What's your approach to listening to prog?

[Musitron]

If you care to, could you post the song list? I have the albums from the first one > Ghosts, I'd love to distill them down to a couple of CD's. Thanks!

Strawbs: from Just a Collection of... > Ghosts
(5 first songs with Rick Wakeman).
Temperament Of Mind
Where Is The Dream Of Your Youth
The Vision Of The Lady Of The Lake
Glimps of Heaven
Blue Angel from Dave Cousins - Two Weeks Last Summer (If you don’t have that song, download it from Amazon)
New World
Down by the sea
Lay down
Tears of Pavan
Autumn
Hero And Heroine
Out In The Cold
Ghosts
The Life Auction
Remembering/You And I
Grace Darling

[Jeremy Bender]

Thanks for that, Musitron, I'll download anything I don't have.

[presdoug]

From the front, I walk straight at the music shelves and pick out what I feel like listening to, be it prog, new wave, heavy, classical, reggae, folk, whatever. I don't have pre-planned systems for listening to music, I listen to what I fancy when I fancy it. Anything else is unnecessarily restrictive.

I have the same approach, though i don't have a lot of genres that i listen to-prog, heavy, classical, jazz

[yogibear]

since most of my music is on the computer i sneak up on the computer from around the corner where the washer and dryer hang out.

[Superfly]

Usually...I'll just play the same album, over and over for months on end, Univers Zero: Heresie...over and over, while I go to work on the next victim with my special tool kit comprised of various needles and shards of broken glass. The blindfolds are optional, but the restraints are not.

Too dark?

Then maybe it's like this: I play nothing but Sunshine Pop while I shower all of my kittens with rose petals and sugar cubes, all the while decorating the room in candy canes and rainbow glitter.

But really, I walk over to the cd collection and pick something. It all revolves around the mood I'm in at the time.

[strawberrybrick]

How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

[Brian Griffin]

How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

The bigger your stash gets the harder it is to pick I find

One approach I take is listening to what's being discussed here to help choose

BG

[Vic2012]

One approach I take is listening to what's being discussed here to help choose

I do that a lot, and I'm sure a lot of other's here do that too. I hardly listen to prog for the most part, but I have a pretty good collection of prog CDs. I recently went on a VDGG binge thanks to a thread on them. I even bought another one of their albums because of that thread.

[No Pride]

How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

It's not so much that I can't find anything to listen to, it's more that I don't know what I feel like listening to. That's why I like iPod shuffle. Sometimes I'll hear a track that makes me want to listen to that whole album. Just as often, I'll keep going through the random madness... and I'd say less than a quarter of it is prog.

Oh yeah, I can only enjoy all this with phones when my "sweeter half" is sleeping. And even moreso while I'm .

[NogbadTheBad]

One approach I take is listening to what's being discussed here to help choose

BG

Yup, I do this quite a bit.

[zombywoof]

How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

It happens to me, sadly. That's when I know its time to take a break.

[Brian Griffin]

Played today after seeing them mentioned:

Museo Rosenbach - Zarathustra
FM - Headroom D2D
MGP - World of Genius Hans

All great spins

BG

[everythingtoexcess]

I'm developing a new approach. Still trying to work out the timing. When I get something new, I give it a few spins. Sometimes it hits me right away, sometimes I'm left wondering what all of the fuss is about. After that I put it away and listen to other things for anywhere between a week and a month. Then I play it again. Sometimes the stuff that grabbed me right away sounds disposable, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the stuff I didn't like at first BLOWS ME AWAY after its vacation. Most recently, I did this with the newest Gazpacho album. Bought it, didn't like it, let it sit for probably two months. I threw it on a couple nights ago and can't stop listening to it. How the hell did I miss this in January when I bought it? .
I've had similar experiences with Jack's Mannequin (not prog, but still kick-ass), Magic Pie, Marillion's Somewhere Else (that took a couple YEARS to sink in, but I actually like it now.) ALL of the A.C.T albums, Frost's Milliontown and a bunch of others.

[zombywoof]

^thats worked for me more than once, too...

[Hunnibee]

Lately, my approach is to find a box that has CDs in it. With everything I own in plastic crates since 2008, and adding to my collection when I can afford, I just reach down into a box and pull out something... voila'! If I'm not in the mood for it, I toss it aside and keep reaching. I am also utilizing online resources more, especially internet radio (everyone seems to have a "Prog show" these days ) and websites like Pandora and Spotify. (I hate Spotify's recent changes!) And of course, there's always good ol' YouTube.

[Rarebird]

I listen to what I feel like. I have a database with everything I have and when I played it and sometimes I look at what I haven't played for sometime. I try to give every album of an artist an equal amount of spins, which is sometimes difficult, if there are albums I prefer over other albums by a certain artist. Sometimes it feels a bit obsessive. There are some artists I tend to spin from their first to their last album, mostly one album a day, like Argent, The Beatles, Heinz Rudolf Kunze, Achim Reichel and Silly. I have to admit, sometimes I want to play the latest albums a bit more

[spellbound]

Point me at the sky and let it fly!

[Zeuhlmate]

No approach, no system - I listen to prog, jazz, classical, a.o., but never pop or country... I might consider who is in the room, so a little easier stuff when the wife or the kids are around, but they like some of the trickier stuff too. Just listened to Hot Rats and both wife & kid likes it a lot.

How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

Often. But I guess its because I'm not really in the mood for music.

[Magic Mountain]

I have my collection (approx. 7K) cataloged in an Excel spreadsheet. Since each album is indexed, I use a random number generator to select an album at random. If I am not in the mood for the album, I usually select an album that is on the same screen. I also use the screen (or in the neighborhood of the randomly selected album) to select a new album to listen to that I just purchased. I tend to alternate my listening between a new purchase, and established albums. Now do I use this system 100% of the time, No, but I use it often, and it helps me rotate through my collection. I find it amazing how in the majority of the times I really enjoy an album that I would probably not have selected without this system.

I like, Rarebird above, record the date of last listen, so sometimes I use that as a selection criteria. But like others, sometimes I just want to hear a particular album

I work from home, so during workdays I usually use current discussion on PE as my selection criteria. For example, an album by Phideaux was recently selected as the featured album. I used that as impetus to play all his albums that week while working.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

heh... not possible... too many choices sometimes confuddle the selecting process, but I can usually figure out the mood I want and find something that fits it

[Vic2012]

Originally Posted by strawberrybrick
How many of you look at your collection and "I can't find anything to listen to"?

Happens all the time with me. I haven't counted how many CDs I have but it's gotta be well into the hundreds. Sometimes I get an itch to hear something I haven't heard in years, or because there's a thread about a band or CD, but I don't feel like digging for the CD in all those boxes of CDs.

[Modry Effekt]

It's A Thin Line Between Love And Hate.

[Werbinox]

Thank Jeebus Im not so alone in all this as I thought! I drop acid, strip naked, and dance on a mountain top as the sun rises. Then, I lay down and masturbate, timing everything to go with the, er, climax of the music. Then I get dressed and leave before squares and family-types show up. This has worked for me for years

[3LockBox]

I listen to stuff I like

[AncientChord]

First of all I read reviews here or elsewhere to get an idea if I might like the band or artist. I listen to audio samples or video promos. If I like it I then get the music and review the album. I rarely like whole albums, so I then pick tracks from new albums that I like, and make my own compilation CD's, with covers and all. I do this with prog, and other music genres as well. That's the way I like to listen. I know CD's are going away, but I still like making CD's because my old car, and old home stereo system only support CD's. Plus I like reading covers and looking at the music info while listening. That's my way of listening.