oh, this is why everyone needs the multiple PM feature, huh?

LA awaits you with open arms.

Yes.

Timis, you're awesome.

exactly.....

Right back at you pal.

The volume has gotten such that I'm considering a series of quickie review threads to help us all keep up with the output--and discuss it in the only way we know how (somewhere between beautiful prose and week 1 in an adult literacy class)

I honestly dont know how dudes like Timis and Dalen compartmentalize all the new music they hear every week.

for me it's quality over quantity. i hear a lot of stuff, but a good portion of it gets eaten by my trash bin. i tend to only keep and file the stuff that i really get something out of.

honestly, 2006 has been a slack year for quality music.

Yeah, but do you ever feel like sometimes you dismiss something too quickly in the race to move on to something else? (actually, you would never admit this even if it were true so its purely rhetorical )

done it a few times. kings of leon, the raconteurs for example.

the thing is, i never move on to something else until i've let what i'm currently listening to soak in. i give everything a few plays in full, at least. sometimes things slip through the cracks, but i can usually get a proper feel for the release on the first few listens.

how about you? how often do you listen to an album before tossing it aside? also, do you listen to it as background music, or properly sit down with it and absorb it?

i usually can tell if i'm going to like something long-term right away.

certain things i give more than one chance, like deadstring brothers. couldn't stand it upon first listen, knew i wouldn't stand it upon repeated listenings but all you stones freaks babbled on about it so i gave it another spin or two and it bored the shit out of me.

things usually grip me right away and then i play the shit out of them. i don't hear as much music as most people on this board but the stuff that i put in my top 10/20/whatever I know very very well.

I could have listened to 10 other albums this week but I'd rather have listened to Citrus 10 times.

I know I usually listen as background music about 90% of the time. Not the most ideal way to take in something you've never heard before, but it's hard to dedicate the time. Since that's the case and because I'm a moody s.o.b. when I'm working, I'm often a little harder on albums that need a bit of room to grow. That new Frank Black album was definitely the case.

i do and agree with everything dalen has said in this post.....

I usually have to hear something in the first listen to justify repeated listening. I dont necessarily have to love it right away but certain things (really fucking annoying vocals) are an immediate turnoff. I'm thinking that the new Phoenix and Format records are good examples of stuff that I enjoyed right away.

I try and use Mondays (the one day of the week when I am absolutely tehtered to a computer all day) to check out new stuff and then repeat listens in my truck or with headphones to the attention grabbers which is where I'd say I do my most discerning listening.

There is also the "shuffle" factor. I usually just put iTunes on shuffle when I am at home, either in my office, or working around the house or in the yard; I'll hear something that catches my attention and go back to check it out later. This also happens from listening to something like KEXP or WRAS---I try to make a note of shit I like and then track it down online or from you guys.