I recently watched Coheed and Cambria’s live concert DVD “The Last Supper”. I wasn’t always a huge fan of them, but I hadn’t really listened to them in a long time. They are one of those bands whose albums are meant to be listened to all the way through, which is an almost lost activity.
Being in the age of the iPod, people will just hit shuffle and listen to two thousand+ songs at complete random. I’ve decided that I’m going to bring this activity back into my life. Since Coheed and Cambria sparked this idea in my head, I got their first album “The Second Stage Turbine Blade”. I put it on my iPod and before going to sleep, I shut off the lights and layed down in bed with my headphones on and listened to the album all the way through. The album, sounding as it is, can inspire some crazy images in my head in normal life, but shutting off the lights and closing my eyes left my mind completely open to the music.
The beginning of the album was like the “calm before the storm”. I was picturing myself walking around my town and just seeing things at random. Seeing people I know and strangers, and then I kind of took control a bit and started to form my own comic book-like movie to go along with the rest of the music.
I don’t think all the albums that come out these days have to be heard in their entirety. I also think some artists know this about their own style of music. I can think of bands that I used to listen to a lot like Blink-182 and Green Day whose music can just be thrown into a shuffle and it doesn’t matter which way you listen to their songs. However, they both have put out one album each that are great for listening all the way through: Blink-182’s self titled album and Green Day’s “American Idiot”. Green Day’s “American Idiot” was most likely written for the purpose of hearing all the way through. Blink-182’s self titled album was an awesome turn for them in their career. It was their best album, musically, to date and you could tell that something was changing. With the break-up of Blink and the creation of Angels and Airwaves it was clear it was Tom Delonge (Blink-182 guitarist) who was changing. He has put out two albums, “We Don’t Need to Whisper” and “I-Empire”, through that band that have really inspired some awesome ideas and feelings in me when listened all the way through.
My two good friends, Alex and Ian, and I are working on a rock opera that Ian pretty much wrote. If we get this recorded, it will DEFINITELY be one to listen to all the way through. I am utterly amazed at how all this music is coming out in the practices. The songs go through such different feelings and emotions, the whole album and story is full of emotion and huge feelings. It is turning out to be some of the best stuff I’ve been a part of.
Here’s what I think everyone should do: Find a great album, one that you think is just amazing all the way through. If you haven’t already, wait until it’s later at night and dark out. Lie in bed or sit in the dark and put on a good pair of headphones and close your eyes and let the music take you. The shuffle function on your iPod is great for short drives or walks as background to your life, but it is good to give the music the driver seat once in a while (please don’t take that too literally). If you are a morning jogging type of person, that sounds to me like another good time to let the music take you. Just as the sun is rising, or maybe the sun has been out for a half hour or so but hasn’t quite shed its light on everything yet.
Let the music take you away from everything.
