I decided to fire up the old blog this year to document my summer study. My study is based on what peoples favorite music albums are and my thoughts on them. I came up with the study earlier this spring after I transferred all of my CDs to MP3s. During this time, I realized my CD collection is abysmal. The reason for this, I never really got into music, so I never knew what was good.
My History:
I never really listened to music growing up. My parents listened to 95.7 FM "The Oldies" and mixed tapes consisting of Elvis, Moody Blues and usually that one rare new one hit wonder they thought was catchy. My first cassette tape was "The Best of the Monkees" as I enjoyed their comedy hijinx from their pop culture rebirth in the mid eighties when their shows hit syndication again. As I grew up I began to watch more an more movies and television, that was my medium of choice growing up.
In the 90s, when I purchased a CD player, I began purchasing movie Soundtracks. With my ongoing love of cinema and film, the listening of their soundtracks painted a picture in my head and brought up the memories of the said movies.
By the mid 90s I began to purchase random CDs of what ever was popular at the time. Purchased because I heard them on the radio or my group of friends liked them. I never really listened to the full albums and mostly just cued up the radio hit and nothing more. By then I was in my late teens, I really hadn't heard much diverse music and really hadn't even attended a real concert. To many, this is unheard of, but again my passion was movies. I had attended several festivals, unique screenings and countless midnight shows of classic movies at local independent cinemas.
My History:
I never really listened to music growing up. My parents listened to 95.7 FM "The Oldies" and mixed tapes consisting of Elvis, Moody Blues and usually that one rare new one hit wonder they thought was catchy. My first cassette tape was "The Best of the Monkees" as I enjoyed their comedy hijinx from their pop culture rebirth in the mid eighties when their shows hit syndication again. As I grew up I began to watch more an more movies and television, that was my medium of choice growing up.
In the 90s, when I purchased a CD player, I began purchasing movie Soundtracks. With my ongoing love of cinema and film, the listening of their soundtracks painted a picture in my head and brought up the memories of the said movies.
By the mid 90s I began to purchase random CDs of what ever was popular at the time. Purchased because I heard them on the radio or my group of friends liked them. I never really listened to the full albums and mostly just cued up the radio hit and nothing more. By then I was in my late teens, I really hadn't heard much diverse music and really hadn't even attended a real concert. To many, this is unheard of, but again my passion was movies. I had attended several festivals, unique screenings and countless midnight shows of classic movies at local independent cinemas.
In the late 90s Napster had come out and I just began to download the popular singles and "classic" oldies that I grew up with. I then focused my attention to comedians and started to purchase their CDs at whatever store had them. There was no real cohesion to my collection but just a random spattering of songs. I pretty much listened to movie soundtracks, comedy CDs and the occasional jazz/blues CD.
For the first 10 years of the new millennium, I drove more for work so I listened to talk radio and occasionally the top 40 stations. This was what kept me away while driving and kept me mentally engaged.
The Birth of my Study:
The Fall of 2015, my trustee steed (a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan that drove me over 250,000 miles for work) was rear ended by a service van and "totaled". This wonderful machine had an internal hard drive that you could copy all of your CDs to. There was no need to carry them around or plug in a Ipod. With the purchase of a new vehicle I had to go through the process of transferring all my CDs to MP3, a procedure that most of the 1st World did 10 years ago.
As mentioned before, during this process, I noticed, "My collection is abysmal and I don't even know what to do". I could open an ITunes account and just start downloading random stuff, read Amazon reviews and just start getting stuff, continue to listen to top 40 and just start buy albums. None of these options appealed to me. I wanted to learn to love music like many of my friends do and that's how I came up with my summer study.
The Study:
Not only do I want to learn about music and start to love it. I want to engage with people to discuss what the album means to them, the music world and others. I would look to my friends and family that love music. Part 1 of the study: Ask my friends what their top 3 albums are and borrow them to listen to.
My study will be on how the album is made. How the artist(s), producers and those involved made and formed their album. I don't have much of a music background or vocabulary, I grew up in film. I watched movies as a kid and studied films as a student. That is my vocabulary. The structure, story and flow of a film is my vocabulary, my background, my knowledge. The story arc of a film is intriguing and the way it is crafted by an auteur is what I like. Does that structure carry over in the production of an album. What albums are "solid" or "tight" in conveying their message. I can enjoy a movie and say "as a movie, that was bad but I enjoyed it, it was fun". I can see a movie and go, "not my thing, but followed a good structure." Is this true with an album? Part 2 of Study: How is this an album in its entirety. What message do they convey. As mentioned, with my limited vocabulary on music and albums,
I don't want to pre-saturate myself with knowledge. This is a learning exercise, but the learning will be through the music. Part 3 of my Study: Is to take the album for what it is. A collection of songs by an artist or group that was produced as an "album".
