"Iain Churches" wrote in message
...

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

To me, the order of tracks on an album is sacrosanct and I always listen
in strict sequence, even when it's a CD, unless I just want to play a
single track. Anyway, it seems there are two schools of thought now that
downloads are all the rage and tracks are stored en masse on MP3 players.
See the phrase "The £12,000 speakers were revealing little nuances of
sound that some of us had not heard before." in this interesting article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12209143


What goes around, comes around! :-)


Morning Keith


Afternoon Iain!



Interesting thread.

Albums which fall under the category of "concept" are
written to follow a sequence (Floyd, Moody Blues etc)
so it seems logical to play them back in the intended order.


I think ordinary compilations should be played in the correct sequence.
Don't you 'know what's coming next' when you listen to a track? It's not
right if the track is followed by something different on say a different
compilation!



This applies also to classical music and jazz suites, and as
you say the order of tracks is indeed sacrosanct.

Pop records are a different thing all together, when a dozen
or so individual titles are assembled on one CD.


Yes, pop music is different. I don't listen to it and I don't see how it
could matter the order in which it's played.




A large percentage of recorded releases are compilations.
Artists and composers seem to need to "fill the CD to the
brim" where usually twelve titles suffice for one sitting.
Similarly in classical music, it seems that most people find
a symphonic work of three movments of about10 mins
each to be a sufficient dose.


It's my contention that no-one listens to all the music on a CD - especially
if there's a remote control!



I wonder how many people sit without talking or doing
something else, to listen to a complete CD of 60mins.
Probably not a large percentage?


Yes, see above.


People these days seem
to have a shorter attention span and many more distractions.


Many people think the duration of a 'pop' tune was set by the available
space on a 78 record - it wasn't, the length of a song has to do with
people's attention span and their ability to memorise/learn it.

Similarly, a YouTube video has to be very good to be longer than 2 minutes
in my book!



As regards downloads. From what I have been told, few
people seem to download a whole album but pick their
favourite tracks into DIY compilations.


Makes sense if you are being charged 'physical prices'!!



I enjoy talking with my neghbour's children about
music. They each have thousands and thousands of
songs on their iPods. When I ask them to play me
a favourite (the list seems to change daily:-) they rarely
play a song right through without saying "listen to
this next one - even better"


Yep.


I use an .mp3 player when outside, chopping logs (or
shovelling snow:-(( and then I usually set it to shuffle
mode - I like the element of surprise:-)


I suspect 90% of people do 90% of the time - not while chopping logs though!
:-)