Listening to Albums in the Dark
On how might we find rest in art (+ a dose of college nostalgia)
In the summer of 1998, I needed to finish up some science credits to graduate from college the following year. So, I moved into a small apartment that a friend was subletting while attending summer school. It was the type of apartment that is common in college towns, where an old house is divided into multiple units to maximize rent. The apartment had no air conditioning and no cable TV.
After an attempt to plug in the cable and watch an episode of Friends resulted in a warning tag on our door about cable theft being a serious crime, we resorted to spending the sweltering, breeze-less evenings listening to music in the dark. We shared our favorite songs and talked about what the songs meant to us, but mostly we listened. My clearest memory of those evenings was Rusted Root’s album When I Woke. Give me two seconds of the drums on that first track, and I'm right back in that moment— discovering something new and different to me. Something that would largely become the soundtrack of my early 20s.
I'm telling this story not just for nostalgia, though I do feel nostalgic as I think about my niece starting classes at my alma mater this week. I've been thinking a lot recently about how we consume art.
For context, that 1998 summer listening party was well before social media was much of a thing. AOL Messenger on your desktop was the coolest invention ever (I can talk to my friends in other places by typing in this little box- what is this strange magic?). I think there might have been MySpace, but I don’t recall anyone at my small liberal arts college in rural Virginia using it. Cell phones were still pretty clunky and expensive and mostly for emergencies.
My friend and I gravitated to listening to whole albums in the dark that summer, yes— because we both loved music, but I think also because there weren’t a million other things we could do. Scrolling wasn’t a thing. We weren’t optimized for 30-second clips and unlimited skips, yet.
Don’t get me wrong— I’m a fan of those things. I love a curated playlist on Spotify. It’s amazing not to have to hope my very favorite song will come on the radio this hour. I love that I can listen to that one Manchester Orchestra song that I just find so haunting and lovely, over and over and over again.
I also love art interwoven in our lives: the murals on my walk to work, the songs in the background from the little speaker in my classroom, the handmade mug I sometimes sip tea from. But I also think there is a certain sort of restfulness and deep presence that comes from bringing it out of the background and letting it be the actual primary thing every now and then.
So here’s my challenge for you (and me) this week. Let’s slow it down a bit. Listen to the whole album. Read the long article instead of skimming for the TL:DR. Go to a museum or pick up an art book at the library specifically to sit in front of one piece and really see it. Go to the concert without Instagramming it.
Consume like it’s 1998.
Beautiful Things of the Week
I saved these two articles a while back (because, Counting Crows!) and re-read them recently. They both got me thinking about how we listen to music and how that has changed, which largely inspired this post.
📘 August and Everything After; One Perfect Album Here at the End of the World from
at📗 A Long December: On 25 Years of Counting Crows
🎶 And here’s that Rusted Root album I mentioned.
I’m curious if this is something you’ve thought about too? Have you tried setting aside the multitasking and just really focusing on a song, article, or piece of art lately? I would love to know your thoughts!
Be well, find tiny joy-
Mary Chris
Oh....I have instant, poignant college flashbacks whenever I hear Sting's version of "Little Wing" and Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder album. Western NY state small liberal arts state college, no air conditioning, absolutely no internet (unless you used the VAX in one of the labs), and an odd mix of friends, boyfriends, and being a theater rat. I've always loved how strongly some music is associated with particular times in my life and how it evokes such deep memories.