It's not a huge stretch to come to the conclusion that iPods and other DAPs have well and truly changed the way we listen to music. Having as much as your entire CD collection in your pocket will do that.

I think Chappo nailed it one day when we were rabbitting on about... whatever it was we were rabbitting on about at the time. He said he likes listening to albums all the way through and thought that the "mp3 generation" was missing out. After thinking about it and experimenting I think he's right.

All of a sudden the concept of an album as a coherent piece of work in its own right is diminished and shuffle play or album/artist/genre traversing playlists, and single track digital purchases reign. Tracks live or die by themselves, and if you listen on full shuffle, transitions can be at best amusing but more likely downright jarring. I'm not saying that Enya and Rammstein couldn't eventually get along having a few bevvies at the local, but musically it's a bit of a jump.

Sure, you could just turn shuffle off but that makes picking music a completely manual process (sayeth he in his best blonde 'Maths is hard!' voice...) iPods these days - and I'm sure other DAPs worth their salt - have a nice compromise called Album Shuffle, that (funnily enough) picks an album at random, then plays it from start to finish before moving on. It's not rocket science but I think it's significant in that it can help you re-appreciate each album.

I've been listening this way for the last month or so and it really makes a nice difference. My work commute is anything up to 45 mins so that fits in up to an album each way. It's like you're no longer listening to some radio station programmed by a musical version of a dyslexic, but you're listening to your CD collection again. I'm not describing it here well but give it a go, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the difference.

Tags: iPod