Dave uses Damn the Torpedoes to explore anticipation and setup.

Choose a payoff you love - a chorus, riff, entrance or release.

Rewind 20 to 30 seconds. Ignore the payoff on the first pass and listen only to how the record prepares you for it.

Then play through the payoff and ask which setup choices made it land.

Dave uses The Original Soundtrack as a listening laboratory.

The question is not whether the album deserves a higher ranking; it is whether changing where we place our attention changes what we hear.

Today's test: Listen to 'I'm Not in Love' and identify three moments that exist because somebody made a recording rather than simply captured a performance.

Then ask whether removing those studio-created events changes the composition in your mind.

Dave uses Bridge of Sighs as a listening laboratory.

The question is not whether the album deserves a higher ranking; it is whether changing where we place our attention changes what we hear.

Today's test: Play the title track once without trying to identify notes or riffs. Listen only for attack, sustain, vibrato, distortion, decay and silence.

On a second pass, ask which of those sound choices changes the emotional meaning of a phrase.

Dave closes this week with Led Zeppelin's *In Through the Out Door* and a distinction that rankings cannot capture.

Wendy, a dear friend, gave Dave the album for Christmas in 1979; after her death in 2021, the record remains inseparable from her and their friendship.

A couple of months after receiving it, Dave wandered into his high-school auditorium, found friends Dave and Scott riffing on “In the Evening,” joined them and learned the song.

Those memories make the album his Zeppelin record — regardless of which title he might call the band's objective best.

The episode ends by asking listeners which album carries a person, place or moment for them.

Dave turns the Art of Listening test around and asks the audience for help.

The Boomtown Rats, Todd Rundgren, and Lou Reed are artists he has repeatedly tried to understand without making the connection.

Instead of dismissing them, he asks listeners for one album, three tracks and a listening path that might finally make the music click.

This episode ends with a practical Art of Listening Test designed to send the listener back to the record with a different question in mind.

Court and Spark gives Dave a lesson in musical restraint.

With players such as Larry Carlton, Joe Sample and Tom Scott supporting Joni Mitchell, the record demonstrates that great musicianship can be heard not only in the notes played, but in placement, space and the decision not to call attention to the player.

This episode ends with a practical Art of Listening Test designed to send the listener back to the record with a different question in mind.

America's Holiday begins the band's six-album run with George Martin.

Dave listens past the famous producer's reputation to ask a more useful question: what changed in America's sound, and what did Martin understand well enough to leave unmistakably intact?

This episode ends with a practical Art of Listening Test designed to send the listener back to the record with a different question in mind.

Using his favorite Jethro Tull album, Thick as a Brick, Dave separates vocal technique from artistic fit.

Ian Anderson's idiosyncratic delivery becomes part narrator, part character and part instrument — raising the question of whether the right singer can matter more than the technically best singer.

This episode ends with a practical Side One Test designed to send the listener back to the record with a different question in mind.

A sixth-grade listening station, a very loud kid wearing headphones, and Rare Earth's “Get Ready” lead Dave from a funny 1973–74 classroom memory to a serious listening question: what does the 21-minute LP performance reveal that the hit single edit cannot?

This episode ends with a practical Art of Listening Test designed to send the listener back to the record with a different question in mind.

Dave uses It's a Beautiful Day's 1969 debut to test a simple idea: knowing “White Bird” isn't the same as knowing the album. By listening around the famous song first, the record reveals a broader, stranger band — and changes the way the hit itself sounds. This episode ends with a practical Art of Listening Test designed to send the listener back to the record with a different question in mind.