Track sequencing

...or used to be: I've just reacquired Earth Wind & Fire's "I Am", which for years I only had on cassette with the tracks taped in a completely diff. order to the orig. LP. Listening to it again last night, however, I think the band got it right all along.

Elvis is most definitely on crack, then.

For such a massive collection, I thought _69 Love Songs_ was sequenced very nicely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember reading that Stephin Merritt said that the sequence was composed by random. Hmm. Starting with "Absolutely Cuckoo" and ending with "Zebra"? That was no accident.

Are there other people out there who agonize over track sequences for mix CDs? I even insert/remove silence at the end of tracks in order to make them flow better (using the "Disc-at-once" option to avoid the default 2-sec between-track gap). I don't wash my hands every five minutes, though.

REM's Up because there is an album's worth of good stuff on there, but all the same-y filler happens to be all squeezed together in the same middle section of the album. everything with that damn electro-bossa nova beat crap in a row. but the first 5 and last 4 trax or so, plus a couple in the middle, work.

although i guess an album being too long or having too many songs is a seperate complaint from bad sequencing. but eh. i could go on about albums with sequencing i love but really, if i don't love the songs, i'm not gonna love the order in which i hear 'em. can't polish a turd, as they say.

I also slave over the sequencing of my mix tapes and CDs, and I think it pays off.

Records with great sequencing: _Wanna Buy a Bridge?_, Stereolab's _Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements_, the American _Rubber Soul_, _Kid A_, _King of the Delta Blues Singers_. Poorly sequenced: Sly Stone's _Fresh_, Eurythmics' _Greatest Hits_, Robert Johnson's _The Complete Recordings_.

I used to think the first Digital Underground record was terribly sequenced--should be "Doowutchalike" to introduce everybody at the beginning, then "The Humpty Dance" (which even REFERENCES "Doowutchalike") about 3/4 through where the album is flagging, right? On the other hand, "The Humpty Dance" does kick it off well. It just means I get all the way through a lot less often.

_69 Love Songs_ was originally meant to be alphabetical--at one point, "Xylophone Track" was called "Z-Train," but I understand that that was changed on the grounds that it might have to go after "Zebra," depending on the rules being used.

Of all the sequencing threads, I shall revive this one, as it was started on my birthday.

Are there three types of sequencing; thematic (mainly lyrical), stylistic (tempo, tone, dynamic), emotional?

Length of tracks?

length of track name (i've only seen this done once, it was a triangle shape with the longest title as the middle track)

First letter of track name? With that, and length of track name, though, you can very deliberately manipulate titles so they fit the songs in any order you like, though; so, in essence, it's cheating?

How about random sequencing?

the tried-and-true "best songs first" method

bad sequencing: pavement, crooked rain crooked rain:

great
great
great
great
great
great
great
shit
great
shit
shit
great

makes a great album seem only half good 'cause it's so top heavy.

^ put like that it seems crazy, 9 great out of 12 is a fantastic hit rate surely. but those three shit ones all towards the end really drag it down as an album.

i like top-heavy albums. it's convenient. and it makes it seem more like a great EP with some shitty bonus tracks.

How about random sequencing?

― ilxor, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:22 PM (1 hour ago)

^^^ solves all problems

bad sequencing: pavement, crooked rain crooked rain:

great
great
great
great
great
great
great
shit
great
shit
shit
great

makes a great album seem only half good 'cause it's so top heavy

don't know where to start with this. for one, "heaven is a truck" is a fantastic song.

I find it hard to believe all the tracks are either great or shit, nothing in between? xpost

How about random sequencing?

― ilxor, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:22 PM (1 hour ago)

^^^ solves all problems

― pussy spread like the rainbow (The Brainwasher), Tuesday, February 24, 2009 4:55 PM (2 minutes ago)

Except, of course, the problem of ILM (and listeners/critics in general) reading waaaaay too much into track sequencing.

also, "5-4=unity" has to be one of the best transition songs ever. its placement on the record is perfect, and hell, it's a damn fun song on its own too.
xxpost

in my experience, the shitty sequencing problem (or perception) mostly plagues albums that i'm trying hard to love. albums by beloved artists that aren't quite at the peak of their powers, but come close enough to be frustrating. i used to try to repackage them, especially when trying to show others the "greatness" - as though better organization could make up for weak material overall.

can't remember when i last did this, but remember trying FOREVER to get some late 80s grant hart record to come out right

"Fotheringay" into "Mr. Lacey" on Fairport's "Holidays" LP drives me batty. You're in this misty, elfin dreamworld one second, then out of nowhere this lazy blues shuffle comes on.

Bump.

How important is sequencing? What do you mean by good sequencing? Explain experiences of 'wrong' sequencing (copies of albums done in the wrong order, incorrectly indexed files) that you learnt albums by and then when you heard the proper order you either did or didn't prefer it?

