I love NPR music’s First Listen series, but their media player is an unholy nightmare. When you click to listen to a song or podcast, a godforsaken, commercial-laden new window pops up. No matter what. You can’t even right click and tell it to open in a new tab. I mean, c’mon. I know we’re dealing with a certified first-world problem here, but the whole exercise makes listening to individual songs way less attractive than if they were simply embedded in the page you started on.
My griping ends there though, because there’s a fantastic side effect at work — you actually listen to entire albums. Like, all the way through. I dunno about you, but I’m terrible about skipping around when I’m excited to hear a new album. I try the first song for a bit, then invariably skip to the songs that have already made their way on the Internet, forming a first impression that the band totally didn’t intend when they set the track order. NPR First Listen gives me the chance to hear albums early and unknowingly encourages me to listen the right way. How great is that? Just one of a zillion reasons to contribute to your local public media station, no matter how excruciatingly boring and awkward its pledge drive may be.
NPR’s preview of Kaleidoscope Dream, the new album from R&B singer Miguel, is a great example.
You Hear That 