Putting the 'All' Back in Album

Were you planning on doing something important on Monday, Oct. 5? Well now you are. I am demanding that each and every one of you who reads this column take part in No Shuffle Day.

It’s exactly what you think. Refraining from shuffling or randomly playing the songs on your iPod for an entire day. Instead, listen to full albums from start to finish. Do you think you can do it?

It’s a much harder challenge than one might imagine. I came across the website for No Shuffle Day (noshuffleday.com) last month. The group encourages music listeners to avoid shuffling on the first Monday of every month. So on the first Monday of last month, Sep. 7, I tried to commit 100 percent to a 24-hour block of shuffle free music. I failed miserably.

As I’ve become accustomed, when I thought of a song I wanted to hear, I’d unconsciously just change the track. About 10 seconds into ruining the prospect of listening to a whole album straight through, I’d get so flustered and restart on a new album in the hopes that I could make it all the way. I couldn’t. The farthest I got was seven songs through the Bombay Bicycle Club album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them. This isn’t to say the album was bad –– in fact, it’s quickly become one of my most listened-to records of autumn. But it is to say that I have acquired a severe case of music ADD and I think it’s safe to assume that so, probably, have you.

After my defeat on Sep. 7, I surmised that nowadays the only time most people listen to full albums is when they’re not really listening at all. Perhaps a whole album has played through while we’ve been doing work, although we were surely more focused on our studies than the background noise. Or maybe we didn’t even realize we left our iPod running after we turned on our speakers to hear one song and the rest of the album racked in play counts. But for all intents and purposes, most people could probably not recall a recent instance when they intentionally turned on an album from start to finish and attentively listened all the way through.

It makes me wonder if musicians are even listening to other musicians’ works at full length. Or if musical artists even nit-pick the ordering of their track lists as much as they used to. Are bands instead organizing all of the best songs at the start of an album in the hopes that listeners won’t run out of steam? I can’t even accurately assess these statements, as it’s impossible for me to recollect the track listings on even a handful of new albums.

So, how can we remedy this cruel illness? No Shuffle Day!

As a media user, it’s important to know how the creation of a music record is shifting (Right, Prof. Byrne?). Do concept albums still exist? Are artists just shuffling their songs since they know that we’ll just be shuffling them too? Who knows? There’s only one way to find out. To listen, shuffle-free, from start to finish. Who’s with me?

No one? Does no one besides me care if album creativity is changing or losing its unique aspects? Well, if those musically nerdy reasons don’t make you want to commit to no shuffling, then why not steer clear of shuffling for a day in order to hear some new things from bands you already love?

Thinking of a few albums I hold dear to my heart, I know many musical gems would have been missed out on had I not listened all the way the end. For example, Weezer’s “O Girlfriend,” the last track on The Green Album, Maxïmo Park’s “Kiss You Better,” the last song on A Certain Trigger or the New Pornographers “Miss Teen Wordpower,” the last tune on Electric Version. Heck, had no one in the ’60s made it to the end of the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour we would be without “All You Need Is Love”!

It’s time to stop relying on shuffle to control if these very listen-worthy songs will pop up on our playlists. We need to take a step back and listen to these final songs by our own choosing. It’s going to be about as easy as a real person with ADD trying to complete a sheet of math problems sans Ritalin. I sure struggled last month. But we’ve got to do ourselves a favor and make sure we’re not letting the best and final tracks get lost in the shuffle. The only way to be sure is to not shuffle at all –– for just one day. I dare you!