Challenge - Response

(Photo by Mike)

So if you haven't read John87's post on February 14th, skip down to that before you continue reading-- this is a response to his challenge.

So I listened to "Per Second Second," and my initial one-word reactions were: intense, blunt, and incomplete. I also felt the song was fine, but not really a winner-- it felt like a demo. Then I pulled up the full album and started listening, and I realized before I even got to the song in question that some of the things I mentioned would help it fit right in with the album. The whole album has a little bit of a demo feel, just because all the songs are so thick, although it is interesting that I call it a demo sound, since the album took four years to record. The songs all seem to build and decline into one another-- there isn't a constant ramp throughout the whole album, but the songs just seem to build off one another. By the time you get to "Per Second Second," the immediacy of the song is really what the album needed. I still think the song is just ok, but I think I understand its purpose when I hear it as part of the whole album.

I don't think this theory is true with many albums, though. Some albums are greater than the sum of their parts; "Smile" by Brian Wilson, "A Grand Don't Come for Free" by the Streets, etc. But there are still a lot of albums, I think, that you could take a song and it stands well on its own. It's interesting, though, especially since John and I are very big on listening to full albums. I think that for me a lot of albums work better then songs mostly because I am so attached to the albums.