does it matter anymore?
It’s been a long time since I sat down and heard a CD from begining to end. Now, back in the vinyl days that was the was to do it, you started it and let it spin.
Friends used to talk about how one song fit the feel of the album, how a song worked following another, how the album as a whole was a unit, remember the theme albums?
But today I get the feeling all that is antique, people download tracks one at a time, Mp3’s etc. mean that folks are picking and choosing what they listen to with less attention to a single artist or CD.
So when you are putting together a CD does the song order count? Do you think someone else is going to sit down and hear the whole CD from begining to end? Do you have some kind of strategy about the order like Best song first, up tempo, up, up, then softer song, down, up again, etc etc… or does any of that matter anymore? Does the way people listen to music change how the music is packaged? What do you say?
Good questions… I’ve always thought of music as the ultimate communicator. so I am always conscious of order. I doubt many listeners are though. Then that’s the difference between “listeners” and “hearers” maybe?
Still good questions.
I think it matters. I’m from the old school vinyl camp too. I think it depends on the style/genre of the music to a certain degree how you arrange the performance dynamic of a compilation. I really, really hate it when I get a new CD and it kicks off like gang-busters and everything after the first song slowly winds down to BORING. I say make the CD tell a story either literally with the songs lyrics/message or dynamically with a roller coaster ride of emotion/feel. Don’t go nuts of course. Wind up the listener for a song or two, then ease them down into a relaxed state a bit then nail 'em again a few songs later. Keep the feel/tempo/content interesting.
PLEASE… for the sake of the music, avoid the “loudness wars”. Keep the dynamics in your mastered or psuedo-mastered songs. I have thrown away more than one commercial CD because it was mixed and mastered to be so “in your face” that they gave me the nervous jerks after a couple or three songs. Even with the volume lowered, there’s a certain “RAAAAHHHH!!! Look at me! I am so THERE!!!” quality that just grates the h#!! out of my nerves.
There. Diogenes has spoken. Follow the above rules and you’ll either become rich beyond your wildest dreams OR find yourself a middle-aged corporate drone with a wife, two and one-third kids (that little guy is hard to keep up with… keeps falling in the cracks between the sofa cushions… “Anybody seen Tiny?”) and a fat mortgage.
Dare the odds. Go for option one…
D
PS What happened to common sense? Do you guys know where it went? “The average American family contains two and ONE-THIRD children.” What kind of moronic crap is that?
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So when you are putting together a CD does the song order count?
Great question & interesting answers. It definitely matters when we are talking about CD's but I'll ask an even more general question: in the days on MP3 players, do CD's matter anymore? If not, then of course, the song order doesn't really matter?
But getting back to the original question, I noticed on one of U2's CD (the one with Beautiful Day on it), the songs seemed to be arranged from "best" to "worst" (these terms being subjective of course).
i love taking a few minutes in the old school vain of actually putting together an album. makes it feel (for me) like a finished, unified opus instead of a colelcted hodgepodge taped off the radio (also old school). I also like to write concept albums, so of course order is everything there.
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in the days on MP3 players, do CD's matter anymore?
Hey Mike... cynicism is MY job!
Someday, portable devices will have enough storage that we'll be able to carry around a couple hundred full res, high fidelity tunes in our shirt pockets. Until then, we'll have to deal with the mp3 junk.
I'm currently listening to "Beethoven's Last Night" by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. There is definite "order" on this CD. Great stuff and a good departure from the usual fare...
D
Quote: (Diogenes @ Jun. 27 2008, 8:25 PM)
I'm currently listening to "Beethoven's Last Night" by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. There is definite "order" on this CD. Great stuff and a good departure from the usual fare...
D
Hey D,
Got hold of that a couple of years ago....Dreams of Candlelight is an astonishlingly good song. Made my own backing so I could sing it at a Valentines gig.
Ian
i saw a CD in a museam yesterday, the curator said it contained something called MUSIC, but nowbody could remember or knew what MUSIC was -
Dr J
Quote: (Bruffie @ Jun. 27 2008, 1:56 PM)
Quote: (Diogenes @ Jun. 27 2008, 8:25 PM)
I'm currently listening to "Beethoven's Last Night" by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. There is definite "order" on this CD. Great stuff and a good departure from the usual fare...
D
Hey D,
Got hold of that a couple of years ago....Dreams of Candlelight is an astonishlingly good song. Made my own backing so I could sing it at a Valentines gig.
Ian
Oh man... I have to agree Ian. "Candlelight" is an AWESOME tune!
Last Christmas I got to see them do it LIVE. Oh brother did I love it. After the usual Christmas show, they did about six cuts off of Beethoven's Last Night for an encore and THEN... came back out and played a couple new cuts soon to be released. Heck I ain't checked in a while... it may available now.
What a talented bunch. It would be awesome to be involved with such a group. However, I am probably not even qualified to tune Petrelli's guitars for him.
D - TSO fan-boy...
