Do Young Artists Care About Album Sequencing? • Page 3

Agreed about both Cities (though a few songs kill the momentum like Reclusion and Mathematics) and definitely Brother, Sister

 

This probably isn't up many of your alleys, but I would say Dawn Richard's Blackheart would be my favorite sequenced album ever. It's just so complete, and one of the few albums where any change in the album sequencing would drastically alter the experience. Before this album, I thought sequencing worked best when there's a narrative, and boy oh, boy I was wrong. There's no obtuse or discernible literal narrative to Blackheart. Even so, the way the music ebbs and flows shows you the progression of her mental state through her father's illness and having her entire being become reduced to shambles, only to rediscover yourself again at the lowest depths.

 

i've been thinking about this more and i've come to realize that while i've become more an album listener than i used to be, i still tend to alternate pretty evenly between shuffling an artist's discography and playing through full albums. if i'm listening to vinyl or a new album, sequencing comes up more in my mind but for the most part my excitement for new music comes from anticipating new discography highlights moreso that an album experience, if that makes sense.

also, reclusion is the best song on Cities

 

1. I do actually think that more artists care about album sequencing now than before. Obviously not at the level of, say, classical composers, but certainly more than, let's say, classic rock artists or past pop artists.

2. However, I think the accessibility of music ruined what is considered a "bonus track", which causes bonus tracks to be included as proper album tracks after the "defined closer" and this in itself affects the sequencing values of albums.

 

THANK you.

 

Yeah, I can't imagine "Disarmed" sitting anywhere else on the album. I really do love M/m's tracklisting, and for a while I've pointed to "Treading Paper" into "Blur" into "Words in the Water" as one of my favorite 3-song-runs in music history. The way "Treading" builds up to its ending leads really perfectly into the aggressive of "Blur," meanwhile "Blur" has some really profound lyrical themes that are immediately referenced in "Words."

 

Well, I've been in the making of a 4 song double EP with my band, and I don't think I could have spent any more time on over-thinking the sequencing! :) I still believe it's an awesome project, and it doesn't matter if it's not a full-lenght, I still have put a lot of thought in all of that, not just for the sake of releasing any music, but having a full vision out there. Hope it will make you feel a little better hehe.