen to a song over and over again. Then for fun I would change the speeds to reduce or speed up the song. I was experimenting. Albums with lyrics printed on them were the best.
My Mom loved her Doobie Brothers and Earth Wind & Fire albums. She had an Eight Track player in her Oldsmobile ’98 and I was fascinated with how it could keep playing forever if we let it constantly repeat itself. Ingenuity of the 70’s.
One of my prized albums is ‘English Settlement’ by XTC. Each song is so different from the prior one and some meld into the next. It is a Masterpiece album. I have a few masterpiece albums of mine that I will share with you: Of course XTC’s English Settlement, Joe Jackson’s ‘Night And Day’ album, Roxy Music’s ‘Avalon’ album, Bruce Cockburn’s ‘ Charity Of The Night’ album, The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’ album, and The Knack’s ‘Round Trip’ album. These are just a few, I have so many more that I could list.
There was a time that some bands failed in producing an album and it seemed as if it wasn’t complete. Only a few songs were playable, with only one being a gem. Some albums had a song that should have gotten more airplay on the local FM radio stations, but the DJ’s back then weren’t the greatest. Basically they all replicated themselves whether is was an adult middle of the road station or a classic rock-n-roll station. Today most stations are preset via a computer. It’s lost it’s soul.
As of late I have started to listen to an artist album all the way through on my app. I have most of them in my CD collection stored away in the garage, but I don’t have a CD player. I’ve thought of investing in a really nice sound system, but they are so expensive. I enjoy listening to an album from start to finish and have listened to certain ones so many times that I know what song comes next. It’s a good feeling. I love nostalgia.
There aren’t too many artist in this modern era that I find my ear attracted to their music. Something is missing. Is it the digital aspect of it or do I long for analogue? I’m sure there are many factors including my age, my influences and the like. My son has introduced me to his groups and some of them are good. It reminds me of when I was his age and trying to show my Dad my music back then and him just nodding. My father listened to Big Band Swing music, which I discovered later in life and now groove to it. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!
Even though stereo’s are expensive, I’ve always wanted one. I use to play my albums on my older brothers stereo when he wasn’t around. I think I used it more than him. The speakers alone were knee high and could be cranked up in volume that rocked the house. The lights on the receiver were a soft blue when used at night. It was so cool. I am so tempted to go out and buy one, but I have a Bose speaker which really kicks out the sounds on it’s own. I just want to have the aspect of stereo between two speakers. Then again, there the cost of everything and my priorities tell me to get a new mower and a host of other things.
Another thing about albums, whatever happened to the Art of the album cover? I would just peruse the record store just to look at album covers. It was nice to hold the actual album in my hand and read all the liner notes and lyrics. Those days are long gone and I kind of miss them. I would always hold the vinyl disc with care when taking it out of the album and placing it on the record player and slowly lowering the needle on it, listening to the “Pop!” as it connected. It really enlivened the senses.
This day and age I think people are more attracted to a monotonous beat that encapsulates the modern music of today. Where are all the melodies and the chord changes which structurally created the songs? There is no life to today’s modern music. It’s all computer generated noise that sucks the life out of it’s listeners. Was that too hard of me? Who cares, I wanna rock!! I want to listen to creators, not button pushers.
I only have a few select albums sitting on the floor of my bedroom closet, collecting dust. They haven’t been played in over thirty years. Almost the same with my CD collection of about three hundred. Again, collecting dust. It reminds me of that song by Kansas ‘Dust In The Wind’ off that great kick ass album ‘Leftoverture.’ Now to listen to that album on a powerful stereo would take me to another world.
Anyway, I consider myself fortunate to have lived the experience that today’s kids my never have the chance too. In a way it’s a shame, but I’m sure that they are creating memories which they may look back on like I do mine and just appreciate it. Life is good, rock on!
