Idea : The Album Club! But how to do it?
 

Hey guys :)

I was thinking I'd like to be a member of an album club the way you could be a member of a book club. Like every week, you read a book and then you get together for coffee and cakes to discuss what you've read. Well, that's how book club ladies do it on the telly. How about changing the books for albums?

Of course I thought something like that would be easy to accomplish on musicbanter and, indeed, this has been done before. However, as far as I know, the most recent thread that was dedicated to this has since died. A reason could be that listening to one album a week is an undertaking and for many of us, there are certain things we don't want to dedicate a lot of time to. If you thought the last three "album club" home assignments were awful, listening to the next three might not seem so tempting.

Anyhow, I thought it should be possible to redo this album club idea and find a way to keep things interesting for the participants. My basic idea was to make one thread for each album the club discusses, but I'm unsure of how to keep things interesting .. so I'm turning to you guys. Hopefully, some of you think this sounds like it might be fun and can come up with some good ideas on how to do things.

Here are some example ideas from me on how albums could be chosen :

• Every club "member" (participant) suggests one album and then we do a poll over the suggestions to find which album will be the coming week's home assignment
• Instead of one album, you get to choose between two or three - f.ex the top 2 or 3 from a poll like suggested above or perhaps top selections from some specific genres - and thus get to focus on the one you think is most interesting
• The album club could be genre or decade specific, f.ex the "jazz fusion album club", the 70s rock club or one where members discuss only "obscure" releases. Possibly, there could be several such clubs operating in different forums

Usually, my ideas are a little more polished before I vent them to you guys, but I think potential participants' input will be important here, so .. What do you guys think? Would you participate? What's the best way to go about it?

You mean like these two? :D

http://www.musicbanter.com/general-m...usic-club.html
http://www.musicbanter.com/general-m...lbum-club.html

If I didn't think it was going to be the same bull**** suggestiong you see everywhere of the "classic" albums I'd be interested.

But the idea of sitting through Wire's Pink Flag or some horse**** by Black Flag makes me want to go shoot up some hipster tools in Cambridge.

Wat? Pink Flag is the biz. But I agree I wouldn't want to same old usual suspects. The last music club thread that was active (first link in my post) was pretty focused on lesser-known stuff.

I think that's why the poll thing is a good idea you don't vote for theclassics if anyone nominates them.

Yeah, and a bit like this one too!

http://www.musicbanter.com/album-rev...ve-listen.html

Not saying my idea is new, just asking how best to do it in a way that'll keep such a club from dying. :)

I would like to do it as long as I find the albums interesting. If there's like a string of boring albums I'd have to listen to, I'd probably not want to do it after a while. I'm thinking making such a club specific for a genre or decade or some other category might be the best way .. That would exclude the people with no interest in the genre or category, but at least it should keep the interest of those who are.

You could always do one in each genre forum.

Yes, that is a good idea although I personally wouldn't bother with more than one club I think. Someone else can make a hip hop albums club f.ex, I'm not gonna bother with that!

A 60s/70s nostalgia club for people who predominantly like various rock genres and fusion would be perfect for me :p: Or it could be scene specific .. A Canterbury club!

I've been meaning to revive my Music Club thread, but I've been too busy :/
wtv it is, I'm in.

Yeah, I was meaning to see if you wanted to get that going again. I was going to start reviewing that last album but yeah, if ours is dead, so be it.

^ I don't mind accepting reality lol.

I didn't mean to officially announce threads/clubs to be dead if they aren't :p:

If you get'em going again, perhaps you could benefit from some of the suggestions hopefully generated by this thread.

Sounds pretty good to me Tore: my suggestion would be making just one club which changes genre on a weekly basis in order to cover all the bases and draw in as many different people as possible. After a particular musical category is chosen, then you could make the polls for specific album choices and whatnot. :D

I really like your idea! I'd participate. :)

I think the best way to keep it "fresh" is to have maybe 2 or 3 options for us to pick from and review.......like, all different in sound or genre. It'd make things interesting. And maybe it should be encouraged to try and pick the album choice you'd normally NOT listen to? I know that'd make it interesting to me. I don't normally listen to country, and so having a Garth Brooks album as 1 of the picks would be something new to me......even if I still don't end up liking that type of music/artist/band/whatever/etc./etc.

.........BUT I could see people complaining about the selections because they are not willing to choose something they would normally not listen to.

Perhaps a category/genre club with a non-category optional album per week?

Yeah I like the idea, I'm just particular keen for set genres. Like I am open minded but these days I've expanded my interests very electronic so to speak. However I want to keep my mind open and would love to explore some rock/indie music that I haven't yet listened to.

I think if there are more category/genre clubs doing this, say one rock, one jazz and one electronica club, then any member could just join in on the club's homework assignment which seems the most interesting. ;)

So right now, I'm thinking set genres/categories.

I'd like to see what kind of clubs people would like to see. Like what genres or categories would you be interested in?

Yup genres seem like a cool idea, I can't think of any genre I wouldn't want to have included. I guess the more the merrier.

Alright, not many responses in here, but I've found some initiative and after some thinking, have started an album club for prog & fusion albums :) Those who are interested in this genre or those who think they would be if they gave it a shot should check it out!

http://www.musicbanter.com/prog-psyc...tml#post869943

Also, I'd like to encourage others to do the same for the categories/genres they wish to discuss!

I always find these things a bit boring after a while because everything is imposed on you. There's not really any personal choice to keep you interested apart from the off chance you might get your choice picked once every few months.

How I would do it is simple.
One person suggests any band they like, regardless of all this genre stuff.
The people involved then pick out any album in the bands discography & say what they think of it.

That way there's much more personal involvement & more choice.