Do you ever designate an album as a grower and end up liking it?

[GoogaMooga]

You probably know the feeling, you have bought an album, perhaps even a hyped album, and you don't like it at first. What do you do? Give it a second listen? Listen to people who say it's a grower? How many listens do you give it? When is it a grower, and when have you had enough? How many spins?

To me, a grower is often a "difficult" album, perhaps not very melodic, but having other qualities that I pick up on after further spins. It can also extend to things I may have heard on the radio, or in a shop, anything really. For example when Nirvana broke big with "Nevermind", I'd only heard the stuff in CD shops and thought it was just a bloody racket, but then a cousin lent me a copy of "Incesticide", and I was sold after the opener, "Dive."



A classic "grower" name would be someone like David Crosby. His songs don't exactly leap at you, but work their way into your mind slowly. They grow on you.

[Walk In My Shadow]

Everything that comes through the door gets a listen at least twice. Then I decide.

But I try to form an opinion beforehand. Spotify or somesuch.

[GoogaMooga]

I don't often sample and when I do, it's youtube. I rely on gut instincts and my knowledge. I think it's fair to give an album at least two listens, but I don't make it a hard and fast rule.

[Walk In My Shadow]

Well yes, gut instinct and knowledge play their parts. Sometimes even a record cover can do it.

But as soon as the music starts it doesn't take much for me to know I have a great one on my hands.

[C]

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks took me 35 years and umpteen plays to get into



.

[GoogaMooga]

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks took me 35 years and umpteen plays to get into



.

Patience is a virtue!

[C]

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks took me 35 years and umpteen plays to get into



.

Patience is a virtue!

.

[pcqgod]

Not lately. I just don't feel I have the time. If it doesn't appeal to me at all, I'll just get rid of it without a second listen, and I don't care how revered or supposedly significant a release it is supposed to be. And now that I'm streamlining my collection, I'm ditching a lot of albums that I've kept mainly for reasons of completion or critical stature. But early in my collecting I owned a fair number of albums that took repeated listens for me to warm up to, which are now pretty much cornerstones of my musical taste. I think by now I know well enough what interests and excites me about music, so one or two listens is enough for me to make the keep/discard call.

[GoogaMooga]

But early in my collecting I owned a fair number of albums that took repeated listens for me to warm up to, which are now pretty much cornerstones of my musical taste.

It would be interesting to see what some of those albums are.

[ConnyOlivetti]

Not an album, but a group, Magma
Listen to them around 1974 and new that it was something for me
but it took me almost 20 years to fully embrace them and their catalogue
Well worth the time

[pcqgod]

But early in my collecting I owned a fair number of albums that took repeated listens for me to warm up to, which are now pretty much cornerstones of my musical taste.

It would be interesting to see what some of those albums are.

The list would include albums by Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and The Clash!