Top 5 songs you skip

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Exactly for this reason, that it is NOT a pop fan club, we should listen to all the bits of an album.     I see it uin the opposite way, if you visit a POP fan club, they will say everything is perfect, wonderful, extraordinaire, we have a defined taste and we know what we like and what not, if i like I buy and listen if I don't like, i don't, as simple as that.   BaldFriede wrote: I probably don't like "More Fool Me" any more than you, but I will go with it nevertheless. Why? Because I feel I owe it to the artist. They wanted the album like that, and I respect that. There are often tracks on albums which I don't like, but nothing at all will make me skip them.  Either I listen to the album as a whole or I won't listen to it at all.   We owe to the artist?   Probably we owe gratitude for providing us music we love, but the artist also owes the audience who buys their music and pays US$ 150.00 for a ticket, because we are providing them of their living and status of artists, they owe us a high quality product, and if we believe an album or part of it is not a quality product, we won't buy it or stop listening the `part we believe is sub standard quality. BaldFriede wrote: Actor Klaus Kinski once said: "If I were among the spectators of a theatrical play and felt a cough coming, I would rather die than utter this cough". Why did he say that? Because of respect to the artists on stage. It is this same respect that makes me listen to a whole album, even if there are tracks on it which I don't like. The artist wanted it that way, take it or leave it.   That's a different thing, I would never insult an artist or disrespect him wiith annoyinng sounds, if I feel I don't like a concert, I simply leave as i left in Jon Anderson's solo concert and during a show in the Invisible Touch tour.   But what I do in my house when listening a product I PAID FOR, that's my decision.   And that phrase "The artist wanted it that way, take it or leave it."  is very relative, because there are lots of compilations released by all our favorite artist, exclusively for commercial purpose, and even in the non conceptual albums during the LP era, this albums were recorded to fit the limited lenght of a vinyl, probably left a better song because it was too long for the format..   I bought  "The Best of Kansas", but i don't have to listen Fight Fire with Fire or Hold on, because I nbelieve it's material that's not in the level of the band.   I assure you that the artist will feel more offended if you don't buy a whole album because of a terrible song than if you skip it but you pay for the album, because he won't be receiving his money.   Iván

What will you do with classical music like Schubert's "Winterreise", Ivan? Skip those lieder you don't like and only listen to the rest? I don't; the "Winterreise" is a complete work, and I listen to it as such. And just like that an album by an artist is a complete work for me; why should I skip anything there?
With compilations it is different. First of all, most compilations are not made by the artists themselves, they are made by their record companies. There are compilations the artists themselves compiled, but I don't see why I should buy them, unless a) the material on it was in some way reworked or b) they contain material which does not appear anywhere else. I only buy compilations in any of those cases; in the first case I will treat the compilation album like any other album of the artist, since he took the time to rework the songs (an example would be Peter Hammill's "The Love Songs"), in the second case I will listen only to those tracks which are new material. My respect towards an artist DOES have limits, and I don't see why I should listen to tracks taken out of context which I can better listen to on the original album.
This, by the way, touches on the matter of bonus tracks, especially with reissues of albums. I usually skip those bonus tracks, which in my opinion does not contradict my statement at all.
There are, however, exceptions; if an album was released at the same time as a single it often happens that the B-side of it did not make it onto the album; in that case I consider the B-side a kind of lost track and will listen to it too if it appears as bonus track on an album. A good example is Hawkwind's "Sonic Attack", which in CD-form contains the bonus track "Transdimensional Man", which was only released as B-side of a single at the time as the album came out and perfectly fits in with the rest of it. Another good example is Van der Graaf's "The Quiet Zone / The Pleasure Dome"; the bonus tracks "Ship of Fools" and "Door" are obviously from the same period and fit the mood of the album perfectly.
In other cases, however, bonus tracks stand out like sore thumbs, because they stylistically don't fit with the rest of the album. They are obviously not part of the whole, and in that case I may indeed skip them, paradoxically even if I like them. In the latter case I will go and listen to them seperately at another time, skipping the rest of the album.
This is how my mind works. I see albums as whole pieces of work, and just like I don't go and watch only those scenes from a movie I likke best when I watch it on video and skip the rest or lsiten to only the second movement of a symphony, I will sit through the whole album. Anything else makes no sense for me.

Spenny wrote: I didn't sign a contract when I bought an album to listen to it as presented. You don't get a refund if an album hits a bad patch. What should we do with an album like Wish You Were Here when the band say they regret using Roy Harper for lead vocals on one track - does that give us the authority to allow ourselves not to listen to it? I'm quite happy to skip a musical movement on a classical performance if it is too dull - it adds to my enjoyment on the basis that if I felt I had to listen in its entirety or not at all, then it would be not at all. Technically, I might be missing some interesting musical technicality, but in some ways this is like wine tasting - you can drink a wine just as a drink, or you can treat it as a technical exploration of its qualities. You can actually do both on the same wine at different times. In the days of vinyl there were plenty of albums that would end up being a "side 1 only" or "side 2 only" and there are some double albums which are generally acknowledged to not be strong enough (knowing that many an album in the 70s had lots of tracks recorded and then they selected the best of the session, rather than having constructed a deliberate order of songs). Should you skip Helen Wheels if you have the American version of Band on the Run but not on the original English version? The number of albums that are genuinely constructed as a uninterrupted narrative are rare. Even something like Dark Side of the Moon, with its tracks that are so familiar that it begs to be listened to only in its set order,  does have songs that stand in their own right and can be listened to as a single. It is personal choice, it is not a matter of respect.

