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Album Sides

Indulge me this silly topic. Sonics aside, there are two things I lament about the decline of the LP as a source of music in my life. One is the loss of the physical album cover, which we could read (without magnification) and study and relate to, if you know what I mean. I rarely know the names of songs anymore on CDs, because I don't "hang" with the cover.

The other loss is the album side. With an LP, there are two "first songs," and two sequences of songs to suck you in. Song sequencing is a whole different challenge with a CD. Do you remember records where you would listen to one side all the time and even ignore the other side or sides? The CD experience is different.

There have been some remarkable album sides. Which do you love most? A few of mine: Abbey Road side 2, Blonde on Blonde side 2, Moondance side 1, Wheels of Fire side 3, American Beauty side 1 (side 2 also).

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david99
1,467 posts
 
Joni Mitchell "Blue" side 1 "Court and Spark" side 1 Jethro Tull "Benefit" side 2 This is crazy! Many LP's have only 1 decent side.MUCH harder to find a LP where every song is great.I can think of 2 quickly.Tom Petty "Full Moon Fever" and "Damn The Torpedoes" His albums are like "Best ofs"
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,354 posts
 
Rolling Stones, the one with the pizza/cake thing on the front cover (haven't owned it for 15 years), side one. I used to listen to it every morning, while having a bowl for breakfast, in my youth.
sean
6,231 posts
 
I was just discussing this with my brother. He is only 25 while i'm 36, so i grew up with vinyl and he with digital. I too rarely know the songs on an album since i don't have the covers and liner notes to study anymore. Besides this, i don't know who's in what band, what they look like, how "creative" their artwork is, etc... All of this stuff added up to part of the bands' "feel" and image. With CD's, i just don't have the interest in "microscoping" all of the details that i did with LP's. Another point that you kind of touched upon is that with LP's, there was a "breaking point" to the music. With CD's, you either hit play and are "forced" to listen to the whole thing or "pick, choose & program" only what you like. While CD's tend to develop a certain "flow" for their length, LP's quite often had two different "flavors" from side to side. With the LP, you had a "small taste" and then could either choose to continue with that artist or move to something else. I think that this kept our "short" attention spans more readily than the 60 and 70 minute CD length. While some people might throw a tantrum about getting "cheated", i would rather have 30 - 40 minutes of an artists best cuts than 60 - 80 minutes of a bunch of filler. For someone to produce an entire CD's length of GREAT cuts nowadays, they truly must be talented. It was much easier for an artist when they only had to do it for 15 - 20 minutes at a time. Sean
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