I’m slowly but surely finishing up tracks for my first ever EP (coming soonishly).

Just curious…
Do you guy prefer tracks to be mixed together?
Or do you prefer each track to be separate, and have a distinct start and finish?

I see 3 possible options:

1) Each track has it’s own start and finish. They are not tied to eachother, rather each is it’s own piece of music
[Example: Last Days of Gravity]

2) Each track has a distinct start and finish, but flows smoothy into the next track.
[Example: Blumenkraft]

3) The tracks are heavily mixed together, making the whole album seem like one long continuous track.
[Example: Nothing Lasts…But Nothing is Lost…]

Thoughts?

As Nothing Lasts is my favorite album, I voted mixed.  I like when albums tell a story as a whole but also tell smaller stories within the songs.

When I have to look down at the timestamp to verify the changing of a track, it’s a good album in my book!

I voted for 2 because I like the transitions to be a little more pronounced, but not separate. If it’s for home listening, chillin’ in tha crib, I like the tracks to flow.

I went with 2 on this. (I think Mir also falls into this #2 category)

I like a smooth flowing album, but sometimes I do want to listen to just 1 track…
It’s a bit of a bummer when a single track has an abrupt start/finish due to heavy album mixing.

There’s also the hybrid option of half individual tracks, half medley of many tracks. But I prefer option 2

I also went for 2 but do like the option 3 in reference to Nothing Lasts. Number 1 works for me also if the tracks are awesome.

we did our first album, The Earls of Sandwich, kinda like Blumenkraft. I wish we had not done so. It’s a pain to listen to the tracks when you hear the tail end of another song in the beginning. If the tracks are actually all one piece like NLBNIL, then that’s a different story. With Blumenkraft, it can work cause they all have the same vibe. If the album is a mix of stuff, then you should keep them seperate.

Some songs are amazingly complete and satisfying from start to finish, so if you have an album’s worth of tracks like that then I don’t see anything wrong with option 1.

However, for the album to have a theme I think it’s good to try to tie it all in with nice transitions and wisely choosing which songs go where on the album to control how you want the “user experience” to be.  I voted 2, since most of my favorite albums are this way.

The tough part with choice 3 is if you wrote the songs at vastly different times as individual tracks, then try to mush them together.  Like others have said though, albums like Nothing Lasts are great examples of how this can be an awesome choice