I realised an important thing about listening to music in 2025, people don’t hear the rubbish tracks on an album, or rather, they don’t hear the songs they initially think are rubbish. When we bought records, we listened to both sides. Some tracks stood out straight away, some didn’t, but you tended to sit through the lot. Now, it's easy to just pick a selection of tracks based on one listen. Aside from the fact the concept of an album has been made redundant, songs you might not initially like, you end up loving, they just take time to get into.
I bet there are records with tracks you didn’t used to like but you now do. It was commonplace, wasn’t it? Mind you, it didn’t always happen, I for one never got on board with Zep’s D’yer Maker on Houses Of The Holy but it took me about a month of playing the Grateful Dead’s Wake Of The Flood, before I Iiked anything except Stella Blue. But now, it’s one of my favourite albums. I just needed time to absorb and understand it. This has happened many, many times. I wasn’t sure about Presence for ages, I only liked Achilles Last Stand, but it slowly grew on me. I didn’t play side two of Utopia’s first record, the 30-minute The Ikon, same as I didn’t listen to Todd’s Treatise On Cosmic Fire on Initiation. Both took effort and time as ambitious pieces of work but eventually I did and loved them.
Often, it’s the songs that are harder to get into, that you end up loving them the most. I bought 10 CC’s The Original Soundtrack for I’m Not In Love and Life Is A Minestrone but the opening track Une Nuit a Paris I ended up loving, after initially disliking it.
Even Rush’s Working Man, which is a classic I now love, I disliked initially as sub-Led Zeppelin. I found Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes difficult and I used to pass it over in favour of Relayer but I kept trying and first got into Ritual and then the rest of it.
Some things are just difficult or unusual but eventually that’s what you love. In common with many, I initially didn’t especially enjoy Tonight’s The Night beyond the title track, nor Time Fades Away, but it just took time to absorb the music. These days you’d have no reason to revisit the record, just put on something you like but that would deny yourself more difficult pleasures and of course, you’d never know what you were missing. It makes music more disposable and reduces attention span.
Some bands I never really liked but would persevere with. One such was Weather Report. When I first heard them, I think I was too young to understand their jazz but I wouldn’t be without them now. I Sing The Body Electric and 8.30 their live double are stunning.
It’s like Gentle Giant, the first time you hear them, it’s hard to understand what on earth is going on as they change from modern pro rock to plainsong, madrigals, folk and jazz. You need time but they are so rewarding. Time spent listening to their records is time well spent but would they even get a chance now, let alone be given a multi-album deal and release 12 albums in the UK across the 70s without even one making the charts!
Different times, different values.
