It is like Kate Bush's Babooshka, only faster ! ;)
That was the name of her neighbour's cat, according to some docu I watched.
Well, it must be the speed of life..modern living. It's all to easy to fast forward skip tracks on albums. I might have hundred of tracks on my player..but it's rare to actually get to the end of a single track..never mind listen to a whole album. Why, the other day Taffy was singing about her radio and I just kept looping the catchy bit...then I thought..I do that with just about every music I put on. No patience. Living life and 5 times the normal speed. Take me back to the pre-digital age. No laptops or mp3 players..sitting in your room with friends listening to Human League albums on your wooden Sanyo.
Why, the other day Taffy was singing about her radio and I just kept looping the catchy bit...then I thought..I do that with just about every music I put on.
All you have to do is edit it down to just the catchy bit, do the same with all the other catchy bits from other songs, then stick them all together. Then you'd have a song you could play all the way through.
iPod on shuffle always. If I listen to an album I get bored after the second track. But speaking of 'shuffle' I find it a bit bogus. If I skip songs I'm bored with it tends to be less random. If I keep the songs running without interruption it tends to be more random. iTunes is the same but a music player like Foobar2000 or MusicBee is far more random in general.
iPod on shuffle always. If I listen to an album I get bored after the second track. But speaking of 'shuffle' I find it a bit bogus. If I skip songs I'm bored with it tends to be less random. If I keep the songs running without interruption it tends to be more random. iTunes is the same but a music player like Foobar2000 or MusicBee is far more random in general.
If that all made sense to anyone then well done.
Foobar2000 is the best player out there, absolutely brilliant. I don't use anything else now.
Apple's shuffle weights the randomness of tracks based on your play history, so not entirely random. Songs you play a lot or rate highly will turn up more regularly in shuffle, higher in the playlist order.
Most of the time my phone is packed full of albums, and I tend to listen to albums rather than skip around - I don't like shuffling albums and I can't get on with random at all for some reason.
Sometimes I'll get my cassette walkman out and use only that for a week - choose a tape or two and make them last a week (walking to work and back). When I used to do regular long train journeys years ago I'd really have to think about which tapes to take, I'd end up taking about 10 tapes with me.
I tend to listen to full albums unless there is an absolute stinker of a track that I can't bear listening to. Sometimes I've bought an album based on one track I've heard and then found other tracks that are equally as good as the initial track I liked. It's blatant 'filler' tracks that annoy me on albums or those pesky hidden tracks that are 10 minutes after the last track.
I've got my old iPhone 3 plugged into my car and tend to just have it on random most of time, but, dip in and out of a full album now and again. Best of XTC, Genesis and Apex Predator-Easy Meat by Napalm Death have all been visited lately :-)
Another vote for foobar2000 - gapless playback, fast searching, plays back anything(even ay files, though I've noticed it's nowhere near as good as emulators for that). It's the best.
I was on a flight to Itally some years back listening to a compilation tape I had made, we hit some bad turulance and there was a bit of a panic going on, then on my Walkman came Tom Petty singing Free falling ! A great song, but at the wrong time !
Every time I read that the oldest person in the world has died, I have to do a quick check to see it isn't ME..........
All you have to do is edit it down to just the catchy bit, do the same with all the other catchy bits from other songs, then stick them all together. Then you'd have a song you could play all the way through.
All you have to do is edit it down to just the catchy bit, do the same with all the other catchy bits from other songs, then stick them all together. Then you'd have a song you could play all the way through.
I was on a flight to Itally some years back listening to a compilation tape I had made, we hit some bad turulance and there was a bit of a panic going on, then on my Walkman came Tom Petty singing Free falling ! A great song, but at the wrong time !
Like the time they accidentally put on 'Into the Great Wide Open' during an agoraphobic's webinar!
but I note a very distinct change in the composition of albums from the LP to the CD to the MP3 then to the streaming eras.
The most obvious change is the increase in length of an album from 35 minutes; which has had an inverse effect on quality. 10 decent songs on a decent LP increased to 10 good + 5 mediocre/poor songs on a CD puts a downwards pressure on the entire experience.
