The other day I was listening to the latest Switchfoot album, Hello Hurricane. I hadn’t really forgotten this fact, but I was thinking about how great of an album it was. I think I’m like most music listeners. Maybe I get tons of free music to review and that gives me an advantage to listen to more than the average listener (sure), but I know there’s lots of people that listen to tons more new music than I do. I think there’s a bug called “new music-itis” and the only cure or respite from the pain is to listen to something brand new that’s good. While this may be something that afflicts mostly those extreme above-average music listeners out there, I think the attitude has subtly crept in to all of us.
The side-effect is that we don’t fall in love with albums as hard as we used to. We’re so busy moving on to something else that we don’t spend the time to “live with” an album until it seeps into our brains so much that we hear the next song start to fade in with our heads before the track actually starts. I know I have this affliction. I don’t appreciate this great Hello Hurricane album as much as I could. Sure, a music magazine editor is going to deal with this more severely than most, but I wonder if it’s keeping us all from falling hard in love with so many good albums out there.
I haven’t seen the final product yet, but I put together a nice little book for myself at Shutterfly. A 20-page hard cover book isn’t too costly (especially with a groupon or membership discount or gift card) and it’s easy to put together. FYI, HM receives no money from the sale of this thing. It’s just a customized little print-on-demand product (kind of like those coffee mugs, etc at cafepress.com).
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