How important are aesthetics to you?

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sigh33n

Guest
#1
#1
Consider this statement from the latest review on JesusFreakHideout regarding Kevin Max's "Broken Temples";

"The biggest complaint on the record is that is technically only 8 songs. Changing titles and sounds for the remixes doesn't push it to a full ten-song record..."

I've come across some beautiful albums that had more tracks than just 8 and still managed to be shorter than Broken Temples' 37 minute run [spoiler alert; they weren't all metal]. At the same time I've come across records with fewer tracks that managed to be even longer! [spoiler alert; yes, they were all post-rock].

This makes me want to ask about aesthetics and it's relation to music. What are some things you find aesthetically unpleasant about albums? Do you have certain requirements for an album to fully satisfy your tastes such as album length, no remixes allowed, concept album, etc?
 
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Nautilus

Nautilus

Senior Member
#2
Jun 29, 2012
6,488
53
48
#2
No bad songs is normally a start.
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#4
Aug 13, 2014
24,927
8,175
113
#4
"Ten songs makes an album" is a convention that I find... slightly silly frankly. But some people think they got gypped if they don't get ten songs. I buy the album for what it is, not for what I expect it to be. If the album has fourteen tracks are you going to feel you cheated the music group?

Remixes are boring to me, but some might like to hear the song a different way. I don't care for it myself because you've already sung that song - do something else instead of rerunning the same song a different way. But I rip all music to computer, decide which version of the song I like better and delete the other version. It's not a problem for me. If I listened to the CD instead of the album on my phone it might be slightly irritating.

All one kind of song gets old, I have to admit. Mix it up a little - do some upbeat songs, some slow, some with one kind of message, some with a different flavor. I had one album (won't say who it was by) that all the songs talked about "you will overcome, this is your day, God will bring you out..." it gets old, like a preacher who only preaches Prosperity Gospel. There was another album where every song, EVERY SINGLE ONE, talked about how the world hates christians, we're always put down, poor pitiful us... I sure would hate to go to their church. Yeah David made psalms about how his enemies were on every side, but he didn't spend all his time complaining about his problems.

One thing I think is over, but that got on my nerves is the hidden track - the ostensible last song, followed by a full minute of silence, then another song that wasn't listed on the cover. Cute, really cute... the first fifty albums you find it on. Do you really think we want to listen to all that silence every single flipping time we play the CD? Fortunately I have my audio editor, just trim the silence out and make the hidden song a new audio file of its own.


Hmm... That was a rather long way of saying "Yeah there are some things that really would get on my nerves if I had to listen to the original CD." Everyone who gets annoyed at anything on the albums he gets should get Audacity (or some other freeware audio editor.) They're really easy to use and a lot of the things that bug you about music albums will go away. :cool:
 
posthuman

posthuman

Senior Member
#5
Jul 31, 2013
36,675
13,131
113
#5
it bugs me when an album splits an "intro" track apart from a full song, when there is no silence between them, like for example when a quiet bit of classical interlude swells into a major chord, and the interlude is digitally separated from the main track - this was fine in the days of cassettes and LP's, but with CD's and mp3's etc, there is always a half-second pause while a player skips from one track to the next, which inserts a silence where there shouldn't be one, and just jostles the whole composition up needlessly.

know what i mean, Vern?

that kind of thing is difficult to fix smoothly with an audio editor =\
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#6
Aug 13, 2014
24,927
8,175
113
#6
For gapless playback I use .ogg instead of .mp3, but I know what you mean. I usually load the intro and first song and merge them.

Which reminds me, I still have to do that for this one Deluge album...
 
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