Albums now tend to be front-loaded with the catchy songs/commericial songs. The "arc" of the LP is completely missing. Its no longer an coherent album, rather than a collection of songs that drop of in quality after track 2.
I think the worst perpetrators of this were the big commercial stars from the LP era. The 35 minute limit put a limit on their ego. 18 minutes a side forced the album to make sense within limits; it forced the artist to be brutal with editing and to leave the cream. Its why so many expanded deluxe editions of classic albums are sht. A perfect example is somebody like Bowie. There is not one album from the CD era of his that could not be vastly improved by slashing it down to 35 minutes (A 35 minute Outside or Heathen would have been as good as anything from his classic period).
So yeah, full, as long as full is about 35 minutes. 60 mins+ is too much for a single album, its tedious listening through stuff that wouldn't have cut the mustard on an LP
I like CDs that have 40 tracks on and cost £1 each ! :))
Incidentally, Sainsbury's are selling three different Punk/New wave collections at the moment. Each set is 3 CDs with 20 tracks on each for £5. That is a total of 180 tracks for £15, ok some of the tracks will be repeated on the collections, but they still cost next to nothing a track and you get an instant Punk/New wave collection !
Post edited by grey key on
Every time I read that the oldest person in the world has died, I have to do a quick check to see it isn't ME..........
sure, but these are not "albums", at least in the strictest sense.
best-ofs and such collections are VERY big sellers - it's why the record companies churn them out. There is not much risk on the buyers' side: you are queing at the petrol station and there is a best-of, you like one or two tracks and pick it up. Everything else is a bonus. A bonus that will probably never be listened to!
I'm sure I am one of a dwindling number of listeners that prefer a good album (on any format, LP or digital) with a coherence and arc to it, to such big collections and best ofs. Ah well.
A lot of Best of albums from bands were released because artists failed to come up with the number of albums they were committed to in their contracts, so record companies would cobble together best of's to fill the requirements. I believe it used to be 5 albums in the contract.
I didn't say they were albums, I did say collections. To be honest I don't personally consider downloads as albums, they are not physical items, just things that float in the ether !
The only download albums I have are only because they are not available on Vinyl or CD, or where downloads are provided in the purchase of a CD ( i.e. when you buy on Amazon and automatically get a free download, or a free download with an album ).
It is like the last E.P. that Nicola Hitchcock released was only available as a download, she knows how I feel about downloads, so she sent me it on CD and handwrote the cover and signed it, all for free !
Post edited by grey key on
Every time I read that the oldest person in the world has died, I have to do a quick check to see it isn't ME..........
I'm usually listen to full albums, CD, vinyl, MP3 player... If it's digital I sometimes put it on shuffle (albums or playlists) and sometimes it surprises me by picking 2 tracks that go very well together.
I like CDs that have 40 tracks on and cost £1 each ! :))
Incidentally, Sainsbury's are selling three different Punk/New wave collections at the moment. Each set is 3 CDs with 20 tracks on each for £5. That is a total of 180 tracks for £15, ok some of the tracks will be repeated on the collections, but they still cost next to nothing a track and you get an instant Punk/New wave collection !
ooh thats next sundays show sorted then ;)
Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
Im a cherry picker, :D
its rare that an album is listenable all the way through.
From the Cradle by Eric Clapton is my favorite but looking at it recently, at least half of the tracks on it are rubbish.
It's true that compilation albums are prone to being skippy. I did listen to Sisters of Mercy's Floodland earlier to see if I could master some kind of Buddhist patience..and I did..I am on the way to enlightenment again. Absolutely no Taffy!
It's true that compilation albums are prone to being skippy. I did listen to Sisters of Mercy's Floodland earlier to see if I could master some kind of Buddhist patience..and I did..I am on the way to enlightenment again. Absolutely no Taffy!
good album, i have it on vinyl
Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
I tend to rely entirely on shuffle these days. Either across my entire collection, an artist or just an album depending on the mood I'm in. Very rarely do I listen to an album "in order" and I can rarely be bothered to carefully curate special playlists.
Comments
But every now and then I get a yearning to listen to a particular track. Then I put the iPad/media player on shuffle.
That was the name of her neighbour's cat, according to some docu I watched.
