Album Holes.

I notice an odd phenomena when buying a new album that I've been wanting for a long time and following the promotion very closely. Since I've never heard anyone bring up this complaint before, I'll call them "album holes" for the sake of giving it a name.



When it comes to music, I actually enjoy albums. I like to listen to them from start to finish, and I like to sit down and devote my full attention to the music. Some albums, like Sex Pistol's uninspired debut, seem to only be a collection of twelve or so songs with little connection to one another. There's no beginning, middle or end, and there's certainly no holistic flow or rhythm. Other albums, such as the incredibly cinematic Crack the Skye by Mastodon, are incredibly rewarding to someone like me. Continuing to use Crack the Skye as my example, it has a clear and defined beginning, middle and end with each song logically flowing into the next.

In today's (and perhaps this has always been true) promotional age in music, one would be hard-pressed to find an album that didn't have one of its respective songs used as promotion prior to its release. It's a great way to sample an album to know what you're getting into if you plan on potentially purchasing the entire album. However, as great as they are for promotion, I think they someone ruin the experience of listening to an album from start to finish. They create album holes, at least for me they do.

Let me try to explain what I mean with an example.

The biggest and most recent example of this would be with Deftones' Diamond Eyes released last year. I was following the story of their inter-band turmoil, the hard work they put into Eros, their bassist's accident and then their decision to start over with a new album. Needless to say, after three years of anticipation, I was drooling to hear some new tunes from Deftones -- easily one of my all time favorite bands. They released the song "Rocket Skates" in February 2011 online, a solid three months before the release of Diamond Eyes. Over the span of that three month period, I listened to "Rocket Skates" easily 50 times, if not more. But by the time I finally got my greasy little paws on a copy of the album in May, the song "Rocket Skates" was almost subliminal to me. I don't actually get to enjoy the album in the same way that someone who had never heard a single song off Diamond Eyes would get enjoy it. My brain just kind of zones out between "Prince" and "Sextape" (the two songs before and after "Rocket Skates").

It's even worse in situations where a band will preview THREE songs from an upcoming album, and then my brain zones out in THREE different places. But it's kind of a love-hate relationship because one cannot avoid a promotional song from an upcoming album. You can try, but ultimately you'll give into temptation.

Some of my all time favorite albums were records that I picked up some arbitrary reason and listened to all the way through with zero preconceived notion of what it may sound like or what genre should be categorized. It adds an element of mystery and excitement to listening to music -- not knowing what the next track may hold. And perhaps that's someone unconscious reason that I enjoy discovering a band that broke up a decade ago: I will never have a song by them marketed to me to give me an expectation of their album will sound like. I am free to explore and interpret however I please!