LPs, dinner parties and other lost arts

There is an art form in sitting down and listening to an entire music album that hasn’t quite traversed from the vinyl generation into our own. I feel like our brains are too rushed, too mushy.   

The radio has us constantly hooked on no more than 40 songs. Our channel-changing mentality doesn’t let us appreciate the whole of an artist’s work or find tiny details that remain special to you, the listener. People just don’t have time anymore.

While I am a strong advocate of taking on every possible task you want to accomplish until you pass out in your bed with a fulfilled sense of exhaustion, I try my hardest to set aside an hour or two for solitude. This is prime time for listening to an entire record.

If you rarely do this, give it another go, and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised. If I am preaching to the choir, let me employ a cheesy but useful analogy. Listening to an entire record is like being invited for dinner.

Sometimes you don’t stay for the whole thing. Sometimes you lose interest before you even attend. Other times, because you enjoy the food and friends, or for whatever other reason, you are enthralled, and you never want it to end.

The first track is not the first dish. When you walk into the hosts’ house, they don’t just throw food at you. They give you a hug or other appropriate greeting. They take your coat and sit you down. The first track should be welcoming, like a good host. It should have a hook. It doesn’t need to be overtly pleasant or wild and crazy, but if everything there is to see and eat is found in the very beginning of your dinner party, you will leave shortly afterward.

As an album plays, plates are brought out to you. Appetizers are tested, and you are finding your preferred progressions, tracks and lyrics. The title track is what you heard about, the thing at this party that made it through the grapevine. If it’s spoiled right at the beginning, then you may be tempted to leave early again. If it’s the meat of the meal, you could spoil your appetite right off the bat if you take too many servings or eat it too quickly.

Pay attention to details: the spices of a song, the way the instruments are arranged on your plate and the ambience you’re in. You can have just as much fun at a candlelight dinner as you can at a potluck. Let’s not forget about dessert. I don’t like abrupt endings. I can’t eat something sweet and run out the door. On the other hand, seven-minute songs feel like long, drawn-out goodbyes or sad ploys for you to stay longer.

The end of an album should be savored and should ease you into a state in which you feel like you can comfortably leave.

If, by the final track, you feel full of good food and good company, then you’ve had a good album. Bon appetít.

­— ftirado@indiana.edu