I like the new Radiohead despite the ongoing complaining about the poor soundquality. I am not a sound quality snob, I couldn’t care less. The album is pretty short and I think it sounds great as one whole chunk so I listen to it all the way through when I listen. Other recent albums I enjoy listening to beginning to end are:

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
Fionn Reagon – The End of History
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen
Life Without Buildings – Any Other City

Ah, that does bring back memories. Tried using a quarter once on a particularly pitted LP and the needle cut through the vinyl like a lathe machine leaving curly-cued vinyl ribbons in its wake.

Word.

While the idea of having all of my music in one place with minimal cluttering is highly appealing, the concept of CD’s is much stronger. I especially love the packaging, specifically the write-ups and printed lyrics (Hint to all musical artists: Want to sell CD’s? Print all of your lyrics! It’s a pain in the backside to look up the lyrics on the internet, print them out, fold them in a reasonable fashion for easy access). I write off my manner as being highly materialistic. I don’t mean (or hope I don’t mean) that I necessarily like to have a lot of stuff; it’s just that I like to touch and feel the stuff. CD cases. CD printed matter. As with books, I like to write in my CD inserts. References to other songs, add’l artist or song info, internet sites, etc. It’s not possible, as far as I know, to tie in tracks on a MP3 playlist to personal notes, even though the software seems to be tantalizingly there.

Maybe if I put out the moolah for an iPhone so I could download the album written matter that I could read while I was listening, the whole MP3 thing would be more appealing.
But, then I’d have to deal with the, IMHO, lousy sound quality.

And, if I was running out of the house and I wanted to listen to Lee Morgan, Galactic, Michelle Shocked, Andrew Bird, or Goldberg Variations in the car, I still think it’s much easier and quicker to grab a CD rather than have to plan to sit down to download onto a MP3 player that specific music, if the MP3 player didn’t already have it. And to find out the latter???????????? Well, I’d have to putz around with the MP3 player to check out its availability.

And, then there’s the sound quality issue again. Sorry for the music curmudgeonry, but I’ll stick with the CD’s. I usually do not buy CD’s on a whim. I tend to read reviews and listen to the CD at the radio station if it’s available before shelling out the money for the music. Since I buy the CD, I’m in the “Buy the Whole Album” camp. I tend to listen through the entire CD in most cases, although, I will admit, Iris DeMent is a hard go. Love her songs but her voice will either drive you to tears or to drink or both on a bad day. Her husband, Greg Borwn is another matter and another comment/story.

p.s., Mr. Sgazzetti, I played Bragg’s Saturday Boy on this previous Sunday’s show as a tip of the hat to you.

There’s something about mp3s I just don’t trust. I like having the medium in my hand. I can’t fully believe in Invisible Music.

Being iPodless and iTunes-chary, I tend to listen to every CD straight through, but that’s not due to some notion of The Album As Album, unless we’re talking about old XTC, or Sgt. Pepper, or my friend Sam’s concept blues album, The Return of Sugar Smallhouse. Damn, is that a fine album.

Our landlords just sprang for broadband, which may affect our music habits. But we’re cranky and increasingly old (unlikely to change, given the whole time/space thing), and set in our ways, and that one laptop heartbreak may have hardened us against Invisible Music for a while.

A few of my internerd friends, the tiny people who live in my computer, have been telling of downloading Radiohead for free or for a paltry sum, assessing it and revisiting the site to pay what they think it’s worth. Now, that’s a different marketplace.

While I do listen to the already listed albums in their entirety, I do shuffle I like the randomness of it because it sometimes causes me to really listen to songs I haven’t paid adequate attention to.

I also make very specific playlists. I buy actual physical CDs on occasion, and I still have some of the first albums I bought in the 1980s.

The short answer to all your questions is yes and no. A slightly longer version is that I get my music however I can and listen to it however I please.

I can go on and on about this.