Building a Great Album: Side 2

I'm calling it side 2 even though you don't have to flip over a CD or tracklist... yet somehow a lot of albums are still structured to have similar highs and lows to what you'd get on a tape or vinyl record. Because it works: it's a way to sustain listeners through an hour of music from a single artist. I'm sure their are other ways to structure it (for example, making an entire side of a record a single song)

I'll Believe in Anything - Wolf Parade. Saw this song performed live. Wow.


By the way, while I'm on the topic... http://www.music-map.com/ is a great site to visit if you like an artist, and want to find more like them.

4. Somewhere in the second half, there needs to be one (or more) song that is absolutely awesome, to hold together the second half. If the album is front-loaded, I'll lose interest. Arcade Fire's albums suffer from this: too many of their second halves (side twos) are a little undifferentiated, and the resulting effect is an impression that their albums are all about ten to fifteen minutes too long. The side two anchor can bring something a little different than the opening trio, it's a good place for a piece that sprawls (on the first half, it's better to keep things tight) ... but it has to kick ASS in its way.

Some great standout second-half anchors - you'll notice that a number of these are the emotional climax of the entire album, and others are the emotional counterpoint that contrasts the tone of the first three tracks:
Ball and Biscuit (White Stripes: Elephant)



What is the Light and Waitin' For A Superman (Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin)
When Doves Cry (Prince: Purple Rain) (click the link fast. Prince has a record of removing his songs from Youtube)
Runaway (Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy)
Hallelujah and Lover, You Should Have Come Over (Jeff Buckley: Grace)
I'll Believe in Anything (Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary: best track on the whole album)
So Come Back, I'm Waiting (Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy)
2 Eyes 2 C: (Suckers: Wild Smile)
Maps: (Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust)
Lonely Lonely and When I Was a Young Girl: (Feist: Let it Die)
Tracks thirteen, fourteen, fifteen: (Modest Mouse: This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About - only a stunning climax would have been able to balance an album with so many massive dynamic swings, but these three do it.)
Share (Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why Are There Mountains-the two songs I mentioned in this post are the only two really good songs on the album, in my opinion, but their placement shows me the band knows something about shaping an album. I'll give their next one a try.)

Scythian Empire (Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha)
Broken Drum (Beck: Guero)
If You See Her, Say Hello and Shelter From the Storm [not on Youtube] (Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks)

5. A satisfying closing. This is one of the reasons I really hate rereleases, bonus tracks, and special editions that add tracks (especially alternative versions of songs we've already heard) to the end of the original album: because the final word of an album shouldn't be messed with. And if a track wasn't good enough to be part of the original album statement, it doesn't deserve a place on a disc with the original album.

Many bands put their most sprawling track last (Desolation Row, A Day in the Life), some sail off into the stratosphere (Purple Rain - Prince: Purple Rain; All Is Full Of Love - Bjork: Homogenic; Dragon's Lair: Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer; My Body is a Cage - Arcade Fire: Neon Bible), or at least somewhere (The Happy Birthday Song - Andrew Bird: Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs) and others end with a gentle sigh that almost deflates (I Saw a Light - Bat For Lashes: Fur and Gold, Mothers of the Disappeared - U2: The Joshua Tree), and others are a little bow to tie off the emotional dramatics that came just before (After Hours - Velvet Underground: Self-Titled; Her Majesty - Beatles: Abbey Road; Space Travel is Boring - Modest Mouse: This is a Long Drive...) but when it finishes, you know it's finished, and the journey is complete.


Radiohead are the best at putting a final song in that drifts off and leaves the listener exactly where they want them. While the rest of their albums are so good it's not always easy to say they're the best tracks on the albums (though some are contenders) but they're all gorgeous songs, and perfect closers. Wolf At The Door and Four Minute Warning (Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows, part II) are favorites.  Tom Waits ties off his albums (which fly in every direction) with his final songs, which is very important to restore unity after switching across genres, themes and emotional tones as much as he does - "That Feel" from Bone Machine, "Anywhere I Lay My Head" from Rain Dogs, and "Come On Up To The House" from Mule Variations are three finishes that complete the arc of their albums, and "Fawn" is a perfect, sad little bowtie.

