Die hard shuffler. Shuffle every single song in your music library into one big, weird, jarring playlist that goes on for ten thousand hours. Shuffle forever!
Weakerthans (including John K. Samson) is number 2 on my iTunes play counts. (Decemberists come in at 4.) But I can't shuffle Weakerthans because then I risk "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure" ambushing me.
I feel you that song is so moving that I even got a tattoo to remind me of it. Me, the former tattoo hater. It shows an outline of a cat, with the words I can’t remember the sound that you found for me. This song makes me cry sometimes but not as much as some of their other songs do. I am grieving for someone and NIGHT Windows, Sun in an Empty Room and Left and Leaving really get to me. I’ve skipped them for so long I miss them.
The Decemberists are one of my favorite bands, along with The Weakerthans, Radiohead and R.E.M.
I was also raised on the complete albums of Pink Floyd (the first digital copies of their albums that I Napstered were literally 1 single file per album) and others. I share the reverence for a good album sequence. So often intros or outros or interludes are a crucial and fascinating piece to the whole thing.
I've also noticed how often the title track comes in at the #2 spot., sort of rendering the first song an intro whether it asked to be or not.
I haven't viewed (most) Decemberists albums as so sacrosanct as all this except for The Crane Wife and Hazards of Love, I will be listening with more intent from now on!
I must confess one cold-blooded sequencing transgression I've committed: The Vaccine's album "What did you Expect from the Vaccines?", which I love, always had an awkward progression to me, so I created a playlist of how I thought it should go and have enjoyed it that much more. Sorry, not sorry!
I always try to notice very good sequencing - some of my favorite albums I find frustrating due to their sequencing (mainly - U2's No Line on the Horizon). I find myself looking to live setlists to see how the band later figures out how songs play off of each other.
Re: a favorite Track Two, there's a trick I love - the kind of 'teaser' opening track, something quiet, lo-fi, or instrumental, before the big, full band Statement of Intent comes in for track two. It always grabs me. Big Thief's Masterpiece is probably my favorite one of these. Little Arrow is such a fake-out! Lo-fi, acoustic, sleepy, and then Masterpiece just *explodes* when it comes in. Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights is another one with Untitled -> Obstacle 1. Gladie's Don't Know What You're In Until Your Out has one of these too - it's probably my favorite album of the last few years.
Re: the vinyl/tape vs CD thing, I love Tom Petty's little "Helloooo CD Listeners" intermission track for the CD version of Full Moon Fever. And he was always incredible at sequencing an album.
edit: one other random sequencing thought - there was a funny thing happened when the track listing leaked for Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool - It was in alphabetical order! for a bit there was a debate about whether that was the intended order or if it was just the way it leaked. turns out it was correct, and listening to it it's obvious, the sequencing is brilliant. but I've always wondered if that happened coincidentally, or deliberately (and if it was deliberate, were songs renamed to make it work? i have so many questions!)
Right!? Breathe is the star of that album and they never realized it. I was so frustrated I actually had the audacity to cut it up myself. I even split up Fez and Being Born:
1. Soon (was released on a 7" and used as the 360 tour intro for the first leg - great, weird little intro)
2. Breathe
3. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
4. White as Snow
5. Unknown Caller
6. Being Born
7. Fez
8. Get On Your Boots
9. No Line On The Horizon
10. Magnificent
11. Moment of Surrender
12. Cedars of Lebanon
I feel kind of awful meddling with someone else's creative work like this! but I couldn't help myself, I just enjoy it *so much more* this way.
In a comment I dropped earlier, I mentioned that I heard All That You Can't Leave Behind on Napster initially, with a different tracklist that I vastly prefer over the final version! I have to wonder if the band originally sequenced it like this and changed it at the last minute:
1. Beautiful Day
2. Elevation
3. Walk On
4. Stuck in a Moment
5. New York
6. Kite
7. In a Little While
8. Wild Honey
9. Peace on Earth
10. When I Look at The World
11. Grace
I find your tracklist for No Line a little schizophrenic, but that's OK :) I agree that there are some sequencing issues, but for me it's mostly having Crazy / Boots / Stand Up Comedy (the three worst songs by a wide margin) together is unforgivable 😂
Don’t kill the shuffle button but use it with caution. My kids unfortunately will never know the power of the full album. This is why I collect vinyl though.
Hell, yeah! Sequencing is important!! (...the typist declares after quickly dehighlighting the twisted devils' tales on the browser loaded DSP... oops!)