Pre-research:
-Members of the band during album
-Year of album
For the first 10 years of the new millennium, I drove more for work so I listened to talk radio and occasionally the top 40 stations. This was what kept me away while driving and kept me mentally engaged.
The Birth of my Study:
The Fall of 2015, my trustee steed (a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan that drove me over 250,000 miles for work) was rear ended by a service van and "totaled". This wonderful machine had an internal hard drive that you could copy all of your CDs to. There was no need to carry them around or plug in a Ipod. With the purchase of a new vehicle I had to go through the process of transferring all my CDs to MP3, a procedure that most of the 1st World did 10 years ago.
As mentioned before, during this process, I noticed, "My collection is abysmal and I don't even know what to do". I could open an ITunes account and just start downloading random stuff, read Amazon reviews and just start getting stuff, continue to listen to top 40 and just start buy albums. None of these options appealed to me. I wanted to learn to love music like many of my friends do and that's how I came up with my summer study.
The Study:
Not only do I want to learn about music and start to love it. I want to engage with people to discuss what the album means to them, the music world and others. I would look to my friends and family that love music. Part 1 of the study: Ask my friends what their top 3 albums are and borrow them to listen to.
My study will be on how the album is made. How the artist(s), producers and those involved made and formed their album. I don't have much of a music background or vocabulary, I grew up in film. I watched movies as a kid and studied films as a student. That is my vocabulary. The structure, story and flow of a film is my vocabulary, my background, my knowledge. The story arc of a film is intriguing and the way it is crafted by an auteur is what I like. Does that structure carry over in the production of an album. What albums are "solid" or "tight" in conveying their message. I can enjoy a movie and say "as a movie, that was bad but I enjoyed it, it was fun". I can see a movie and go, "not my thing, but followed a good structure." Is this true with an album? Part 2 of Study: How is this an album in its entirety. What message do they convey. As mentioned, with my limited vocabulary on music and albums,
I don't want to pre-saturate myself with knowledge. This is a learning exercise, but the learning will be through the music. Part 3 of my Study: Is to take the album for what it is. A collection of songs by an artist or group that was produced as an "album".
Pre-research:
-Members of the band during album
-Year of album
-Basically everything you would find on the jacket of the album.
Extra research (but not necessary):
-Where it was on the Billboard Rankings
-Where Rolling Stone ranks the album on their all time list (only the number, I will not read the review)
Extra research (but not necessary):
-Where it was on the Billboard Rankings
-Where Rolling Stone ranks the album on their all time list (only the number, I will not read the review)
-Where this album is in relation to their bands other albums (first album, last album, reunion album, new drummer, etc).
I want to avoid reading official reviews so as to form my own ideas. I will go in with only that I know my friend likes this album, and what cumulative knowledge I've absorbed on my own (I know who the Beatles are, I can't change that. I've not listened to a lot of music growing up, I didn't just come out of a comma). The only ancillary research I may do is if I see an outstanding theme in an album, I may want to do a little research to confirm it (i.e. there seems to be a lot of synthesizer on this album, when was that invented?)
I want to avoid reading official reviews so as to form my own ideas. I will go in with only that I know my friend likes this album, and what cumulative knowledge I've absorbed on my own (I know who the Beatles are, I can't change that. I've not listened to a lot of music growing up, I didn't just come out of a comma). The only ancillary research I may do is if I see an outstanding theme in an album, I may want to do a little research to confirm it (i.e. there seems to be a lot of synthesizer on this album, when was that invented?)
So to recap:
Part 1: Ask my Friend/subject what their 3 favorite albums are and borrow them, and listen to them
Part 2: How is this an album in its entirety? What are its themes.
Part 3: Is this a great album?
Use these to help find my own ear for music and branch off.
The Process of the Study:
I will listen to the suggested 3 CDs. I will try to listen to them in their entirety. No breaks or listening in sections. I will listen to the albums at least twice and then post my findings.
I will leave my subjects relatively anonymous. I won't go into detail on who they are, but maybe just give personality traits that our pertinent in their selections. I will most likely use their nick names that only people in our circle will know them by.
I'm posting my findings for basically myself. They are so I can see what I like and what I don't like and maybe just log my findings. This is why I don't have comments turned on. I don't care about your input, if you hate my thoughts, buy me a drink and tell me in person so we can talk about music. Another option is to start a "Matt is dumb blog". Don't post your "Mat is dumb" thoughts on my blog. The only hope is that my test subject don't read this and influenced by what previous people listened to.
After listening to the test subjects albums, I will delete the files if I don't like the music and if I like them, I will buy them and add them to my collection. I have great respect for copy write laws and the business side of artistry. We can debate the pros and cons of it for another day.
If a test subject picks a album I already listened to, I will simply just talk to them about my thoughts on that album. The point of this exercise is find out from others what they like to help me decide what I like. I want to like music and I want to enjoy music. Lets see if I can learn that with this study.
