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Do The Order Of Songs On An Album Really Matter To You?
Inspired by a friend telling me that he only listens to albums on shuffle. I don't really understand the point of doing that as I feel that the album can lose some of it's impact on the listener. I always try to listen to albums in the order the artist intended. Granted there are plenty of albums where the sequencing seems wrong, but when the artist (or producer) gets it right and each songs flows perfectly into the next it can really make the album sound better on the whole and take you on a trip. I also like the idea of a beginning, middle and end to an album where certain songs seem to suit best at certain stages. Even when I'm creating playlists for myself or others I always try to put the songs in the order I think works best rather than just randomly.
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I try it with some albums that are kind of starting to bore me, but generally I think it's an odious experience.
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The only real case where I'll listen to an album on shuffle is if it's a compilation and the song sequencing doesn't really matter to me as much. Other than that I have to listen to albums sequentially.
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Sometimes I download an album and the tracks aren't in order. I listen to it and judge it based on that, but when you realise it's clearly out of order (one song ends with silence and the next fades in) then I have to go and put it back together again or it feels incomplete.
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Truthfully, it does matter to me, and I think a lot of classic albums consider their track order when they're putting together an album. For instance, the arc of Hissing Fauna would make no sense if the album weren't organized as it is, and regardless of lyrical concept, it would make no structural sense to open an album with the Antlers' Wake or Epilogue, which close it out together.
Even albums that aren't such substantial pieces feel different out of order. I coped The Presets' Apocalypso for a friend, but the mislabeled files caused a track-order shuffling, and the resulting album that we listened to five times on the road trip was awkward and lackluster, because the punch-and-come-down order of things had been destroyed. I'm a big believer in going with what the artist's intent is for the listener, unless my enjoyment of an album hinges on one song I can't stand that taints the whole thing for me. Impossible Soul, I'm looking at you. |
If I'm listening to the album for the first time then it HAS to be in order than the artist intended but after that it's anything goes depending on how I feel about certain tracks. I will mostly skip around on my own but not really shuffle though. I mark which tracks are my favorite then I'll play those in order.
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I agree with most of the statements, track order most definitely matters. Not just because the artist intended it to be that way, but because it usually flows well that way and I can't think of a compelling argument for not listening to it in that order. Other than trying to get a new perspective on an album you're very familiar with, just for fun. But I'm never done that. I'll shuffle a playlist with multiple albums in it, of course, but an album is an album.
The only album I can think of that would sound the same in order or on shuffle is Aphex Twin's Drukqs, as I've never felt that much thought went into ordering the tracks. It feels very random to me, and I actually separated the two discs into my own "chill" and "hyper" discs rather than having it all mixed up like RDJ did. |
Depends on the album.
If it's a well crafted piece of work that's meant to be enjoyed as a whole then yes it does matter because usually these things have been put in that order for a reason over hours of deliberation & thought. If the album is just a reason to stick a few singles together with a bunch of filler tracks to sell them again as an album then no, usually I just want to hear the singles anyway. |
I think it does. Even if it isn't a concept album or anything, once I listen to the album a few times and get into the flow of it, it's tough for me to listen to it out of order. I just like getting into the flow of it where I know what the next song will be an I love to key in on the transitions.
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Maybe, but it would have to finish with 'Home Again'
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Confessions of a shuffle addict
I´m surprised to see so many people staying loyal to the original track order.
For me the shuffle function is one of those inventions like the remote control; "How did we get by without it?" Sure, there are concept albums, albums that flow from track to track or have obvious openers and closers, but I find that most albums sound just as good played out of order. For me, "shuffle" enhances the listening life of an album by making the experience a little different each time. In fact, "shuffle" is so much my go-to option that with plenty of albums I don´t know what the actual track order is. The other day I found myself playing In A Silent Way on shuffle, and that´s a two-track album. :( Spoiler for brian eno on an album´s running order::
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Maybe we should send you to shuffleholics anonymous. 'Hello my name is Lisnaholic and I'm a shuffleholic, On my worse days I shuffle 2 track albums, I know I have a problem'. |
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I have to admit I do like putting every single album on my computer on shuffle & seeing what happens.