Well, this is MY personal choice. I think it is philistine to expect any musician to be a 100% peer of me. But why should I ignore his / her /their other parts I enjoy less, as long as I have the feeling that someone honestly plays the music from the heart? No, not I; that way I only reduce an artist to my projection of the artist. Would you like that if you were the artist? I wouldn't.

Visitor13 wrote: By pressing the 'skip' button, you acknowledge that the artist is a separate being and not a projection.

I disagree and have explained why. But I won't go on with it; it seems no-one shares the opinion of Jean and me.
What would interest me though: What would you do when visiting a concert? You can't skip there. Do you put the fingers into your ears? Would you do it in a classical concert too? Or in an opera? Would you close your eyes and put your fingers into your ears when watching a movie in a cinema which you already know and a scene comes up which you don't like? I sincerely doubt it. So why do you do it when listening to an album? Just because it is easily possible to skip?

Of course it is different. You can't listen to all artists; it is simply a matter of time. And I am not bothering about it at all. I just wonder why so few are of our opinion; I would at least have expected a few people to think the same way. But no-one really is a bit of a disappointment.

BaldFriede wrote: Of course it is different. You can't listen to all artists; it is simply a matter of time.

But if you had the time, would you? Or a more realistic example - do you listen to ALL Gentle Giant albums regularly and in order? When you want to listen to say In a Glass House, do you pull out all the preceding albums first?

EDIT: Dean, there's a difference between skipping a track we feel has too little artistic merit and one we don't like simply because it's too loud or whatever. I believe it's perfectly fair to skip a track in the former case.

Though of course we first need to acknowledge that there may be artistic quality beyond personal pleasure. 


Edited by Visitor13 - February 13 2009 at 10:00

1. Yes - Cans and Brahams... pretentious aristocracy by Wakeman.
2. DT - All of Octavarium til "Octavarium"
3. DT - All of Change Of Seasons till "Change Of Seasons"
4. Tool - Virginity Tres

Rocktopus wrote: Most albums are a bunch of songs, and many songs feel like a complete universe. Its more relevant to compare an album with a collection of short stories than a chapter in a book. And I would not have a problem with rereading just one or two, or three short stories. Or read most, but skip one or two. I think its healthy to be selective sometimes.  Although I also mainly listen to full albums.

Sorry, but I think the Twins didn't come up with any proper metaphors which would justify their way of thinking. My friend Rocktopus here did. In films and novels there's one beginning, one middle and one ending, and in almost every album in the world there's a whole bunch of beginnings and endings... Only a handful of albums were intended to be seen as one piece, and more often than not the album is only the way to deliver the artists' actual creations: the songs!

I look at the album like it's a museum: a place where all these works of art are kept, but I don't have any particular respect for the museum itself.

^ By the same token you are listening to a 'Best of Genesis' of sorts if you only listen to SEBTP and not to all Genesis albums regularly and in order.

And what is a concert if not the skipping of some songs in favour of others, and the rearranging of their order? 

And yeah, the analogies with movies and concerts are flawed anyway. Albums are usually much more loosely structured.

Not to mention that if we were to always respect the artists' wishes we'd miss out on some great music. Lizard springs to mind, and so do The Goldberg Variations, I think.


Edited by Visitor13 - February 14 2009 at 05:01

Visitor13 wrote: ^ By the same token you are listening to a 'Best of Genesis' of sorts if you only listen to SEBTP and not to all Genesis albums regularly and in order. And what is a concert if not the skipping of some songs in favour of others, and the rearranging of their order?  And yeah, the analogies with movies and concerts are flawed anyway. Albums are usually much more loosely structured. Not to mention that if we were to always respect the artists' wishes we'd miss out on some great music. Lizard springs to mind, and so do The Goldberg Variations, I think.

What would you do if all the songs on an album floated into each other? Would you still skip the "weak ones"? I can't believe that.
An album by an artist is for me like a symphony of a composer. Just as the symphony is supposed to be a whole and only makes sense that way, so does an album. The songs on the album are like the movements of a symphony.. There have to be high points and low points; one can in my opinion not really appreciate the high points if you skip the low ones.
But feel free to listen to an album any way you like and skip if that is your way. I don't; that's my way of dealing with a piece of art.
Suppose there is a song of about 20 minutes which you think is great, but somewhere in the middle there are 2 minutes you really hate. Do you skip those 2 minutes then? Actually it would be easy to make your version of that song by cutting those 2 minutes out. But would you actually do so? Then why do you do it with a single song? Just because it can be done more easily?
No, I will stick to listening to the whole of an album and nothing else..

Visitor13 wrote: ^ Will you also keep ignoring the nonsensical consequences of your views that Anderson III and I have pointed out?

They are nonsensical consequences indeed, so of course I ignore them . I only take into account consequences that make sense.
You don't have to like my approach, but it is mine. Why can't you not simply accept it?