I've mentioned elsewhere certain albums like Abbey Road in which I heard the cassette version before the actual album version. (In that case, "Here Comes the Sun" opens and segues into "Something".)

I prefer "Bron-Yr-Aur" wrapping up Side 1 of Physical Graffiti with Side 2 opening up with "In the Light" followed by "Down by the Seaside". Not sure if that's because the sequencing is any better or if I just got used to the cassette version.

Track order is very important when compiling an album, and I really shouldn't have to explain why, but it's the difference between listening to a jarring sequence of seemingly unrelated songs, and an album which flows nicely from start to finish and feels "complete" and/or greater than the sum of its parts.

I'll give you a recent example of bad sequencing: 'New World Towers' as the second track on Blur's The Magic Whip = instant momentum killer.

Also, try imagining that Automatic For The People opens with 'Star Me Kitten' ... There's a reason it doesn't, and that's because it would be a terrible idea. As it is on the album, though, it arrives at the perfect time.

ya it's definitely mood-related and how audibly "smooth" each track segues into the next

but i understand it's a matter of taste and style/genre

i remember when i was a kid i used to make punk mix tapes and would love not leaving space between songs

for any other genre doing this would disrupt the flow but leaving no gap between songs helped build urgency and power that going to a show would hopefully have

Yeah, compiling an album isn't just about putting the recordings into an order that "feels right", but there's other stuff to consider: segues (imagine if 'Airbag' faded out completely on OK Computer before the count in on 'Paranoid Android'), butt edits, even the amount of time between the tracks.

I saw this on the Purple Rain wiki and thought, phew, did Prince finally make the right call:

7 November 1983 configuration

Side one
"Let's Go Crazy" (7:37 minutes version)
"The Beautiful Ones"
"Computer Blue" (7:23 minutes version)
"Darling Nikki"
"Wednesday"

Side two
"Purple Rain"
"I Would Die 4 U"
"Baby I'm a Star"
"Father's Song"

i can understand that on a vinyl format but post-cd that would not make sense

track sequencing is such an important part of the process. equally important as artwork and song selection. think about the pregnant pause between Condition of the Heart and Raspberry Beret on Side A of Around the World in a Day. It makes the beginning of Raspberry Beret feel even more joyous when it finally kicks in. Or the way Tonight, Tonight slams right into Jellybelly on disc 1 of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and how 1979 slams into Tales of a Scorched Earth on disc 2. There's so much opportunity in sequencing for expression. Not enough people consider it.

I think it's really important. Like a good DJ, whoever is in charge of the sequencing of an album needs to make sure you're locked in, taken on a journey and unwilling to switch off or skip tracks.
I hate how Pearl Jam's No Code starts withthe lovely, sleepy 'Sometimes' but ruins the mood immediately by following it up with the brash 'Hail Hail'. Other than that, it's a really nicely sequenced record.

I think I mentioned this already on the Super Furry Animals thread a couple of years ago, but they have this weird tendency on most of their later albums (Phantom Power, Hey Venus, Dark Days/Light Years) to put all of the worst tracks on the front of an album. This generally resulted in me not making it past these initial tracks on first listens and really only getting to the good tracks several months and possibly years after I bought the albums.

Apart from Dark Days/Light Years, I'm not sure I agree with that.

Was just listening to the cd of Uncle Meat, where Zappa decided to stick over half an hour of movie dialogue between what would have been side 3 and 4 of the vinyl.

unusual sequencing can give an album personality and mystery. like how TUSK opens with 'Over and Over,' barrels right into 'The Ledge,' how they buried 'That's All for Everyone' in the middle of Side 3 (?), the disjointed thing becomes part of its character...

Yeah, the track sequencing on Tusk is utterly batshit, but then it's a sprawling double album where two of the songwriters are doing business as usual and the third one is off on his own trip. That record was always going to be a pain in the arse to sequence and was never going to have a consistent mood. The only way it could possibly have done so is have one half all Stevie/Christine songs and the other all Lindsey songs - and let's face it, that was never going to happen. Having said that, I don't think the song order was random - there was thought put into it, without a doubt. There must have been to get the Lindsey songs to work with the others.

I mean, christ, there's a reason why 'Over & Over' is the opener to the record and, say, 'That's All For Everyone' isn't. It's because 'Over & Over' works and 'That's All For Everyone' wouldn't.

Would Double Nickels on the Dime have sounded better had the sequencing been curated by an independent committee rather than the Minutemen's "March Madness" brackets way of assigning songs?

For me, it's already such a hodge-podge of awesome songs, I'm not sure it would've mattered. Also figure that the album, the cassette, the CD, the reissue all had different sequences.

I wasn't suggesting that That's All for Everyone should open the record. I love the sequencing on Tusk.

I was praising its sequencing. That's what gives it character, like I said. Of course it was carefully considered, and their reasoning is still a mystery to me. And I love that.