You'll be surprised just how well Glenn Miller & Slayer fit together. |
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I do like the point Lisnaholic (and Brian Eno) made about making the listening experience of an album different each time my shuffling. The novelty of it might make it interesting to me for a while but it would more than likely just sound wrong to me. However as a little experiment I'm going to listen to a couple of my favourite albums on shuffle tomorrow and see what the results are. |
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Most of time I listen to albums on shuffle, but when I get a new album I have a habit of listening to the album track by track in the order that it was intended.
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It matters to me. The original tracklisting is the only way to listen to it for me. Each track fits into its own groove (most of the time) and they play off each other by the way they flow together and create tensions. Sometimes you'll have thematic or aural connections that creates an intended sense of unity and focus that you lose by shuffling.
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Yes, a messy tracklist makes for a poor listening experience.
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I only read about half of the posts and I have to say I agree, that even if an album weren't a concept album and isn't aa load of generic tunes or most pop music, then the order does matter in regards to flow.
There is another reason though that it is important to me. Certain artists and groups that I like are for me, hit and miss. One example is Die Fantastischen Vier [The Fantastic Four, German hip-hop group]. I love about half of their material and the other half is simply annoying, but some of the tracks on either side of the fence (loved or annoyed) are ones I actually prefer to listen to on occasion when I am in the mood for them. By listening in order, I know which track numbers on which albums to skip or not. Shuffling them would make that difficult to remember, because again, there are some that I sometimes want to hear and sometimes don't so even if I made a mix without the ones I never want to hear, it would be tedious skipping, or if there was one in particular I wanted to hear, it would be even more tedious. Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2 |
Never used the shuffle button, don't plan to.
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1st track Heavy
2nd track there AAA track 3rd track the single 4th track there AA tracks 5th track Ballad 6th and 7th TEH MEAT or MIDDLE 8th ..???? 9th this track is usually a good song 10th and 11th ..?????? 12th the closer |
I don't shuffle an album. It loses impact of the story telling in a lot of ways. like Kendricks Lamars-Good Kid Maad City or Pink Floyd etc etc. majority of the time the artist put the songs in that order for a reason.
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I'm an album guy. Ever since I started listening to music seriously with Led Zeppelin (who were always an album band) I've always seen albums as one piece of art. So in 90% of the music I listen to, the order matters as the album is a piece of art that was made in a certain way for a reason. But then again, a lot of early jazz and blues were recorded before albums became a thing, so then it doesn't really matter. A lot of 60's soul focuses on singles and the album is never really thought out as an album, so that's also an exception.
The shuffle function is one I use if I listen to any of these genres and I want it to get more exciting, or if I've created say a hip hop playlist with songs and I want to be surprised. But putting "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" on shuffle would never work for me for example. I must say though, that it is fun at times putting your whole music library on shuffle... |
I absolutely never put my music on shuffle. I listen to records everyday, always in order, no matter what.
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I'm incredibly anal about it, in fact. Sometimes when I download albums, the order of the songs is incorrect. Most of the time I don't notice or I catch it in time to fix it. However, there are few that slipped my notice and when I found out I had been listening to them in the incorrect order, it REALLY bothered me...to the point where I listened to them over and over in the correct order to try to erase the impression I had when it was wrong. Whole library on shuffle, though...yeah I do that to figure out what I'm in the mood for when I don't really know. |
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Much of the time they don't, and I'm as much of a shuffle-play enthusiast as anyone, but there are times that it makes all the difference in the album when played end to end. There are obvious examples like Dark Side of the Moon, Camel's Snow Goose, classical pieces, so forth, but the first thing I thought of when I saw the subject line is Nina Hagen's NunSexMonkRock. IMO the album (and by that I mean the vinyl record) has side one and two totally backwards. I feel that the flow of the album is vastly improved when it opens with "Born in XIXAX
...then concludes with "Future Is Now" |
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One thing that did surprise me though is that the second half of the album seems to flow better when 'Altogether' and 'Melon Yellow' are swapped around. The random shuffle ended up giving me 'When The Sun Hits', 'Melon Yellow' and 'Altogether' in sequence. 'When The Sun Hits' flowed nicely into 'Melon Yellow' and seemed to make 'Melon Yellow' sound more downbeat and depressing than normal. Again the transition into 'Altogether' worked nicely and made the song have a bit more life to it. So I guess you could say it did throw up a couple of surprises but I won't be in a rush to listen to it on shuffle any time soon. |
Nice topic. I like hearing albums in order when I am listening to an album. I do occasionally hit shuffle for my whole collection, which can be entertaining as well as annoying, usually when a song that is part of a grander suite of songs comes up feeling out of place or missing something.
