THE NATIONAL - High Violet (2010), listen #1
There are different ways of listening to music with various levels of attention. Personally I can’t be doing anything else involving reading or else it completely fails to register. Although I do listen to music in the car, I always wonder whether I’m not doing it justice because the car speakers don’t always capture the nuances. I do best if my headphones are in, and try to avoid dismissing something out of hand if I haven’t given it at least one listen with headphones. So, walking, working out at the gym, and chores like laundry are ideal music time. And further I’ve had enough distractions at the gym that I really try extra hard to not pull the “this doesn’t deserve a second listen” trigger if I’ve only heard it at the gym. Being a music nerd takes effort , man. My first listen to High Violet was in the gym not knowing any songs going in. So of course it’s going to be an incomplete take. I’ll talk through the three main phases of listening. The first was the “eng