Other great closing tracks:
Bird Gehrl (Antony and the Johnsons: I am a Bird Now); Pitter Patter goes my Heart (Broken Social Scene: You Forgot it in People) Filmore Jive (Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)

Bird Gehrl


On the flipside, NEVER EVER put your worst song last, because that's the closing impression I'll have of your album. From Here We Go To Sublime, by The Field, has a closing track I find really languid and dull compared to the excellent rest of the album, and particularly compared to the superlative track "Silent," which is the chillest bliss-out I've ever heard. It uses a different sound vocabulary than the rest of the album, and is considerably slower, so that the album ends in an anticlimax... and not in a good way (as in Bird Gehrl, above, or "One road To Freedom" a nice bring-down at the end of Ben Harper's "Fight For Your Mind," after the stormy "God Fearing Man"

Following the template
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
White Stripes - especially Elephant
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy... though the closing track isn't as great as some of the others.
Rain Dogs - Tom Waits (one of the greatest songwriting albums in my collection)
Songs by Leonard Cohen (his gorgeous debut album)
Bjork - Homogenic
Built To Spill - Perfect from Now On (second half high points; Time Trap, You Were Right)
and it doesn't have to be classic, indie, or obscure, either:
Barenaked Ladies - Stunt

Filmore Jive - Pavement (a band whose sound checks none of the boxes that usually make me like a band... but which I keep coming back to again and again, because their songs are just ... great.)


The other way to make an album is to make one that's strong from top to bottom -- no tracks particularly stand way out... but there also isn't a weak one in there, either. This is hard to do, because if the songs are too similar, it's boring, but they have to stay within the vibe. These consistent kinds of albums are the best for listening while you're working or driving, and they're really satisfying.
Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
Most Wilco albums, other than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Most albums by "The National" -- which is why they grow on you so much. High Violet is an especially good example of this, because they even manage to have some standout songs... without having standout songs.
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion
Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks
Bon Iver: Self titled
David Byrne: Grown Backwards



Back to the first post.  Back to part 2.  My posts about Bliss-outs.  About K-pop. About REAL Korean Music.

Building a Great Album: Side 1

Soundtrack: Black Dog, Led Zeppelin, for your listening pleasure.


Though albums are sold as CDs or digital tracklists these days, rather than tapes or records with two sides, there are certain features of the first half of an album's playing time, and certain features of the second half, that have held true even after we stopped having to flip over our tapes and records. This post is about what works on side one of an album.

I'll try to put links up at least one of the times I mention an album or band... but google works, folks, and unless I add a qualifier, I'd say that all the songs (and albums on which they are found, obviously, given the topic) are keepers, and worth a try. Unless you really disagree with my taste in music... which is OK, too.

1. As per Nick Hornby's Mixtape Rules from High Fidelity, the first track SHOULD be a great one... but it should also be a statement of purpose about what the album will be about (this has been true since Sergeant Pepper, the first modern album), and the second song should bring things up even higher, if possible-or go somehow further in the direction the album's going. No band has ever (or at least... SHOULD ever) put their most depressing song first. Or the one offbeat song that doesn't match the rest of the album's tone. The Joshua Tree put Bullet The Blue Sky fourth (a good place for a change of pace song), not first. White Stripes' Elephant also changes pace for tracks 4 and 5. Couldn't exactly gone any higher.

Led Zeppelin (Black Dog, Whole Lotta Love, Immigrant Song) and U2 (Where the Streets Have No Name, Beautiful Day) are two bands that are very good at picking a great opener. Like or dislike the entire album, with "And the Hazy Sea," Cymbals eat Guitars tells you exactly what you're getting. On an awesomer scale, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" at the beginning of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" lets you know you're in for something really, really hot.

