My friend listens to his music in albums. I'm generally more of a shuffle girl - Itunes=LOVE. However, I am known for flicking through ridiculous amounts of songs before I actually listen to a whole one, this is a waste of time and very annoying. Now, thanks to the Itunes genius that is GENIUS, I can now listen to my music on shuffle in a particular genre, so the music fits better. But that's not always my cup of tea, ideally my ipod will known exactly what I need to listen to and just play it, but they haven't invented that sort of thing yet. Rubbish. So, after reading my friend's blog I decided to listen try listening to my music in albums. It was a good experience, not mind blowing, not brilliant but...good. And it got me thinking about what makes an album a GREAT album and not just an album; for me, a great album is one where I can stick it on and not get bored or want to change tracks. That's not to say that all GREAT albums are full of the BEST songs, because some of my favourite albums don't always include my favourite songs. I also find that my favourite albums fall into two categories...those that are suitable for walking or dancing to and those that are best as background music. So without further ado, here are the albums that I can listen to ALL the way through in their categories.
WALKING/DANCING
- Alicia Keys - As I am
- Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
- Panic! At the Disco - A fever you can't sweat out
- The Magnets - Giving it all that
- The Kooks - Inside in/Inside out
- Michael Buble...in fact ANYTHING by him.
- Carrie Underwood - Some Hearts
- Beyonce - Dangerously in Love
- Stacey Kent - Breakfast on the Morning Tram
- The Best of Stevie Wonder
- Harry Connick Jr. - We're in Love
BACKGROUND
- Stacey Kent - The Boy Next Door
- Norah Jones - Feels Like Home
- Lifehouse - No Name Face
- Dixie Chicks - Wide Open Spaces
- Coldplay - Viva la Vida
- Jamie Cullum - Twentysomething
- Diana Krall - When I look in Your Eyes
- Tim Hughes - When Silence Falls
For those of you who know me, you will notice that I haven't included any musical soundtracks. That's because I don't consider them albums...they are soundtracks, soundbites of a show that happened on a stage. It's meant to help you remember what happened on stage and when I listen to them, I often replay the entire musical in my head OR I'm trying to learn the songs and remember the dance routines.
So yeah, not the best blog....but meh. Night x
Interesting thoughts about what makes an album 'great'. I know what you mean about not skipping any tracks, but I wouldn't say that's enough to make an album great. I own quite a lot of albums that have no tracks I'd skip, but I wouldn't call them great just because the songs aren't that outstanding. Examples include Burn Out (Cathy Burton), Smile Back At Me (The Gentlemen) and Afterglow (Quench). This is not to say I don't like these albums (I do!), but their overall quality isn't high enough to make them 'great', despite the fact that I wouldn't skip any of their tracks.
ReplyDeleteI think the order of songs on an album is an important point. For example, I have one particular album (The Decline of British Sea Power) where tracks 1-3 are relatively weak, but 4-11 are amazing. I sometimes skip tracks 1-3 to get onto the others. But I would still class this album as great because of its overall quality. However, if tracks 1-3 were interspersed throughout 4-11, I would be less likely to skip them as it would interrupt the flow of the album much more.
I think the reason for our differing opinions may be our different ways of listening to music. You are more inclined to use shuffle and skip tracks, whereas I prefer to listen to whole albums. Therefore there will be more albums that I will listen to without skipping (probably the vast majority of my albums), but this is a rare occurrence for you and is thus the mark of greatness for you. For me, not skipping tracks on an album is quite normal.
You've prompted me to think about how I would class greatness in an album. I'm not sure of my answer yet. I don't like the word 'great' much because it's too unspecific.
Finally, good blog, tres interesting :-) And I'm glad to see NNF in there!