Suddenly, I'm wrenched back to my youth, laying on a mattress flat on the floor, pillow propped against the bedroom wall, lights off and curly headphone cable appropriately anchored to prevent unpleasant positional adjustments when the rhythm requires head motion. What path have I trod such that one's musical appetite is only fed in the background during work hours and car rides? And when I said, "I do," did I mean that I would no longer end a day with drums tumbling from ear to ear during Hendrix' "1983..."?
How have I grown so numb that I endure Yes's "Long Distance Runaround" to be severed from "The Fish", like... er... a butchered fish!?
So, now I have a New Year's resolution, after all. A promise that I will untangle the cable to my old head phones with the vinyl pads somewhat cracked and flakey. I'll wait until the moon is high, dispense appropriate doses of melatonin to the youth, slip to the guest bedroom, lock the door and float across a new Decemberists album from end-to-end. It's good to have goals!
I love this, and have frequently bemoaned the loss of sequencing and "time limits" from playlist driven listening. For me this showed up in the curation of mix tapes - making sure there was sufficient space (actual, physical space) on each side of the tape (and don't forget the buffer space at the end) - I always felt there was an art to achieving the right sequence within the limited space.
I recall some (apparently many) years ago, Neil Gaiman reflecting on the different sequencing on songs between vinyl records, tapes, and finally CDs. The songs appeared in a different order on the vinyl than they did on the tape or the CD. Here. I found it - https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/04/red-mutant-eyes-gaze-down-on-hunger.html
Maybe this is too "inside baseball", but I always want After the Bombs to be a hidden track after a minute or two of silence following Sons & Daughters. I think it's just such a great way to put a cap on that album. Of course, as a completionist I also have Perfect Crime #1, Culling of the Fold, and Hurdles Even Here hanging out in that "album" on my iPod, but I think it works best with After the Bombs being the little afterthought capper.
Well, those are all off Crane Wife. I agree, Hazards is its own self contained thing and needs to be listened to top to bottom. The only extremely slight criticism I can level against Hazards is I wish there was a second of silence before Hazards part 4 comes in, just as a little breath after the cacophony of The Wanting Comes In Waves (Reprise)
I have a least first song: Feeling Gravity’s Pull. I used to hate Fables of the Reconstruction with a passion due to that song.
In the early aughts, when I got my first iPod, I loaded up all of REM’s albums. In an effort to grow to like the album, I tried it on shuffle. Lo and behold, if Gravity wasn’t leading off the album, I loved the rest of the songs! In this one singular instance, shuffle helped me out. But generally I agree on the use of shuffle
In the 2 decades since, my stance has softened somewhat on Feeling Gravity’s Pull. Still probably my least favorite IRS-era REM song, but the chorus is good.
Shuffle ? Really. Never. Thank you for your great thoughts and coining a word. It makes me wonder, what are our top ten (unshuffled) albums. A few of mine were mentioned here, or at least the artist. Happy 2024 to all and to all a good night!
I listen whatever way suits me at the moment. Sometimes that's the original order, sometimes that's on shuffle, sometimes that's (gasp!) Not even the whole album. Once I've paid for it, I think it's ok and I don't lose any sleep over it.
Set up a playlist and enjoy! It's a real shame this masterpiece doesn't get the praise it wholly deserves. I can only blame it on the shoddy CD release.
Die hard shuffler. Shuffle every single song in your music library into one big, weird, jarring playlist that goes on for ten thousand hours. Shuffle forever!
Every time I shower I put on a shuffle of the New Pornographers’ catalog.
Every time I shower, I play The Weakerthans, my obsession
for 3 years so far.
Weakerthans (including John K. Samson) is number 2 on my iTunes play counts. (Decemberists come in at 4.) But I can't shuffle Weakerthans because then I risk "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure" ambushing me.
If you consider that song an ambush, you don't want to listen to "Virtute at Rest" from John K Samson's "Winter Wheat" album.
I feel you that song is so moving that I even got a tattoo to remind me of it. Me, the former tattoo hater. It shows an outline of a cat, with the words I can’t remember the sound that you found for me. This song makes me cry sometimes but not as much as some of their other songs do. I am grieving for someone and NIGHT Windows, Sun in an Empty Room and Left and Leaving really get to me. I’ve skipped them for so long I miss them.
The Decemberists are one of my favorite bands, along with The Weakerthans, Radiohead and R.E.M.
I can't believe you got that tattooed. How do you not break into tears every time you look at it?
