Working on So, Peter Gabriel agonized over the song order. In Your Eyes should by all rights have been the grand finale. But Gabriel knew that putting it that far in its awesome bass would be a problem. Ultimately of course it wound up being the first song on side 2. What I find interesting about this story is the level of detail and the range of factors that went into it. I mean, whoever would have thought, the details of cutting lacquer are why the best song came first instead of last?
20 responses Add your response
As primarily a vinyl listener, I tend to listen to entire albums. Tim, I don’t care how you or anyone listens to your music, but let’s be factual. The order of an album is rarely the order in which songs were composed. Just like a book is not written in the order it appears (editinghn/shuffling/ etc) Sometimes it represents part of a concerted artistic vision, sometimes it does not-but I suspect it usually does. Is hifideity about reproducing artistic intent? If so, I am confused why you would think it anal to listen to an album in its entirety which is part of that artistic intent. If not, I am confused why you are on Audiogon. Not being disrespectful here, just don’t understand why your lens went to people being anal. I didn’t see this as a discussion of people curtailing your freedom or enforcing uniformity. Can you help me understand? |
Nobody gets up to flip the record at the symphony my resolutions in no particular order: surf more, where the waves and sharks ain’t virtual read more do more for the local food bank argue less on Agon in particular cellar more, drink the same add another pro bono consulting client breathe love immerse myself in music |
About twenty years ago I thought it would be funny to press a CD such that it would play halfway through and stop, at which time the listener would have to instruct the player to play the second half. An imitation of getting up to flip an LP over. And at the end of the "first side" of the CD, the sound of a stylus scraping on a paper LP label would be heard ;-) . |
mofimadness: "My take on it has always been, that the artist made and sequenced the album that way and I should listen that way..." As far as I'm concerned, it should be a felony offense to listen to an artist's album out of exact sequential order! I mean really now, people, these artist types are very sensitive souls and it's just down right rude and thoughtlessly catty not to behold any artists work in the order they created it. C'mon now everybody! Have we as a society degenerated to the point that we no longer have the proverbial and collective stick up our backsides? That's right, shove it back up there and THINK!! Would anyone even contemplate for a moment to gaze upon a fine painting in any manner other than the exact order the artist painted it? How about beholding a sculpture out of the order the artist sculpted it? A book out of the order the artist wrote it? ooh, uh-oh, hmm, well, let's just scratch this last book one, bad example. Really now, let's get real! How can a society go wrong being excessively anal retentive and repressed, right? Tim |
The wise lives this day like if it was the last, but the great soul lives this day like it will be the first one... My deep salutation to you noble100 the great soul... My deep salutation to muzikat and Geoffkait, the wise one... My deep salutation to this unknown animal and divine spirit that lives each day like the first and the last... |
The biggest change the CD made to music listening was the elimination of the two sides of an LP. The songs on one side of an LP were programmed to flow independently of the other side. The CD of course has only one (playing) side, and for that reason a lot of CD's sound too long to me. The exception is the albums by artists good enough to have all grade-A songs, no filler. |
Uh-oh! I've been living every day as if it's my first. Woops. I don't want to stop now just because I got it a tiny bit wrong! It's really been a lot of fun thus far because there are none of those pesky, party pooping qualifiers like "as long as it's legal", "as long as nobody gets hurt", "as long as it's consensual" and "as long as All the zoo animals aren't let loose", etc. Shoot, now that I'm thinking about all the fun things I've been doing, maybe a few qualifiers wouldn't hurt, they might somewhat moderate the downside of living by this motto. Tim |