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I’ve started making playlists for some of my favorite old records in their original play order. The usual suspects: Star Trek, Star Wars.
It occurred to me as I went through Star Wars what a useful thing the “side break” was. Even if you had (for the time) a huge amount of music presented to you, you still took it (very often) in 20 minute chunks. (Yes, you could have both LP’s on the turntable and some double LP sets were kind enough to give you sides 1 and 4 on one LP and 2 and 3 on the second.)
To this day I can tell you exactly what music was on what side of The Empire Strikes Back. Also each side had its own kind of character, as it were.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an argument for less music. I LOVE my absurd amounts of music that a modern release gives me. But when I’m staring down the barrel of a 2 CD Murray Gold Doctor Who score I’m wondering if there is a better way to listen to it?
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Interesting. I used to "have to" listen to my soundtracks in one sitting, which is one reason I never found time to listen to long CDs or 2-Disc sets. It was easy back in the (good?) old days when an LP was generally 40 minutes at most, and yes, you had to get up and turn it over - which gave it a kind of geography which was easy to assimilate.
When soundtracks became largely complete and chronological I felt a real First World Dilemma, until I realised that the music was never really meant to be listened to in that way. I didn't start creating my own playlists or anything, but I did start listening to CDs in "manageable bites", which could be anything from between twenty minutes and nearly an hour, depending on the nature of the score. I sometimes even make a kind of mental note as to where "Side A" ends, and I find that it helps to give me a better understanding of the architecture of the score.
I may lose any street cred I ever had (if I ever had any) when I say that I'm really beginning to like those extremely long and unwieldy James Horner scores again. I picked up DEEP IMPACT last week at a record fair, for 4 Euros. It's mindbogglingly numbing in its entirety, but in three 25-minute chunks I'm finding it very rewarding.
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