Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx A new John Foxx album! How do you listen to it?

I'm in a similar position; bought TCM a while back but decided to save it for my birthday .... only a few weeks to go now

I like to listen to new albums as a whole, but it sometimes does not work out that way :rolleyes:

Must admit I prefer to play a new album in one sitting.

Like Alex mentioned I tend to do other things whilst listening to albums. Due to my nature I'm always on the "go" and struggle to sit in one place and listen to music for long periods.

Now with the demise of record shops (especially Zavvi) the sense of pleasure as gone in visiting them and for fans of obscure artists like John I doubt most shops that are left won't have too many in stock. So I'm afraid for me it's the postman.

Peter

One other thing I find interesting in this respect is the context now in which I listen to new (especially John Foxx) albums.

There are really only a handful of artists by whom I buy/get every release, and these are the cornerstone of my 'collection'. But I find myself listening to far more 'new' (unfamiliar) music now than I ever did before??

That's where this great forum has a part to play.

It's not unusual for me to have half a dozen albums in the 'pending' tray, and recommendations from people, associates with myspace pages with a couple of tracks on etc etc.
It's really good to have both experiences running in parallel, and that's why I love the compilation albums that John Foxx work appears on (and those that feature my other mainstay, Marc Almond) because you hear one familiar song in a whole new context, and go off at tangents chasing up stuff from the other bands involved in the project.

The you discover a new love, and off you go. Baby Dee, Metamatics, Plastikman (tonight I'm spending some time with Eva Demarczyk)

What is especially exciting about these essential artists (Foxx, Almond, Cave, Walker) is that their 'new' work sounds as fresh and exciting now as the more contemporary stuff around them, and their back catalogue material equally so.

For instance, as well as My Lost City, Drift Music and the newer things, I am taking this opportunity to go back and re-visit Cocteau Twins material. I've never been a big fan of Robin Guthrie's solo work, but albums like Garlands, Victorialand and Blue Bell Knoll are stunning and sowed seeds for me. Then I'm reminded of a moment and get my crackly Xmal Deutschland tapes out... And so it goes around.

Then there's the other element with John Foxx that I feared may come with over-familiarity. My love of his work spilled over into obsessive research/archiving/collecting during 2005-ish and I think I've probably played everything he's ever done in the last three years or so, and often more than once.

But it hasn't happened. I listen to his music with new ears each time, never failing to find unfamiliar elements that excite me.

Back in the teenage years it was possible for me to give music my full attention by shutting myself away in the bedroom, particularly if the house were empty, and like most teens I’d just immerse myself in the vinyl audio experience. With a newly acquired LP it seems to have been a measured, almost ritualistic process of admiring the big artwork on the cover, carefully slipping out the record, putting it on the turntable of the old cheap record player (that I managed to hijack from the living-room to my bedroom), and diving onto the bed as quickly as possible before the music started. Then scrupulously reading the lyrics for the first time while lying on my back, ready to enter the world held within that big black disc…

Albums like Metamatic through to IMW would have got my full reverence and attention this way, played methodically from track one to the last track, but fast forward to more recent times, and with life long changed and vinyl collection long gone (save for a few treasured pieces) and here I am lately with MLC on CD.

During the time when vinyl LP’s all but disappeared from main record stores there was a long gap of nothing for me before I accepted the tiny, unromantic CD format, which itself has now become so historical that I’d mourn its passing, as I really cant grow to love downloading, having grown up with music as something you can actually hold in your hand.

But sometimes the ease with which I can shove a CD disc into any player, or a computer and just walk away from it as it plays, (usually due to lack of time), can get between me and the experience of just actually listening. Today that lost teenage space of mind has now become either going out a journey with the ipod, or being fixed near to the CD player in the kitchen in the mornings, and last years albums like Impossible and Neuro Video were great to jump back and forth between the already familiar tracks while doing housework.

The classic album remasters, and any new work such as MLC are different, and I’ve really wanted to experience these all the way through uninterrupted, and in an appropriate setting outside of the usual home space, so I usually wait till I’m walking casually round the town, through a mall, or in a public place like a museum. I like the feeling of a flow of movement when listening to (most) music, and the method here is most definitely (if possible) from track one through to the albums end.

Looks like I'm on my own on this one then.

Coincintally, there was someone on BBC4 the other week complaining about how the growth of mp3 downloading means that people don't listen to albums anymore and that most people's "playlists" (or whatever they call them these days) are a succession of unrelated tracks that sound disjointed out of context.
But for me, whether it be John's music or anyone else's, a song needs to stand up on its own merits rather than being part of a bigger collection.

Anyway, even now a couple of weeks after purchase I still have a couple of tracks from "My Lost City" to look forward to. Hopefully, by the time I do so there might be another new album on the way....

I believed that too – that it was a modern ill brought about by new technology. But my missus listens to music this way and always has. She very rarely buys albums and only then if there’s more than a couple of good singles on them.

Since itunes she has never purchased an album, just random tracks that she likes. And she did this in her youth as well – just buying singles. So it’s not really a modern ill brought about by new technology. Teenagers in the 50s predominantly bought singles – it wasn’t really until Dylan and The Beatles etc that teenagers (and then everyone as the generations grew up and set the trend) started to buy albums. I think for some people (‘er indoors included) music is entertainment, it’s just a song, something to hum whilst exercising or to play in the background when friends come round. And there’s a lot of music that does that; a sort of Tesco Value pop, dance hits etc. And that’s fine, it has its place, there’s nothing wrong with it – it’s disposable, cheap and in one form or another it’s been that way for over 50 years.

But there are artists such as Foxx where the only way to listen to the album is as a single body of work, to listen to it all at once. Otherwise if you listen in chunks, it’s a bit like looking at a Pollock under a microscope; all the detail but you miss the rhythm and dynamic of the whole.

Ultimately though some listen to albums whole and always have, and some don’t – but it’s no bad thing, it’s just the way it’s always been.

I'm having trouble listening to A Secret Life at the moment. Nothing to do with the album itself, I've just not had the 35 minutes of peace and quiet I want to listen to it! I tried playing it when I got it on Monday but to much life noise made it unlistenable. If I followed your method (and there's nowt wrong with your method! ) I'd of heard it by now. But I'm bloody minded (anorak) enough to hang on until I get some silence to give it its due.