Rainy Day Albums: or How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Anticipation Project

This is a topic where I realize that I just may come off as slightly insane, or at least way too anal-retentive. And I realize that it’s way too late in the year for anyone who wants to try it to give it a go, but I thought I’d lay out my neurotic listening habits nonetheless. This new thread was inspired by, though only tangentially-related to, semi-recent threads/articles like “Can You Force Yourself To Like A Record Through Blunt-Force Repetition?” and the general “Slow Listening Movement”-type thinkpieces.

Over the last eight years or so, I’ve accumulated a bunch of albums that I haven’t listened to yet, some of which, based on previous listening experiences with said artist, I’ll most likely end up loving. What started with necessity as grown slowly into habit. First off, a little backstory to how I became crazy is in order.

In the spring of 2008 I learned I was soon to be laid off from my decently-paid job as a Logistics Analyst for a mid-level steamship line. I was essentially given a 6 month notice (pretty rare, I realize). In those six months I started accumulating albums I thought I would enjoy in the interim from the time my old job ended to when I would (hopefully) find a new one. Some people in my situation would have saved as much as they could for things like rent and bills, but not me - I had my priorities straight.

I figured I’d be out of work for a while, at least three months, but maybe up to a year. So I figured that I should, while I had some spending money, accumulate some albums that could hold me over for the coming months. Here’s the list of albums I bought for that “rainy day”:
1.) Junior Boys - Last Exit
2.) The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
3.) Belle & Sebastion - Push Barmen....EP Collection
4.) Belle & Sebastion - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
5.) The Clientele - The Violet Hour
6.) The Wrens - Secaucus
7.) The Clean - Anthology
8.) Spoon - Girls Can Tell
9.) Tim Hecker - Mirages
10.) Cocteau Twins - Treasure

And about twenty more albums that I’m too lazy to type out.

Just to be clear, all of the above are acclaimed albums by bands/artists I adore. So while there is a chance that I may not love all of them, there is a strong chance of me at least liking most if not all of them.

Long boring-ass story short, I found a job the fall of 2008, only a few months after being laid off, so I never had to listen to any of my “rainy-day stash,” but I discovered a perverse joy thinking I’d enjoy the act of prolonging listening to albums I would almost certainly enjoy – a sort of self-imposed sacrifice. I read a lot of forum posts about music-loving people that, once entering middle-age, found themselves burning out on new music, and I figured, even if that does happen to me, I’d still love these albums given my adoration of the artists’ releasing them.

Each year, as more and more albums by bands/artists I love come out, I pick a small handful to save at the end of the year. I do this mostly because the November and December months are pretty dead with regards to new releases. But another reason is the simple act of prolonging listening pleasure for an album one is excited about is its own reward.

Again, I don’t want anyone to withhold themselves from the pleasure of listening to their favorite acts’ new albums for too long, but I think if you save just a handful of albums you think you’ll enjoy, you’ll end up enjoying the act of anticipating them and, by the end of the year, treating yourself to a handful of brilliant albums to enjoy all at once, which in it of itself has its own pleasures. An obvious huge negative aspect of waiting to listen to a much-anticipated album is that you’ll be one of the last people to articulate an opinion on an album, which on message boards like ILM means you’ll probably chime in once the conversation is nearly over - a feeling I felt on some of my favorite albums from the last five or so years. And this obviously doesn't work with professional critics, which I know is a decent percentage of the regulars.

Anyway, I’ll have more to say later, but I’m actually kind of curious if anyone else does this (assuming no) - even if not to the same extent I do? Do you ever save albums for times where you'll know you'll enjoy them most (albeit when you're in a certain cheerfull mood, ect)?

Hahah. Suffice to say...you are not alone. Oh you are ever not alone. (I don't maintain a list or anything but some albums just...wait.)

Dammit Ned! Give me at least give me one album you are waiting to listen to (that you think you'll love)!

