After far too long, I’ve finally begun listening to Idles, the British punk band who have been whipping up adulation since their debut LP from 2017. I had them recommended to me at the time, so I looked them up. I don’t even remember which song I heard, but for whatever reason it did not sit well with me. So I essentially wrote them off. In 2020 they put out their third full length to massive acclaim, and I completely ignored it. Thankfully, in response to my year-end review, a friend called me out on my oversight and finally convinced me to give Idles another try.

    Thank god. Idles bring so much raw energy through their music, energy that frankly I find to be lacking in most other popular contemporary rock acts. They aren’t overly abrasive or experimental, but at the same time don’t feel stuck in the past. Their songs are vital and relevant to our era, with original, inventive riffs and breaks. I have no idea where my head was when I looked them up in 2017, but I’m glad to have been set straight. Idles delivers the goods.

 When I looked them up on Spotify, I was presented with a conundrum. By this point they have three full length studio albums, a live release, and 2 EPs from the early days. Where to start?

There are basically 3 routes to take when listening to a new artist, especially one that has been around for a while:

1. Start with their earliest material and work your way forward
2. Start with their latest material and work your way backward
3. Start with their most popular records and work toward their most obscure

All three approaches have their own merits and detractions. It all comes down to what you want to get from the listening experience.

The first approach satisfies if you are looking to get a more holistic understanding of the artist’s music. Over the course of a career, a musician is going to evolve. Their songwriting is going to mature with experience. They are going to attempt different sounds, or experiment with variations on their established sound. Beginning to listen to an artist’s earliest releases will give you a grounding in what they are about, a glimpse into the fundamentals of their approach. As you work your way forward, you can then appreciate the advancements and changes in their material much in the same way that a long time fan did in real time as the records were released. You’ll have more context through which to understand and appreciate what they do if you are familiar with the back catalog.

At the same time, there are some drawbacks to this chronological approach. Namely, an artist’s earliest material is often their least fully formed, as it usually takes some time to stake out individual ground on which to fully distinguish themselves. As such starting at the beginning will expose you to their least mature work, which may be weaker and have less individuality than more established future material.On top of that, many early releases have lower production quality than later, better funded records, so it may be difficult to initially find purchase. That said, these issues do provide a sense of forward momentum, and can set you up for major pay-off down the road. Of course, if an artist’s strongest material is their earliest, you will lose that momentum as you go.

The second method is the reverse of the above: start with their latest release, and work backward. This is a good approach if you find out about them through their latest release – you will have probably heard a single on the radio, on TV, or a playlist. If you’ve already been grabbed by a song, why not chase that dragon and get more of where it came from? Jumping right in at the newest stuff will present to you an artist who is more fully formed than they were in less developed earlier material, and will position their sound within the context of the current culture. It’s often easier to acclimate to a musician’s sound when their production and songwriting responds to broader trends. It’s a sort of bridge from your everyday life to theirs.

Yet of course, there are drawbacks. It’s often a little strange to hear an artist’s career in reverse, as it can often lead to the feeling of regression. At the same time, gaining an appreciation of an artist’s current work can help you appreciate the earlier stuff. It’s often fascinating to go back and hear an embryonic form of a band before they added extra bells and whistles, and recognize the seeds of what was to come.

Finally, there’s the curated method. Thanks to the internet it’s very easy to look up an artist, get a read on what is their most celebrated work (or most commercially successful) and jump in right there. This is often good if you are unsure if you want to invest the time into working through a discography, and want to get a snapshot of an artist at their supposed peak. This leads to finding a lot of good music, but skipping over lesser known releases can also lead you to missing stuff that you may have otherwise appreciated. Especially when an artist has an exceptionally long career, they probably have several stylistic shifts that weren’t as popular, but just as worthwhile. Beginning with their most accessible is a way to test the waters to see if you want to hear more.

At the end of the day, it really depends on what works for you. It also depends on the context in which you discovered the artist’s music, and what compels you to hear more. For example, I first got into Genesis through their more recent Phil Collins fronted music, and gradually followed the thread back to the very different Peter Gabriel lead form of the band. On the other hand, when I discovered The Mars Volta I thought it would be easy to work through their short (but dense) discography, so I went to the record store and bought their first album. I was first ensnared by Pink Floyd’s 1970s high classics, then explored around from there. As for Idles, I started with their earliest EP, and worked forward. There is no loss of momentum.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter how you explore the work of a musician, as long as you enjoy what you hear. But it does change the overall experience and perception of the art as you go, and it’s interesting to think about. How do you listen to new music? Any habits, tips, or rituals? Let me know!