Leave it to Leonor #217

This week, I am thinking about no skips. A "no skip" album is an album that you can listen to from start to finish without skipping over a single track. Obviously, this is a very subjective decision since music is so very personal. I was thinking about this because it is the 6th anniversary of Black Messiah, an album that fits the bill for me. I'm notoriously impatient, so an album has to do A LOT to capture my attention for me not to want to hurry forward. Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun and Shakira's Donde Estan Los Ladrones are two others that made the cut and then I was stumped. I went through my list of Top 100 songs, but when I dug into the specific albums, I found a lot of songs that I wanted to glide past.  

I was very excited to know what other people thought, so I reached out to my more musically-inclined friends to see what they had on their lists. Everyone replied VERY quickly. 

My 90's Playlist podcast host and noted ad-lib queen Akoto Ofori-Atta had several on her roster including Brandy's Never Say Never, Burna Boy's African Giant, Mariah Carey's Emancipation of Mimi, Miguel's Kaleidoscope Dream, and Jay Z's Black Album. She raised my eyebrows when saying that many of her favorite artists don't have "no skip" albums, but having gone through looking for other albums to add to my list, I knew she was right. (Sorry Bey!) 

Former DJ and bgirl, Julie Gustines declared Off The Wall by Michael Jackson and a second, surprising choice: 25 by Adele. Music enthusiast Andy Tarradath proclaiming this an "easy" decision and replied immediately with Mary J. Blige's My Life. Notable Prince fan Nichole Perkins tweeted her list including her Prince selection, Sign O' the Times. 

Ethnomusicologist Robert Michelin's selections include: Janelle Monae's The ArchAndroid, Marvin Gaye's I Want You, Outkast's Aquemini, D'Angelo's VooDoo, Nas' Illmatic and Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt. 

Mixtape zine creator Josef Reyes had a very on-brand reply, "If I had to think of one, maybe it'd be Pearl Jam's Vs. but mainly for nostalgic reasons concerning the format. That was the one of the last albums I bought on cassette and I'd listen to it straight through as I found fast-forwarding to be a pain. There was also something about a cassette's Side A to Side B flip that made a straight-through listen much more "digestible." I hadn't yet known that CDs allowed you to skip songs and the moment I made the transition to that format was the moment I ceased to be an album listener."

The king of karaoke Gilbert Cruz went with 90's goddess and hero to dogs everywhere, Sarah McLachlan and her Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Dance party professional Troy Griggs had a long list across several genres of music, but also said that he prefers albums with at least one skip because it "gives you a sense of agency in a controlling world" which is something I'd never really considered. 

• Camp Lo - Uptown Saturday Night

• Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree

• Journey - Frontiers

• Lil Jon & The Eastside Boys - Kings of Crunk

• Lil Peep - Come Over When You're Sober

• Made In Heights - Without My Enemy What Would I Do

• No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom

• Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

• The Killers - Sam's Town

• Res - How I Do

Advice columnist and music aficionado Marc Merius had a common theme to his selections, "a ton of these are sophomore albums and I think the sophomore album (with some MAJOR exceptions) are a perfect album in an artists life. You got one out of your system but aren’t completely jaded". His list of second albums are:  Voodoo, B’Day, Kaleidoscope Heart, Con Todo El Mundo, Choose Your Weapon.

Loyal Nana's Amanda Saviñón picked not one, but TWO, Coldplay albums (A Rush of Blood to the Head and X&Y) and explained why, "The truth is all Coldplay albums are no skip albums for me because they feel like stories where they start at one place, usually with distance and self-observation and go into a different place with closeness and love for other things and other people as a destination, bringing about closeness and relation. Coldplay is expansive and universal and they so gracefully seem to touch on just about every emotion that exists in the human experience. It is clear that Coldplay only cares about making music that moves people, they know it and we know it." 

Happy Hour Record Club host Wyatt Cenac had some thoughts in list form: 

• Masekela Introducing Hedzolah Soundz

• Dorothy Ashby Afro-Harping

• Willie Wright Telling the Truth

• Erykah Badu New Amerykah Part Two

• Marvin Gaye What's Going On

• Stevie Wonder Innervisions

• OutKast Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik

Number 1 Madonna fan, George Gene Gustines had a lot to say about his "no skips" selection, "Spotify and before that, the IPod shuffle, have ruined the way I listen to music. It is all playlists all the time! Madonna and Like a Virgin are albums I can listen to all the way through. After that I start getting really picky with songs. Like I hate "White Heat" from True Blue and "Cherish" from Like a Prayer. A few of the next few records come close to perfect, but there is one song that I'd have to double check. I don't recognize them by title, which means I probably don't like them. Until Confessions from a Dance Floor, which I can listen to all the way through." 

I asked over on instagram and twitter and got a wide range of answers including "any Christmas album ever". Forever contrarian, Nejc Prah said a "no skip" album does not exist. 

Getting all these passionate replies was a lot of fun, so obviously I am going to need to know what you consider a "no skip" album. 

​This week in reading. . .
Wooooooooooo boy. You know how I like to keep things positive around these parts, but I just can't help but talk about how much I absolutely hated