Well, it IS upside down.
It happens when my car decides to shuffle my phone. Everything from Ministry to Hilary Hahn.
this!!!
If you put Hazards on shuffle you get a new story every listen.
It's usually still a bummer, but occasionally they somehow come back to life and have a romp at the end!
I want to type lol because I actually did in this instance 🤣
"antepenultimate" - amazing.
I was also raised on the complete albums of Pink Floyd (the first digital copies of their albums that I Napstered were literally 1 single file per album) and others. I share the reverence for a good album sequence. So often intros or outros or interludes are a crucial and fascinating piece to the whole thing.
I've also noticed how often the title track comes in at the #2 spot., sort of rendering the first song an intro whether it asked to be or not.
I haven't viewed (most) Decemberists albums as so sacrosanct as all this except for The Crane Wife and Hazards of Love, I will be listening with more intent from now on!
I must confess one cold-blooded sequencing transgression I've committed: The Vaccine's album "What did you Expect from the Vaccines?", which I love, always had an awkward progression to me, so I created a playlist of how I thought it should go and have enjoyed it that much more. Sorry, not sorry!
Amen amen on the Crane Wife. Listening to it out of order is like reading a book out of order.
I always try to notice very good sequencing - some of my favorite albums I find frustrating due to their sequencing (mainly - U2's No Line on the Horizon). I find myself looking to live setlists to see how the band later figures out how songs play off of each other.
Re: a favorite Track Two, there's a trick I love - the kind of 'teaser' opening track, something quiet, lo-fi, or instrumental, before the big, full band Statement of Intent comes in for track two. It always grabs me. Big Thief's Masterpiece is probably my favorite one of these. Little Arrow is such a fake-out! Lo-fi, acoustic, sleepy, and then Masterpiece just *explodes* when it comes in. Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights is another one with Untitled -> Obstacle 1. Gladie's Don't Know What You're In Until Your Out has one of these too - it's probably my favorite album of the last few years.
Re: the vinyl/tape vs CD thing, I love Tom Petty's little "Helloooo CD Listeners" intermission track for the CD version of Full Moon Fever. And he was always incredible at sequencing an album.
edit: one other random sequencing thought - there was a funny thing happened when the track listing leaked for Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool - It was in alphabetical order! for a bit there was a debate about whether that was the intended order or if it was just the way it leaked. turns out it was correct, and listening to it it's obvious, the sequencing is brilliant. but I've always wondered if that happened coincidentally, or deliberately (and if it was deliberate, were songs renamed to make it work? i have so many questions!)
I would nominate Interpol for master sequencers.
Oh man, I agree with No Line On The Horizon. The sequencing is awful. How do you bury Breathe? I wish they would release it with a new sequence.
Right!? Breathe is the star of that album and they never realized it. I was so frustrated I actually had the audacity to cut it up myself. I even split up Fez and Being Born:
1. Soon (was released on a 7" and used as the 360 tour intro for the first leg - great, weird little intro)
2. Breathe
3. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
4. White as Snow
5. Unknown Caller
6. Being Born
7. Fez
8. Get On Your Boots
9. No Line On The Horizon
10. Magnificent
11. Moment of Surrender
12. Cedars of Lebanon
I feel kind of awful meddling with someone else's creative work like this! but I couldn't help myself, I just enjoy it *so much more* this way.
Oh I like that!! I am familiar with Soon and it would be a good opener. I'll have to sequence this in a playlist and give it a go. Thanks for sharing.
In a comment I dropped earlier, I mentioned that I heard All That You Can't Leave Behind on Napster initially, with a different tracklist that I vastly prefer over the final version! I have to wonder if the band originally sequenced it like this and changed it at the last minute:
1. Beautiful Day
2. Elevation
3. Walk On
4. Stuck in a Moment
5. New York
6. Kite
7. In a Little While
8. Wild Honey
9. Peace on Earth
10. When I Look at The World
11. Grace
I find your tracklist for No Line a little schizophrenic, but that's OK :) I agree that there are some sequencing issues, but for me it's mostly having Crazy / Boots / Stand Up Comedy (the three worst songs by a wide margin) together is unforgivable 😂
I’m not sure there’s any redeeming NLOTH.
I've never listened to an album on shuffle. The thought never occurred to me. A random playlist, sure. Never an album.
Lots to say here but all last songs are chasing A Day in the Life
Don’t kill the shuffle button but use it with caution. My kids unfortunately will never know the power of the full album. This is why I collect vinyl though.
