records worth returning to

I’ve been playing Death Cab For Cutie’s Asphalt Meadows on repeat since it came out last fall. The fact the band released an acoustic version of the entire record has helped reinforce some of the songs in my consciousness, but more than anything, I’ve been struck how this record feels like something worth returning to, an accomplishment that feels increasingly rare.

These days, I find myself bemoaning how rare it is to find an album worth playing on repeat. Perhaps this is a complaint that accompanies age, both my own and the artists to whom I listen, but living in a media saturated world doesn’t seem to help.

With steaming and music apps throwing so much at us all at once, it’s easy to listen to an album once, then forget about it altogether. Many of the artists that used to be my favorites are still making music, but have fallen by the wayside in my mind because I can so easily skip their new music and listen to something else.

I often don’t give a new album a fair chance. Gone are the days of going to the record store, forking over cash for a CD, and then spinning an album in the disc changer of my car over and over again. And if we’re going based on mere-exposure theory here, we don’t develop an affinity for new music because we can so easily play the old music for the sake of chasing down a feeling long since wrung out.

Perhaps it’s some of both these things: the bands I love have passed their songwriting prime and media saturation has shortened of our collective attention span.

I remember reading an interview with Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World a few years back that gave me some hope in this arena. He spoke about touring the tenth anniversary of their album, Futures, an album which I consider a classic, and how the shows felt different from the regular album-cycle tour. How people had turned out to commemorate songs that meant so much to them. How the energy in the room was palpable every night as the crowd sang along to the record played live, front to back.

Adkins’ takeaway when returning to the studio to make 2016’s Integrity Blues? Make an album that would generate the same kind of celebration and excitement ten years after its release.

My personal opinion? They succeeded (Go ahead…give “You With Me” a spin and tell me you don’t feel anything.) Integrity Blues was an important record for me, one I carried in my pockets while zigzagging around Europe that fall. It may not have made the same splash as Futures, but there’s something bold in this collection of songs. This isn’t a band phoning it in, doing what they do and pumping out more of the same schlock due to contractual obligations. Integrity Blues sounds like a band asking questions, pushing their limits, meeting themselves where they are, both as people and as artists. And in my opinion, that makes a record worth returning to.

As far as our collective attention span, maybe it’s too late. Maybe there’s no fixing the way we listen to music these days, at least not on a mass scale. Instead, all I can do is give an album a fair shake by playing it through more than once.

I can play music and listen–just listen.

Listen better.

Listen deeper.

Points of Intersection: Ben Gibbard and Jim Adkins in conversation on the podcast, Pass-Through Frequencies