All right. Listen up all you mother fuckers, and listen up good.
You listen to music wrong.
"But Nick," you protest, in your sulky wiener voice, "how can I listen to music wrong? I mean, I just put it on, and let it roll". Shut up, you whiny ass mother fucker; I'm gonna tell you why.
Two things which you use/have that make you listen to music wrong: discographies and shuffle. If you use shuffle or DL full discographies, impale yourself on a rusty pole for me this very instant. Thanks.
Fuck Shuffle:
Thanks to the invent of iTunes and all that bullshit, it's pretty typical for people to put all their music into a program and just let it play random songs. WHAT THE FUCK?! Do you even care about music and the people who make it? I assumed, if you read this blog, you did. But apparently not. For a musician, (especially so for the type of bands featured here) their album is their life. They put there heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears and usually all their money into making an album. They spend hundreds and hundreds of hours putting together something that, essentially to the rest of the world, is THEM. Making sure the flow from track to track is perfect, that that last song is the ultimate ender song for an album, building an atmosphere and feel that coherently progresses from song to song. And what do you do with your fucking shuffle?? Piss in that bands eyes; essentially telling them that the work they put into crafting that masterpiece is all for not, seeing as you're just gonna listen to what ever fucking song comes up in what ever fucking order iTunes likes. FUCK. THAT. If you care at all about the bands you love, listen to their fucking albums the way they were intended!
Fuck Discographies:
"Oh man, I own every song ever done by Converge, so I must be a huge fan" - typical douche fuck
No. Fuck you. Take a grapefruit spoon and carve out your eye. Music is not a commodity. Owning music does not get you scene points. Your coolness is not measured by how many bands exist on your hard drive. Music is a special and precious thing; it can invoke emotions and feeling in ways that nothing else can. The right album can raise the spirits of otherwise unfixable moods, can keep you from offing yourself, or start a fucking party. But thanks to your discography downloading bullshit, you've reduced an entire band's life work to a fucking folder on your hard drive.
An album can't be truly appreciated until you've given it time and listens; let it sink in. Until you wake up with it in your head, until you can start humming the opening riffs to the next song as one song ends because you know that album that well, until you've really THOUGHT about the music you're listening to, you'll never truly appreciate and album. Discographies make this impossible. Twenty five to two hundred songs by an artist (even if not on shuffle) is impossible to appreciate or understand.
So here's what you're going to do. If you're not going to buy an album and are going to DL it instead (which I understand; music is expensive, and buying an album you've never listened to can be a waste if you don't like it,) download JUST that album by that artist. Listen to that album, from start to finish, front to back. Let it sink in. Listen to it as the artist INTENDED you to listen to it. If you don't like the album, or it doesn't move you, delete it. If you like it, keep that album, maybe pick up another album by them. Go out and buy that album in hard copy, go see the band live when they come to town, and scream their lyrics at their show; buy the album from them in person, or a t-shirt, or any other way to support them.
Now go out there, and listen to music the RIGHt way.
Nick.
PS, Surprise hit of last year, Converge's guitar player's other band, Doomriders - Darkness Come Alive http://www.mediafire.com/?4iwd3jj2jom (and yes, I have listened to this album the right way)
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