I was listening to Slacker this afternoon and Brain Damage came on. As it ended I was reminded that Dark Side of the Moon is meant to be consumed as a whole. Plucking individual songs for play doesn’t work very well.
Before iTunes, many kids listened to entire albums or cassettes or CDs. Sure, you probably bought the album for the popular radio hit but it wasn’t uncommon to discover songs you liked as much if not more. For example, the radio hit off Dark Side was Money and it’s probably my least favorite song on the album. Had I only had that song to go on, I probably wouldn’t have thought to try out the album.
I wonder if something is lost by not listening to entire albums like I did with Dark Side. Maybe I’m wrong and it doesn’t really matter much. Maybe good music good regardless of what song precedes or follows it.
But I can’t imagine listening to the Beatle’s, “A Day in the Life” without the fantastic lead in from “Sgt. Peppers” anymore than I can imagine listening to “Eclipse” without the lead in from “Brain Damage“. Alan Parsons knew what he was doing.
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