Other albums with really great first songs, or songs that set the tone really well: Funeral, by Arcade Fire (The Suburbs is probably a better album overall, but The Arcade Fire might never top that first song off their debut full-length). Purple Rain, by Prince (Let's Go Crazy), "Fever to Tell" and "It's Blitz" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Weezer's "My Name is Jonas," is an amazing opening volley. "Until the Morning Comes" by Tindersticks. Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, by The Flaming Lips (At War With the Mystics is not their best, but probably their most fun album.)

Until the Morning Comes (Tindersticks)

2. The first three tracks should set out most of the album's sonic parameters, and if you only have four or five great songs for your album, it's not a bad idea to cash in two, or even three of them, in the first triple. If the goal of your album is to rock out, the advice given in High Fidelity (I think in the book: can't find it in the movie clips) stands: start strong, but make the second song even better, to serve notice that things are going to rock out, not peter out.

Greatest opening trios in my collection:
White Stripes: Elephant (Seven Nation Army, Black Math, which somehow, almost unbelievably, kicks it up another notch from the stunning opener, and then There's no Home For You Here, which nearly made me drive off the road the first time I listened to it in a car.)
Jeff Buckley: Grace (Mojo Pin, Grace, Last Goodbye)
U2: The Joshua Tree (Where the Streets Have no Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With or Without You: Incredible!)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Zero. Shiny!


Other stellar opening trios: David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust (track 4's not bad, either), The Flaming Lips are very good at opening songs and trios that set out the tone for the album...and also kick ass, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs albums "Fever to Tell" and "It's Blitz" also do this really well, but the masters might be The White Stripes: all of their studio albums do this in spades, bringing the thunder while setting the soundscape.

Interestingly, the Beatles - album as genre pioneers - usually don't follow to the "first three tracks" rule

3. If there isn't a tone-shift track somewhere in the first five tracks (think "Bullet The Blue Sky" on Joshua Tree, or "Exit Music For a Film" on OK Computer, or "The Beautiful Ones" on Purple Rain), I stop expecting one, and start listening for if the album is consistent all the way through (Blood on the Tracks) instead. Changes of tone aren't needed, but it's a different type of album where the songs all combine into a very unified listening experience, instead of standing out a little, one from the other.

Back to part one.  On to part three.

Building a Great Album: On The Album as a Journey

From time to time I stop prattling on about Korea, and prattle on about music or film. If you prefer my Korea prattle, hang in there. I'll get back to it soon enough.

I love music. I don't have training in music, so it's not about the chords... it's about the place the music takes me. And if a four chord song can do it, that's fine. And if you need a masters' in music theory to explain it... that's fine, too. I'm like people who drive a car, but can't explain how the engine works: I don't quite understand how, but if it gets me where I want to go, we're good. And even if engineers tell me it's built very cleverly, if it doesn't get me there in a way I like, somebody else might, I don't really care what the engine specs are.

So you're welcome to disagree with me about which music I love, but I was just listening to OK Computer, and listened to "Exit Music For a Film" followed by "Let Down" followed by "Karma Police" -- which, despite having made so many great songs, might be the best three-song run Radiohead's ever strung together on an album. Might.

Exit Music (For a Film)


I almost always listen to albums. Maybe I'm a relic because of it. I don't grumble that digital music sounds different from vinyl, I don't have a hi-fi and a set of $800 headphones, but I believe that an artist who knows what they're doing puts enough care into the songs they write, and the order they appear in, and how they fit with each other, that it's worth listening to the album, to get what the artist was going for. Skipping to your three favorite tracks instead of listening to the album in the track order it was made, if the artist knows what they're doing, is the difference between going on a road trip with someone, and looking at the five best pictures they took on their way.

And these days, when the internet, and Youtube, have diminished the returns on making a full album, rather than condensing it into an EP, or releasing it as two EPs (each with their own hype buildup and lead singles), so much that an artist has no reason to make a full-length album... unless they have something to say that can't be broken into an EP. This is all the more reason to continue to listen to albums, to see if artists are worth their salt, before looking up the best songs on Youtube.

