Embarking on ‘One Album A Day’
It is not hard to say that quarantine has brought a lot of downtime in our lives. I have listened to more artists, genres, and albums this year than I’ve ever imagined. My theory is that we’re not bound so much by summer festival vibes and music needed to just be there rather than intrinsicly looked at.
Recently, I’ve tried to embark on the “One Album A Day” challenge. It’s not a new idea — there’s a website designed to generate one for you. But the last time I tried it (still this year), I failed and just reverted back to my old music. Which is the same old pop and nostalgic records I’ve already listened to or have some sense of familiarity with.
This week, I tried it again, only with a few modifications.
What I am doing to make it easier for myself
I tried to do the “One Album a Day” challenge a few months ago. I used the website above, named simply the challenge name, and it recommended albums from a pool of albums in 1001 Albums You Must Listen To Before You Die!
I, being the absolute pop young person that I am, have heard nearly none of these albums. And for some reason, I didn’t like the albums given. No offense to Pink Floyd or David Bowie fans (or pretty much anyone with taste): I really think people should listen to these when they feel ready to do so, not because people told them, “Oh, dude, you MUST listen to this record because it changed music forever!”
I found that these albums have immensely high expectations for them, so much so that the current generation of listeners simply cannot reach or equate with your personal feelings. At least on the same level. A lot of albums, quite frankly, are societal moments that impacted their best at the time of release. Not to say that The Dark Side of the Moon isn’t a good record — it sure damn is, but we really shouldn’t be slandering people who simply can’t understand it or its impact. They simply haven’t lived through it to fully understand it.
Anyway.
This time, I refocused the concept. Rather, I just need to listen to more albums. It’s not whether the albums have artistic merit or whether society told you to listen. I just need to listen to more albums. And as a person who, I’ll be frank, has quite a narrow, undefined taste in music, more of anything is better than nothing at all.
I decided that random is not going to help me here. To make this easier, I’m gonna have to pick albums I actually had some interest in beforehand. This can be a slip of the tongue or something I heard in a movie or something my friends talked about. Not something a website algorithm randomizer picked for me.
Additionally, following the “I just need to listen to more albums” mindset, I stopped forcing myself to get out of my comfort zone too soon. Instead, I’m still going to delve into pop-adjacent albums and then slowly branch out to more underground, less immediate-approachable albums later on.
Following this approach, I actually was able to stick to the challenge longer than two days. And I don’t find myself actually stopping.
Some ground rules
Ultimately, One Album A Day is supposed to be a learning experience. It has one main goal: listen to more albums. With that goal in mind, it has sub-goals:
- To discover new albums, artists, or genres I might not have explored beforehand.
- To experience new world views and perspectives from other human beings.
- To become more open to music that doesn’t necessarily align with my musical tastes.
- To appreciate music as an art form just as much as something that entertains.
Thus, to fufill these goals, I have some rules that are specific to me.
- I must listen to the album in its entirety at least once for that day. Ideally, it should be played 3–5 times for that day.
- Ideally, the album should be listened in a setting of minimal distractions to fully immerse yourself in the music and words.
- The albums cannot be something I already listened to before with specific exemptions: 1) If I only listened to the radio/commerical singles, and 2) if the distribution of listens is not relatively normalized among songs.
- I should probably reflect on the album after listening. Give it a mini-review. Did you like it? What did you like about about? Did you hate it? Will you listen to this again?
Conclusion
I will continue this with some Medium updates. We live in such an interesting time. Music streaming services have made listening to music so accessible that to stick with just a few genres and artists almost feels like self-closure. We aren’t bound so much by financial cost or whatever the radio DJ played. We can now listen to virtually any song we want and that is so awesome.
I’m excited to embark on this journey. I know it’s not going to be easy. I’ll admit: I’m probably going to revert back to my pop crap eventually. But if I listen to at least one new album that I truly love, then at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what comes out of this.