Small digression. I own a few albums that have alternate track listings and in one case (The Kings - Village Green) is even provided in two track listings (mono version has more tracks and different order than stereo version). Has anyone ever experimented with those cases or resequence an album because of these cases? It's not the same as shuffling, but is a shuffle if you are used to one track list. |
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It depends.
The song order has to be correct on the albums themselves, but the order I actually listen to the songs in doesn't matter unless it's meant to be listened to in order. Even then, I'll listen to specific songs and skip the rest of the album sometimes. I don't think I've ever listened to an album on shuffle, just because playing in order is natural to me. |
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I´m still surprised at how unpopular "shuffle" is, so I´ve tried to think up a couple of things in its defence:- Firstly, I often want to hear a bit of music but don´t have the time or inclination to hear a whole album side. So back in the days when vinyl or cassette were the only options, I always heard the opening tracks more often than the subsequent ones. Not only that, but it´s natural to be much more attentive to the first tracks that you hear. These two circumstances combine to give you, over time, a lopsided perception of the music, all weighted to the open bars of the opening track. Isn´t "shuffle" the perfect way to correct that imbalance and give all the songs an equal chance? Secondly, artists themselves are quite happy to mix and match when they play live. Dylan is notorious for treating his repertoir like a pack of cards, even to the extent of dealing out the same card twice in one night. Pink Floyd, those intimidating AOR perfectionists, often play great slabs of sequenced songs, but a glimpse at the track list of Pulse shows that they also resort to a little cutting and pasting when it suits. Finally, as Eno indicates, no artist with ten or so tracks to juggle with can possibly check out every track-list combination, and, although I have no evidence to support this, I suspect that some artists either don´t worry, or get over-ruled when it comes to working out their song order. So come on guys; engraved in vinyl doesn´t have to mean carved in stone! |
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As an artist myself, I don't try every possible track order, but I also don't need to. Even if I am not working on a concept album, I want the track order to have a good flow and all my projects and albums have central themes and it is the central theme that determines the order. And album I am working on now is called "From the Seat of Emotions" and lyrically centres on my personal feelings (in an abstract yet concrete way). The album will open violently with a song about self-hatred, then a song about a horrid ex ("Voracious Lamia". I haven't conceptualised half of the other tracks but I have a really strong one about a complex mix of hatred and depression and an instrumental that is really depressing. So that complex mixed emotion would be between the two ends of the spectrum. As far as the individual tracks within the general flow, I want to not stick all the stronger ones together and the weaker ones together, I want them mixed in so that the listener is more likely to go through the whole thing. If you lead strong then follow with three weaker tracks, they may just stop and not continue. Sort of putting strong ones in such a way that it holda their interest until the end. Some bands don't have a problem mixing it up live because they alter the songs slightly so that they don't have to flow together musically, but there also usually is a pause between songs for a bit of talking. On the albun though, that pause and talking isn't there, so I have the intro and outro of all the songs flexible so that when I finalise the order, I can alter the intros aand outros for better musical flow. So I can't ssay I agree with the live shuffle argument or the not trying every possible track order argument. Then again, that is only the case for me, I can't say what the general case is for most artists. Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2 |
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