Let Down


Sgt. Pepper probably marked the beginning of the album as an artistic expression of its own, rather than just a collection of artistic expressions. The less nuanced approach was to put the most radio-friendly songs either at the beginning of side one, or the beginning of side two, or somewhere on the first side, as far as I can tell from checking the track lists of my pre-1967 albums. (this continued after Sgt. Pepper as well). Some bands still just put their most likely hits first, and pad out the rest. This is less forgivable than ever before, now that iTunes has rendered album filler obsolete, and extra annoying.

But there are still bands out there that can put together a hell of a good album, and this series, like my old bliss-out posts, is a little celebration of albums, particularly the ones that are well-built... and perhaps it's an elegy for them too, now that the album as artform is becoming less and less relevant in the face of music videos and EPs that can boast a higher hit-song to track-listing ratio (available for 99 cents on iTunes!)

Karma Police


There are a few keys to a well-constructed album, in my book. Not every well-made album has all these features, in the same way that not every relationship-driven drama involves a misunderstanding or deception in the second act... but enough do, that I'm not going to say this is why these albums work, but it's clear that this does work. I'm giving examples here from some albums I really like. Some of them are classics and all-time greats; others are middling albums where the only thing going for them might be that they were built the way they are... in fact, some of these albums are basically the equivalent of a mediocre painting with very good composition... which just makes the composition stand out more admirably.

Go to part 2 of the series.

The Korean Takes All Comers in the Dog Meat Debate

The Korean, from Ask A Korean! has thrown down a heavy gauntlet at Busan Haps, where he's written a  very, very strong argument in defense of Koreans who wish to eat Dog meat.
Busan Haps, who are kind enough to volunteer to moderate this discussion (yikes!) have been hosting a three-part "Great Dog Meat Debate"
Part one was a food writer talking about eating Dog meat.
Part two was a vegan food writer explaining why Dog meat is bad. Unfortunately, her argument gets thoroughly dismantled in the comments.
and The Korean! is part three.

[UPDATE: This is a response to The Korean's article on the topic, by Leo Mendoza, founder of the Busan Abandoned Pet Sanctuary" - someone who's face-up close to the issues, and offers a more pragmatic view than the keyboard warriors and idealists, enriches that pragmatism with eyewitness experience... but also has a few straight attacks/insults, disappointingly.]


You may remember The Korean for drawing the hate of every animal lover on the internet for his original defense of Dog Meat, here.

As happened recently when Dog meat came up at The Marmot's Hole, the discussion board has become a bit of a free-for all. My own thoughts are below the jump.

The Korean Blog List is Dead. Long Live All The Korea Blogs

After leaving Korea, it's no surprise the guy who ran the Korea Blog List is no longer interested in maintaining it.

It's no surprise, either, because the list has gotten so long and unwieldy, and the choice is either to let it balloon with defunct blogs, or spend ever-increasing time curating something that's no longer an legitimate part of his life.

Now, Blogger Noe has kindly saved all the links originally listed on the Korean Blog List (here) and has updates (here). (The "Foreigners living in Korea" list is here)

Korean News Feeds, which used to clearly be the best spot, also now carries a lot of links to defunct blogs, and has simply started including so many, that I'm no longer sure that they've chosen only the best ones -- its once awesome status as a great curator of blogs has been diluted by volume.

Alphabetical lists (as at Noe's blog) and time lists (in order of when their names were added to the list, which Korean Blog List used to do) are both also subject to the problem of defunct blogs (a constant problem) getting equal space with the active ones.

So I've built a very simple blogspot page, named: All The Korea Blogs, which uses the same "Most recent update goes first" system as the links on the sidebar of my blog -- which I really like, because you can tell which blogs are more active by moving to the top of the list, or spotting which ones linger up there.

If you want to account for quality, look at the sidebar on Roboseyo, where I've put my favorites, instead of "All The..." which looks to be more completist... or check the sidebars of your other favorite blogs.

So add "All The Korea Blogs" to your links, and if you have a blog, ask me to add it.

And everybody: don't forget to check the links on the side of your blog from time to time, to see if they're still updating.