Sleepyjack

I imagine this is a very hard choice and difficult process for muscians putting albums together.

How important is the order of tracks on an album?

Today, when i've enqueued stuff in winamp, sometimes the track order fucks up and they play in order of the album. Aside from albums which flow from one song to another (eg like in Dark side of the moon) it's quite interesting to hear songs played (off of one album) consecutively in a different order to what you're anticipating. Although ultimatley you're hearing the same songs, the order in which they play seems makes it sometimes seem like a new album.

That's why making your own mixes is so cool
even though that's quite different from what i am suggesting above.....

anti fishstick

well i know in the past when i've made my own mixes, i put a lot of thought into the track order. even though the songs don't directly flow from one to another they still have to FLOW to me.

my general rules are:
-don't put a LOUD abrupt song after a slow, smoothing one.
-make sure the volumes on the song transitions aren't too extreme
-variety.

thats all i can think of for now

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clonmult

Sometimes the track order is VERY important.

Mansuns Attack of the Grey Lantern is a great example. On the UK edition, it flows, pretty much seamlessly from track to track. The US edition was inexplicably re-ordered to make it nonsense.

quadro2000

Artists spend a lot of time working on their track order. In most cases, you'll find that the first single is within the first three or four tracks on the album. They usually put the weaker tracks a little past the middle of the album - close to the end. (At least that's been my experience.) If the album is a concept album, then obviously track order is crucial.

But I do also listen to albums on random after hearing them in the correct order, and it does indeed feel almost like a different album!

When I make mixes, I spend lots of time working on the order, but my rules for the order change from mix to mix. It seemed to be much more important when I was making mixes on tape instead of CD, for some reason.

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anleja

I actually like to do the opposite. I like having a slow song followed by a loud song; this to me makes the loudness have a greater impact when it arrives after the quietness. I mean, I don't do quiet, loud, quiet, loud, etc, but if you put a few quiet songs in a row, then follow those with a BLASTER, it can be pretty cool. IMO, anyway.

I like the sequencing of the Massive Attack album "Protection." There are 10 songs on it, 5 per side (if on vinyl or tape, of course). The first song on each side (track 1 & 6) is sung by the same woman, the second (2 & 7) by the same couple of guys, the third (3 & 8) by a different woman, the fourth (4 & 9) is an instumental, and the last song on each side is song by a different man.

I like a well-sequenced album, you can certainly tell when they take time to plan out the order of the songs.

*edit- I just noticed I used the phrase "I like" or "I actually like" to begin all 3 paragraphs.