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Let's Discuss, Part IV: Fixations

Have you ever become completely fixated on a song/album?

Recently I listened to Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age every day, all day and night, for about five days straight. I specifically listened to "Mosquito Song" about 300 times.

This is what my Audioscrobbler playlist looks like since yesterday:

cacwh

That's just when I've been sitting in this particular chair. I've listened to the song in the car, on the living room stereo and in the bedroom as well.

I go through phases with albums. I have 5,000 songs on my iPod, hundreds and hundreds of CDs, eleventybillion gigabytes of music on my computer, yet sometimes all I want is just one particular album or song over and over again. Two weeks ago it was The Mars Volta's L'Via L'Viaquez. Before that it was all of Van Halen I, over and over again. One time I listened to the Jesus Christ, Superstar soundtrack for six days straight.

What about you? Get fixated much?

Comments

Yes! I thought I was the only one. I'll listen to one piece, or one album, over and over for weeks sometimes. Then I'll just stop and not listen again for months.

Well, a few weeks back, I listen to "Phantom" over and over again. I also had a few weeks with the "Buffy" musical soundtrack. That one left a rash, I think. Usually, I'm a tad embarrassed about my music obsessions- rarely are they "cool". But, something about it being WRONG makes it so right.

Sure! When it gets dangerous, I mix it up just to avoid burning out on something I really like. Its easy since once you put on something else good you get into that pretty quickly and the spell is weakened, if not broken.

When the last Coheed album came out, it was in my car CD player for 3 weeks straight. I have a feeling the next one will be like that as well.

Also - Iron Maiden's Powerslave was in there for a good week.

Yes. But it usually involves porn.

Well, that goes without saying.

It has been ages since I was obsessed with an entire album but I do listen to songs over and over again. Right now, I think The Futureheads cover of 'Hounds of Love', The Rakes 'Work, Work, Work' and Arcade Fire's 'Neighborhood #3' are brilliant and am listening to them at least twenty times a day each.

Right now I'm running the Vangelis album 'Spiral' on repeat (but that's mostly in aid of appeasing a major migraine). The most recent album I've obsessed over was Roger Water's "Amused to Death", and once upon a time (a long time ago) I couldn't get enough of the "Desolation Boulevard" album by Sweet.

How one's tastes change...

almost never. I have at least as much, if not more music than you do. I rarely listen to the same thing twice in a row, excepting a new CD or track which I'll listen to a couple of times and review material, which I want a good feel for before I write a review.

I downloaded that song, though... hafta admit it's a good one. probably one of the top 3 you've pointed me to.... right up there with Fett's Vette!

Songs... is unquestionably a brilliant album because you can "set it and forget it" for a week without a care in the world. About two weeks ago, I spent a whole day listening to that disc under different circumstances - listening to the patterns between the drums and the cymbals (recorded seperately, incidentally); listening to just the mix in the left and then the right speakers; listening for the omni-present piano lines and choral pads that remain buried in the mix... it's an album that truly keeps on giving.

Shit - I just might have to listen to it for a second time today.

My wife has listened to nothing but VnV nations' Matter and Form for the last month.

Carin beat me to it. The soundtrack to Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been haunting me. I hear it all the time, whether it's playing or not. (chances are, it's playing!)

I need help.