Wow, right after I did this I had a really bad headache and was super-hungry, but it was worth it just to properly appreciate some songs I’d perhaps never given much thought to before. Oh, and to clarify, the whole idea behind having my eyes closed for the entire six hours was to stop myself from doing something at the same time as listening to music. Even though I spend most of my time with music in the background, I’m always doing something at the same time, and so I realised I never actually LISTEN to music, in the true sense of the word.

The one exception to this is listening to music whilst I’m travelling; I like to listen to new albums at least a few times while I’m walking, cycling, or on the train, because I have nothing to do besides look around me and absorb what’s playing on my mp3 player.

I think, given the success of this, I’ll do similar experiments with The Beatles, Elliott Smith, and/or anyone else I feel deserves that much attention. N.B. If other Smiths fans are contemplating this, it’s recommended. Listen to all the albums in chronological order; it gets really emotional by the end :(