Random/Shuffle.
Prince famously released his album Lovesexy on CD as, at first, one long uninterrupted track. As in, you couldn’t skip around the album, save for using the fast forward/rewind button. I thought that was an audacious way of “forcing” the listener to hear the album, in sequence, as intended. Forget hitting the “random” button on your CD player (remember that?). That button probably bugged the artists more than anyone. Album track lists are obsessively sequenced the way they are, kind of like how there’s a method to the madness of the batting order in a baseball game.
Stripmall Architecture’s first album features an inside-ish joke by opening with a sample of the “XDR” tone bust borrowed from Capitol Records cassettes (remember those?). If you popped We Were Flying Kites into your CD player and hit random (or, hit “shuffle” on your iPod), you would’ve missed the point of the “gag”. Unless, of course, you’re too young to know what a cassette is.
But there’s one particular kind of CD that always puzzles me why it would be divided into individual tracks: mix CDs. And I mean mix CDs by DJs, where every song is blended into the next. I mean, how dumb would that sound on random? I’d made it a habit of ripping mix CDs as one giant singular track. Because it makes sense to me. Not that it’ll ever happen, but imagine if I was hanging out with James Lavelle and had one of his Unklesounds or Global Underground DJ mix CDs playing…on random. If I were him, I’d be pretty annoyed.
Live albums are more forgiving to random/shuffle for the most part, since the songs rarely blend into each other. Still, it’s sometimes jarring to hear the audience cheering abruptly. The Beatles Abbey Road, in my opinion, should’ve been released on CD with “You Never Give Me Your Money” until “The End” as one track. Seriously, how can one listen to any of those tracks on random?
Oh, and if you’re listening to the excellent Gayngs Relayted album, do yourself a favor and listen to it in order. It’s gapless for a reason. You’re welcome.