Well, it must be the speed of life..modern living. It's all to easy to fast forward skip tracks on albums. I might have hundred of tracks on my player..but it's rare to actually get to the end of a single track..never mind listen to a whole album. Why, the other day Taffy was singing about her radio and I just kept looping the catchy bit...then I thought..I do that with just about every music I put on. No patience. Living life and 5 times the normal speed. Take me back to the pre-digital age. No laptops or mp3 players..sitting in your room with friends listening to Human League albums on your wooden Sanyo.
[/quote]
i have that 7" lol
All you have to do is edit it down to just the catchy bit, do the same with all the other catchy bits from other songs, then stick them all together. Then you'd have a song you could play all the way through.
If that all made sense to anyone then well done.
Sometimes I'll get my cassette walkman out and use only that for a week - choose a tape or two and make them last a week (walking to work and back). When I used to do regular long train journeys years ago I'd really have to think about which tapes to take, I'd end up taking about 10 tapes with me.
I've got my old iPhone 3 plugged into my car and tend to just have it on random most of time, but, dip in and out of a full album now and again. Best of XTC, Genesis and Apex Predator-Easy Meat by Napalm Death have all been visited lately :-)
They didn't put Taffy on any of their records.
but I note a very distinct change in the composition of albums from the LP to the CD to the MP3 then to the streaming eras.
The most obvious change is the increase in length of an album from 35 minutes; which has had an inverse effect on quality. 10 decent songs on a decent LP increased to 10 good + 5 mediocre/poor songs on a CD puts a downwards pressure on the entire experience.
Albums now tend to be front-loaded with the catchy songs/commericial songs. The "arc" of the LP is completely missing. Its no longer an coherent album, rather than a collection of songs that drop of in quality after track 2.
I think the worst perpetrators of this were the big commercial stars from the LP era. The 35 minute limit put a limit on their ego. 18 minutes a side forced the album to make sense within limits; it forced the artist to be brutal with editing and to leave the cream. Its why so many expanded deluxe editions of classic albums are sht. A perfect example is somebody like Bowie. There is not one album from the CD era of his that could not be vastly improved by slashing it down to 35 minutes (A 35 minute Outside or Heathen would have been as good as anything from his classic period).
So yeah, full, as long as full is about 35 minutes. 60 mins+ is too much for a single album, its tedious listening through stuff that wouldn't have cut the mustard on an LP
Incidentally, Sainsbury's are selling three different Punk/New wave collections at the moment. Each set is 3 CDs with 20 tracks on each for £5. That is a total of 180 tracks for £15, ok some of the tracks will be repeated on the collections, but they still cost next to nothing a track and you get an instant Punk/New wave collection !
best-ofs and such collections are VERY big sellers - it's why the record companies churn them out. There is not much risk on the buyers' side: you are queing at the petrol station and there is a best-of, you like one or two tracks and pick it up. Everything else is a bonus. A bonus that will probably never be listened to!
http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-uks-60-official-biggest-selling-albums-of-all-time-revealed__15551/
I'm sure I am one of a dwindling number of listeners that prefer a good album (on any format, LP or digital) with a coherence and arc to it, to such big collections and best ofs. Ah well.
I didn't say they were albums, I did say collections. To be honest I don't personally consider downloads as albums, they are not physical items, just things that float in the ether !
The only download albums I have are only because they are not available on Vinyl or CD, or where downloads are provided in the purchase of a CD ( i.e. when you buy on Amazon and automatically get a free download, or a free download with an album ).
It is like the last E.P. that Nicola Hitchcock released was only available as a download, she knows how I feel about downloads, so she sent me it on CD and handwrote the cover and signed it, all for free !
And I always think "Oh, I see what it did there"
ooh thats next sundays show sorted then ;)
its rare that an album is listenable all the way through.
From the Cradle by Eric Clapton is my favorite but looking at it recently, at least half of the tracks on it are rubbish.
It's true that compilation albums are prone to being skippy. I did listen to Sisters of Mercy's Floodland earlier to see if I could master some kind of Buddhist patience..and I did..I am on the way to enlightenment again. Absolutely no Taffy!