A Systematic or Shuffled Life?
Everyone is different when it comes to listening to music, one thing that goes beyond the genres and the individual bands is exactly how you listen to your music. In this day in age of ITunes and MP3's people have the ability to listen to their whole CD collection however they wish. Whether they listen to an individual album or individual songs from a plethora of bands in any order. Personally I prefer to listen to songs by just one band at a time, I don't really enjoy listening to a mish-mash of songs from every band under the sun. Maybe I need a more strict and set way of listening to my music than most but when I'm listening to music you can probably bet that I will be listening to either one band or one album straight through.
I think an important reason why I would rather listen to albums straight through is because of the type of music I listen to. A huge chunk of the music I listen to was created to be listened to in full and in one sitting. Music that was created based on an album and not individual songs. Even when going past that, I still would rather listen to one band in a sitting.
I know a lot of people would rather just put their Ipod or whatever they use on shuffle to hear a little bit of everything from their collection. I would like to know what everyone here prefers to do, would you rather listen to just one particular band in a sitting? Or would you rather listen to your music on shuffle?
posted by Jeff at 11:34 PM
7 Comments:
You're back! ANOTHER EXCELLENT QUESTION!
I do both. Certain albums, like you said, the songs are meant to flow one into the other and communicate what the artist was saying with THOSE SONGS at that time on THAT ALBUM.
But...I also like to do random when I am in the mood - with one caveat. I can't just hit "random" with all 2,000 available - I've done that and it's been very disturbing (imagine listening to "Brain Damage" immediately followed by "Walk This Way" - UGH!)
So the solution for me has been to create Playlists for my iPod. I have tons for different moods and choose music that will compliment the other songs on that list.
I still use physical CDs, so I listen to one album or band at a time. However, I prefer to listen to the songs on shuffle. Listening to the album in order is predictable, and predictability is boring. Boredom is not what I want out of my listening experience, so I prefer to be surprised with each new song.
I do both. I dont really do a random shuffle, i choose the tracks, so that they have some sort of flow. When i do this i probably listen to a couple of artists at a time...rather than from a large group, the main thing is that tracks flow on...to keep the mood....which can be slowly change.
Layla - Yes, I've been trying but time is hard to come by now and days. I do listen to random on occasion but like you said it has to be within a specific genre or something along those lines.
Russ - That is a very good point, I never thought about it in terms of predictability.
Anonymous - Yeah, when I do indeed use shuffle I normally have some kind of guidelines.
I don't own an ipod and it will probably be another five years before I get around to getting one. Anyway, I love the experience of the whole album. I think most of the music I listen to was meant to be listened to in that manner. Doesn't mean I don't skip songs I don't like, but I aim to hear the whole album.
I still listen to albums the way they should be: in order. That's the way the artist/band intended for them to be. I listen to full albums, not just the singles. Most times, there are better album tracks.
I admit to using SHUFFLE mode.
I'll be at work and put KISS on Shuffle mode to get a "fresh" listen. I also know the albums by heart so it gives some variety.
Metal Mark - Sounds like me!
RodeIslandRock - I agree shuffle mode really only works for me when it's certain bands. A band that I'll often put on shuffle is The Beatles, there music is more about individual songs than albums so it works perfectly.
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