Josef K

I'll join, why not?

Pet_Sounds

All right!

So far, the membership consists of:

Me
Mondo Bungle
Surell
Frownland
Trollheart
Briks
JustinJJustin
Josef K
Psy-Fi

This is already going better than I expected.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Trollheart

Since you asked for my wisdom, such as it is, here it is.

I would dump the idea of voting for albums. We tried this in the PRAC and it just irritated people and slowed things down. At one point I was told testily: "It's your club, just choose the album." So I would do what we do: each member has a chance to pick an album on alternate weeks --- so say one member picks the album this week, another the next, a third the next and so on till you come back around to the start --- and everyone listens and comments on it. That way, everyone gets a fair shot and there's no arguing over what we should listen to. The member whose turn it is does not have to justify the album he or she picks, and in a big way that's great, because otherwise all you'd get would be positive reviews with everyone choosing their favourite albums that everyone agrees on.

This way, you can end up being "forced" into hearing an album you might not like, might not have heard or might not have thought of giving a chance. Like, for me, that will probably be most albums here but it's an interesting departure from what I usually listen to.

So I'd say confirm the serious members, write up a rotation and get the first member choosing, then the important thing is to keep up the pressure. People may get annoyed and want to opt out, but if so then they weren't that serious in the first place. For any album club to thrive it needs to have constant activity, as I told Wpnfire; his is beginning to lose momentum. You need to remind people "Hey: reviews due in three days" and "Who's next to pick an album?" etc.

You can use the review system, a matrix or just pure discussion if you want. See which suits, or if you want to do something totally different. It's your club, but just take a moment to see how best it can be run, and it should be pretty successful. I would say start right now: pick an album (as founder I'd put you at the top of the list for album selection) tell people to listen to it and meet back in a week or two for discussions.

That's the way I try (or tried, kind of been usurped in my absence! ) to run the PRAC, and mostly it works.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Frownland

I'm more of a fan of the voting route. Worked pretty well back in the general album club days.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Thelonious Monkey

I certainly won't be picking any albums out as I got no experience.

Isbjørn

I'm a supporter of the whole picking alternately thing. We had a voting system in the emo club, but it didn't work all that well.

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Pet_Sounds

You've got a good point, Trollheart. I think since psych is a rather broad genre, we'd better go the rotation route, to start at any rate. Otherwise we might end up with an endless string of rock and never touch on other genres. It also makes my job easier, and we spend more time listening and discussing, as opposed to voting. If members such as Justin don't want to choose albums, we can either have a poll on their turn or skip them. Is once a week too often for everyone? If so, I'll pick an album later today - that way everyone has plenty of time to listen over the weekend - and we'll proceed on that basis.

As for discussion, I won't expect a long review out of anyone but Trollheart . We can post a few things we liked, didn't like, found interesting, and discuss and debate. That will shake into place as time goes by.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Isbjørn

Sounds good! Most of my picks will probably be really obvious though, so bear with me if you've already heard them.

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Pet_Sounds

I'm sure most of you are familiar with this album, but I wanted to start things off on a strong note, and Justin is still unsure about psychedelia, so I wanted to show him what this is all about without weirding him out. Briks hasn't heard it either, if his RYM is true. So…

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Isbjørn

My RYM is always true. Also, I'm pretty sure the image link is broken.

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