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i saw a CD in a museum yesterday, the curator said it contained something called MUSIC, but nobody could remember or knew what MUSIC was -
Dr J
I've heard the industry is wanting to do away with CD's since online sales don't require a factory, labor etc, no overhead=higher profits, actually for me this could be a good thing because of a much better selection at the used CD store when all the yahoos turn in their CD's.
Only problem is that I don't want the CDs that a bunch of AIR SUPPLY fans ditched.
I am kidding because I love the idea of a collection, little gems with pitcures and liner notes, a disc is like a little time capsule, open it up later and all sorts of memories come back. I love my mp3 player but the CD is something that has an identity, a symbol of the band. The big old vinyl with the big pictures and text on the back are even more collectable. I will hate to see the CD phased out.
You guys have some real insight and in reading this something occured to me:
1) order is important to some people but not to others so:
2) have a strategy if you're putting together a CD so that if someone appreciates that, they have something to appreciate and -
3) for listeners that don't care about, or don't need an order - well they don't care so the order that you chose won't bother them anyway.
Thanks for the feedback - I feel like I learned something today.
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Thanks for the feedback - I feel like I learned something today.
Me too... my vacation wasn't long enough. I'm more full of crap than usual! LOL...
D
PS Nah, you got the right idea...
To my mind (and I am definitely not someone in touch with current thinking) the concept of the ‘single’ died in 1967 - the current ‘MP3 download craze’ is really just an attempt by record companies to revitalize a once prosperous practice - selling songs one/two at a time.
(Is he nuts? The record companies hate downloading.)
Nope. Record companies love downloading - they just want to control it is all. They hate people being able to acquire songs for free but the idea of charging people per song makes them salivate like Pavlov’s Dog.
As has been observed here - zero cost for physical production suits record companies to a “Tee”. It’s the perfect opportunity to ‘screw’ the artist at the same time as ‘screwing’ the consumer - and there’s nothing like ‘mass-screwing’ to satisfy record companies. They live for the opportunity.
(Here’s the thing - record companies have been screwing artists and consumers for so long that they’ve begun to think they are entitled to do so. Can you imagine? Not satisfied with charging twenty times their production costs for product (the ratio for CD sales) they want to up the level to fifty times (the ratio for MP3 sales) if only they can stop people from downloading for free.)
But consumers (I hope, beyond hope) aren’t as stupid as record companies like to think that they are.
When you ask about CD order, you are really asking about album order - because a CD is still an album - no matter what the pundits say. And it matters.
And it will still matter when the record companies die the death they so richly deserve to die.
Pay attention to what you produce as an artist and respect the listeners and you won’t go far wrong. The basic unit of music is the ‘album’ - not the ‘single’. Just as the basic unit of writing is the paragraph, not the sentence. (Despite the fact that publishers would prefer to allocate resources by sentence rather than paragraph.)
[Rant Mode Off]It all depends on the depth of your vision - are you ‘good’ for only three minutes or are you good for up to 80 minutes at a time? YMMV.[/Rant Mode On]
"And it will still matter when the record companies die the death they so richly deserve to die."
Trouble is I don’t think they’re going anywhere despite their crying about lost sales. There is an ocean of people out there who will buy whatever is promoted.
But we don’t have to. There is more indie and alternative unsigned talent out there than you can hear in a lifetime. I think that development is great!
I agree with you about the idea of an album, and a cd is a record, a preservation of sound in time.
I counted and everybody on this thread votes for: yes order counts.
"I have thrown away more than one commercial CD because it was mixed and mastered to be so “in your face” that they gave me the nervous jerks after a couple or three songs. Even with the volume lowered, there’s a certain “RAAAAHHHH!!! Look at me! I am so THERE!!!” quality that just grates the h#!! out of my nerves."
Ok so I came up with the strategy for my next project:
best song
a little faster
quicker, pop
faster still
rocked up
rockin out
so rock that Dio gets upset
Blasting so that D gets mad
SO rock that D throws it out the window
more rock
settle down a bit
quiet to end.
Sorry D , some of us go for the blast.
Don’t misunderstand me there Tricky Dick. I am as big a rocker as anybody. I was referring to the HUGE tendency these days to over compress/limit digital audio. Leave a little bit of room there for the dynamics to exist. Otherwise, it’s just 'RAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" for 74 minutes. Even if the songs are awesome rock tunes, it’ll still benefit from NOT being squashed to death. (And it won’t find it’s way into D’s dead CD repository…
I think this, like most things audio, is a subjective thing. There are people out there who want their material to be as subjectively LOUD as possible so it gets mastered that way. Me? If I want it louder, I’ll turn the volume up thank you very much. It’s cool when the music has a softer feel and then smacks you. Constant SMACK no matter the content is just not for me.
So if you like the over compressed, smashed sound, go for it! Don’t let anybody tell you any different. Make up your own mind. Be your own man. Buy a box of cigars. Go to the beach… What?
D