Album listening - a lost artform

I was reading some album reviews on the net and a reviewer was mentioning that a certain album would be difficult to listen through for the average listener. This got me thinking: how easy is it to listen through a CD without skipping tracks? It turns out it is harder than it seems. There are many deciding factors in this challenge; general interest in the artist, free time to spend listening, and like-ability of the songs. I have found that more experimental or concept albums are very hit and miss for this experiment as they are either coherent (successful concept) or just plain wrong (unsuccessful concept).

I think these days people are not really interested in sitting and listening to a whole CD. We just grab the tracks we like (the singles most likely), bop them on our Iphone/android/mp3/etc and listen to only those songs... after all they are the best: right? I want to buck the trend. I want to listen to it all and I'll only put full albums on my mobile device!

Yesterday, I challenged myself to listen to Smashing Pumpkins 'Machina' album. When I first bought this CD (way back in 2000) I hated it. I thought it had a lot of annoying songs. I guess I missed the concept. Upon listening again I actually like the CD, now maybe I don't get the 'concept' part of it but I think it actually gels well: it grew on me. It is a good album. not five star material but definitely above average.

My challenge to you gentle readers is to grab a CD and listen to it from the first to last track... and in the car doesn't count!

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The way I see it

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