A few words on why I still listen to albums (and how)

I’ve been talking and writing about music a lot over the last week, and am part way through writing up my thoughts on what live music might look like when we all emerge from lock down. In the meantime, my response to Jehnny Beth on how I listen to albums. Jehnny’s question was:

What’s your favourite way of listening to an album? Do you still take time to immerse yourself? What do you think an album represents in 2020? I’d love to read your thoughts.

My response was:

I love to immerse myself in it. I tend to buy albums I really love on vinyl and listen to them when I can fully concentrate on the music. I also prefer to listen to them in the order they were sequenced. I also have playlists on shuffle, but that’s a different type of listening.

I think there is still a place for the album in the world of streaming. A proper album is as different to a load of songs in a playlist as a novel is to a tweet or a short blog post, and I think we still have room for both.