I still find that the first listen is the hardest. Of an album, that is - and I wonder whether it's to do with me, or if it's just how it has to be sometimes. It seems too easy to just call such work "subtle" and leave it at that, because I suspect there are other forces at play.

It is interesting to me that a non-trivial number of times, I have found myself either completely indifferent or actively disappointed about an album after my first listen. Sure, there are many times when I feel "Well, there is some good stuff here", confident that future listens will help bring out something - but far too many times for my liking, I have been scared away from future listens because of bad first experiences. And, in recent times, every time this has happened I have subsequently come to really like the album - we're talkin' becoming borderline devotional towards it, you know. I have to ask, is it the material, or is it just me? Or, better yet, is it just the way it has to be!?!

I don't think the material alone can explain this phenomenon, because it doesn't happen to "serious" albums alone. There's no doubting that a dead-serious album with complex themes really requires the right frame of mind if it is to be accepted with open arms the first time, and this can be a hard thing to summon up sometimes. But I have also had negative first experiences with albums that are essentially pop, ones featuring what I now consider to be very good melodies. No really complicated themes, just a lot of pretty melodies floating around, but...not a smile from me! I can remember the first time I heard them, where I would be itching, just itching for the darn thing to finish so that I could go clear my head and forget that I wasted my time on something so unworthy of it ;) The melodies, it would seem, did not make themselves all that well known on our first acquaintance*!

This leaves me to more or less conclude that it's either to do with me, or it's just a struggle we all have to sometimes go through. I wouldn't say I don't pay sufficient attention the first time around - I actually try and make it a point to give the album my full attention, especially I'm really excited about it. I suspect it's more to do with the fact that the first time around, the album needs to cut away any pre-conceived notions one has when coming into it. And in my case, albums usually have high expectations attached with them, and in the past I even used to expect specific songs to be knockouts based on reviews I had read. With such expectant listening, unless something is immediately, obviously good, one is bound to be disappointed that it didn't meet whatever lofty standards were set. I actually remember how before listening to Morrissey's Your Arsenal, I told myself that I had got it just for sentimental reasons, and that it was probably going to end up disappointing. And lo - I had a good first listen! Hardly scientific proof of my offhand theory, but it adds credence in my own subjective eyes.

Anyhow, it does leave the second listen in an interesting position. The first at least leaves open the possibility that it's one of these famous tough nuts that requires perseverence; the second is fraught with the peril that you are left in the exact same state as the first! This, in my experience, has been pretty rare. Even if I've left with a similarly unfavourable opinion the second time around, I usually manage to discover something that passed my careful ears the first time.

But wait, thinking about it, if we are to be precise (and we must, we must!), perhaps it is the pre-listen that is the hardest. Even the most eagerly anticipated album seems to require an extraordinary effort for me to sit down and prepare for the first listen. Put it down to one of my many foibles - I seem to require that things be "just right" for the first listen, for the all-important first impression. Which, more often than I'd like, ends up with me thinking "Well that was a waste of money"**.

Perhaps this sort of post is symptomatic of the problems I have with listening. It could just be that I think too much without sufficient listening time to give the thinking any reasonable form. I mean, the hours I've spent reflecting on how music I've never heard will probably sound...! Yes, there is a lesson here, but one which I haven't been able to learn well enough to put into practise. But then again, what are we really talking about - how to listen to albums? To paraphrase Zappa (again), "Just shut up 'n play it".

* Love's Forever Changes is what I am thinking of - the first listen I found absolutely dreadful, and I think I was so bored the first time that I stopped listening halfway through, and let it become background noise. For shame!

** Only half-seriously, mind you! For I don't think I have yet given up entirely on an album, no matter how atrocious the first listen was. True, getting myself to sit down and prepare for that second listen is tough, but I've been fairly diligent thus far.