[hinkley]

I’m betting subconscious but intentional. I’ve heard a couple artists talk about how they organize an album and there’s a vibe they’re going for but I didn’t get the impression any of them had it down to anything like a science.

Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz. It’s just two artists putting a story arc together by feel and getting the same shape. A bit birthday paradox, but a bit shared vibe.

In the case of The Wall, I would bet a certain degree of symmetry was being reached for. Few artists want to leave or start an album on a sour note, but there will be songs in the middle that are.

One of the things I miss from the pre-streaming era is that “nobody” listens to whole albums at a time anymore, and I find that a shame. I used to start humming the next song on the album when I would hear things on the radio. Makes it worse when they trim the intro or outro for radio play though. I prefer the album version of Wish You Were Here, for instance.

[dotancohen]

My then-15 year old daughter surprised me a few years ago. We had just pulled up to the house. Instead of opening the car door, she put on Led Zeppelin I and we sat in the car listening to the entire album together. I honestly think that was the first time in her life that she put on an entire album to listen to.

And she did appreciate what an experience it was - like watching a movie when all you've ever seen were Youtube Shorts, or like reading a novel when all you've ever read were memes.

[hinkley]

Most good albums have one song that was never released as a single, that’s just for the fans. So even beyond the “story” the album contaminates, they miss important chapters.

Anyone who talks about Tears for Fears, a side conversation about The Working Hour will start. Throwing Copper had five or six singles released over almost three years, but Pillar of Davidson is still my favorite song from that album, and one of my favorites overall. I could listen to Kashmir or PoD in much the same mood. They just build and build.

It would be similar to Patreon content today (though writers with Patreon or magazine articles often release collections later that have all of the rarer content. Martha Wells is the first to spring to my mind, and Naomi Novik for another)

[tomcam]

For me that's very often the 7th song on an LP and usually starts its second side

[gibspaulding]

Wow, I remember noticing this same thing back when I was exploring a lot of different artists. On streaming sites often a bands top songs will be ones that came out recently, or a collab they did with a more popular band, or a track that for whatever reason appealed to a wider audience. But those aren’t what you really want to hear if you’re trying to decide if you like that band. My strategy would instead be to go find either the bands earliest studio album or the oldest album that is well represented in their top tracks and skip to track 7. I never thought about why, but it definitely works.

[prepend]

> One of the things I miss from the pre-streaming era is that “nobody” listens to whole albums at a time anymore

I’ve been looking forward to finding out how Aphex Twin has built projects around the streaming format. It may take many more years and releases until someone finds out something like the ten seconds from 0:30-0:40 on all his tracks work when randomly played together in any order, or something along those line.