The Beatles "White Album" is an album that I don't think I've ever played from beginning to end. Or even from beginning to part way through. It's not clear to me why or how that's happened, it just has. One clue might be that as Apple Music describes it, it's an "eclectic, 30- track album of largely stripped down music". I sort of knew that and I suspect somewhere in my subconscious is that knowledge which has stopped me from playing it or at least starting to do so. Anyway "Glass Onion" from that album popped up on a playlist today and firstly it's a great song that I had no memory of ever hearing before and secondly it made me think about never hearing the album and then about what other albums by bands I love, I have never played.
I need to be clear here, these are not albums that I've heard and didn't like (much of Genesis after "Duke") it's albums to which I've just never listened. Which sounds daft (and it is to be honest) but, for example, Physical Graffiti was another album that until it was bought for me a couple of Christmases ago, I had never sat down and played all the way through. Now both of those are double albums so maybe that's one barrier, but "Afraid of Sunlight" and "Somewhere Else" by Marillion are not and I've never played either of them! Nor is "Let it be" by The Beatles and I've not listened to that either. Another example is Bruce Spingsteen's "High Hopes and I loved it's predecessor "Wrecking Ball".
But is listening to an album still "a thing' these days? How many of us just ask Siri to "play my music" and skip what we don't like or are not in the mood to hear? (other voice activated services are available!). Or compose playlists and play them? Sitting and listening to an album was the only option in the past but you also had to own it, so maybe our listening tastes have been irreversible changed by "all you can eat" streaming services, but they also remove the excuse of not ever listened to something because you didn't own it. But it also means you can listen to the ones you like more easily, just look back at the end-of-year reviews that your streaming service of choice readily supply.
Anyway what's your "missing" listening list look like?
I'm off to play the "White Album"!