I just thought I'd add: I still haven't listened to any of the above 10 albums listed. To me they are all essentially the equivalent of "lost albums" to me - they exist for me to listen to when I really need them. I can't explain the feeling knowing that an almost-certain listening bliss awaits me, for times I'm at my lowest.

i compulsively "ration" my listening of albums that i enjoy

but sometimes i give in and listen to stuff over and over again

Ha, that's what I'm talking about - self-rationing your presumably most-hyped albums, or least a few of them.

or when discovering an old artist... of course you instinctively want to dive in and hear all their shit at once, or at least i do. but i like to take my time with artists that have huge discographies.

I pretty much did this with Broadcast, the holdover period was about 5 years before I started listening, no idea why.

Gonna listen to Last Exit and Treasure today in your honor.

I don't really save albums for a rainy day like that. For one thing, it would be hard for me to have very much confidence that I'd like something that I hadn't heard. It's rare for me to strongly enjoy an artist's output for more than a couple of albums in a row. And it's even rarer for me to be confident I'd like something just from reading reviews. So there wouldn't be much point in me socking away albums for later, since the chances wouldn't be much better than 50-50 that I wouldn't be disappointed. Actually I'm more often to do the reverse: I sometimes put off listening to albums because I've enjoyed the artist's previous work and I'm afraid their new release will be a disappointment (usually based on sampling a couple of tracks that don't really grab me).

Yeah on the other hand sometimes it just seems more logical to go throw caution to the wind and dive in while your fresh enthusiasm is at its highest. i'm insane, btw.

REM was a favorite of mine in high school but for some reason I never got around to picking up Reckoning. Then years passed and I started to like knowing there was an unheard album out there, like I was saving it behind glass for some kind of alterna-emergency down the road. Still never heard it, aside from the singles.

Check out Reckoning - it's good!

I'm not so sure Reckoning isn't REM's best record. It was the first one I heard, so that has always been my favorite.

I tend to get deep into certain time periods and sounds in my listening habits. Some of this will lead to purchasing quite a few records in the style and occasionally something will fall through the cracks and not be listened until much later. What can I say, I got probably 3000+ records/Cds - it happens. Two I just ripped onto my music PC tonight were things I got a year ago after really liking other records by the artist (Graveyard- Hisingen Blues & Uncle Acid- Mind Control). I also got a Spooky Tooth box set staring me down I haven't ripped into the PC.

I tend to believe there is plenty of decent music out there, it is just that preferences lead you to certain sounds and some things it is all about current mood to find where it fits.

On a micro level, I pretty much never listen to anything in advance - via streams or leaks - I wait until the CD is out. On another level, I own plenty of records that I've either never properly listened to not never really engaged with that are kind of waiting for retirement when I can get round to them. On yet another level, every year I say to myself "next year I'll be really strict / discerning and only buy 12 new albums" but I always end up with 50+.

Actually I'm more often to do the reverse: I sometimes put off listening to albums because I've enjoyed the artist's previous work and I'm afraid their new release will be a disappointment

I do that a lot.

well, i suppose i do this in a certain way. there are recordings i want to listen to that are so obscure i can't possibly find copies of them, sometimes "official" records (tommy marolda's 1974 private press prog LP), sometimes bootlegs (the last PFS gig where they went into king crimson's "starless"). sometimes i find recordings and surprisingly often i'm not disappointed.

but for widely available releases? no, i don't do this. life is short. i could die at any time. it's not that i'm opposed to delayed gratification, it's that with music i see no particular reason for the delay; it seems to me an artificial, almost roman catholic imposition of abstinence.

that said there are a lot of films i would like to see and haven't, but this is mostly a matter of sloth. i'm not actively avoiding watching the godfather, i just have a hard time getting around to it. and when it comes to my favorite records, i don't listen to them often, but this is simple avoidance of over-consumption. you eat ten hamburgers in a sitting and the tenth will not taste as good as the first, and you may well be put off hamburgers altogether for a while.

i grew up with what i guess now gets called "slow listening" because there wasn't any other choice, and you know, i don't regret listening to trout mask replica like fifty times until i felt like i understood it, because somebody had convinced me if i listened to it enough i'd find it brilliant, and because i couldn't afford any other records, but look, i'm not going to recommend anybody else live their life the way i have.