Hell, yeah! Sequencing is important!! (...the typist declares after quickly dehighlighting the twisted devils' tales on the browser loaded DSP... oops!)
Suddenly, I'm wrenched back to my youth, laying on a mattress flat on the floor, pillow propped against the bedroom wall, lights off and curly headphone cable appropriately anchored to prevent unpleasant positional adjustments when the rhythm requires head motion. What path have I trod such that one's musical appetite is only fed in the background during work hours and car rides? And when I said, "I do," did I mean that I would no longer end a day with drums tumbling from ear to ear during Hendrix' "1983..."?
How have I grown so numb that I endure Yes's "Long Distance Runaround" to be severed from "The Fish", like... er... a butchered fish!?
So, now I have a New Year's resolution, after all. A promise that I will untangle the cable to my old head phones with the vinyl pads somewhat cracked and flakey. I'll wait until the moon is high, dispense appropriate doses of melatonin to the youth, slip to the guest bedroom, lock the door and float across a new Decemberists album from end-to-end. It's good to have goals!
I love this, and have frequently bemoaned the loss of sequencing and "time limits" from playlist driven listening. For me this showed up in the curation of mix tapes - making sure there was sufficient space (actual, physical space) on each side of the tape (and don't forget the buffer space at the end) - I always felt there was an art to achieving the right sequence within the limited space.
I recall some (apparently many) years ago, Neil Gaiman reflecting on the different sequencing on songs between vinyl records, tapes, and finally CDs. The songs appeared in a different order on the vinyl than they did on the tape or the CD. Here. I found it - https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/04/red-mutant-eyes-gaze-down-on-hunger.html
Maybe this is too "inside baseball", but I always want After the Bombs to be a hidden track after a minute or two of silence following Sons & Daughters. I think it's just such a great way to put a cap on that album. Of course, as a completionist I also have Perfect Crime #1, Culling of the Fold, and Hurdles Even Here hanging out in that "album" on my iPod, but I think it works best with After the Bombs being the little afterthought capper.
I can't even listen to these bonus tracks along with the Hazards LP! Has to end with Sons & Daughters. Full stop haha
Well, those are all off Crane Wife. I agree, Hazards is its own self contained thing and needs to be listened to top to bottom. The only extremely slight criticism I can level against Hazards is I wish there was a second of silence before Hazards part 4 comes in, just as a little breath after the cacophony of The Wanting Comes In Waves (Reprise)
I have a least first song: Feeling Gravity’s Pull. I used to hate Fables of the Reconstruction with a passion due to that song.
In the early aughts, when I got my first iPod, I loaded up all of REM’s albums. In an effort to grow to like the album, I tried it on shuffle. Lo and behold, if Gravity wasn’t leading off the album, I loved the rest of the songs! In this one singular instance, shuffle helped me out. But generally I agree on the use of shuffle
In the 2 decades since, my stance has softened somewhat on Feeling Gravity’s Pull. Still probably my least favorite IRS-era REM song, but the chorus is good.
My favorite album and I love gravity because of the lyrics and the guitar!
Driver 8 is my favorite song from any album.
Shuffle ? Really. Never. Thank you for your great thoughts and coining a word. It makes me wonder, what are our top ten (unshuffled) albums. A few of mine were mentioned here, or at least the artist. Happy 2024 to all and to all a good night!
I listen whatever way suits me at the moment. Sometimes that's the original order, sometimes that's on shuffle, sometimes that's (gasp!) Not even the whole album. Once I've paid for it, I think it's ok and I don't lose any sleep over it.
I NEVER shuffle an album. Even Eluvium's "Shuffle Drones" which is INTENDED to be shuffled, I still don't -- the revulsion is simply too great.
I think The Perfect Crime #2 is a perfect middle song if there ever was one.
Also, I think the best way you can give a giant middle finger to the shuffle button is to make a Hazards Of Love, Part Deux. 😬 🤞🏼
Set up a playlist and enjoy! It's a real shame this masterpiece doesn't get the praise it wholly deserves. I can only blame it on the shoddy CD release.
A1 Can't Ignore the Train
A2 Just as the Tide Was a Flowing
A3 Scorpio Rising
A4 Lilydale
A5 Maddox Table
A6 Everyone a Puzzle Lover
A7 Arbor Day
B1 Back o' the Moon
B2 Tension Makes a Tangle
B3 Among the Americans
B4 Grey Victory
B5 Cotton Alley
B6 My Mother the War