I write four days a week. Two of those days I am sober and don’t listen to music before I write. Two of those days I smoke grass and listen to music before I write. On the first of those high days, typically Thursday, I listen to half an album, one that I find excellent but don’t quite consider in the Pantheon. On the second of those high days, Saturday, I listen to one of the albums below in full*, high, in the pre-dawn darkness, with my eyes closed pretty much the entire time, with a quality pair of headphones, prior to writing. I “close listen”. I go deep into the music and myself. I hear every sound. I feel all the feelings. I watch the pixels. I prime my soul and creativity for the writing. I let my stories marinate in the back of my head and wait for the ideas to pop.
To expand on one practical point: you won’t hear all the subtlety of a great album with the pair of headphones that came with your phone. This requires a bit of investment. To each their own, but for anyone looking for music recommendations (in chronological order for each band):
Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall
Radiohead: The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows, The King of Limbs, A Moon Shaped Pool, a “mix tape” of B-sides I put together
Built to Spill: Perfect from Now On, Keep It Like a Secret, Ancient Melodies of the Future, You in Reverse, There Is No Enemy, Untethered Moon
Phish: Live Phish 8 – Disc 1, Live Phish 11 – Disc 1
Tame Impala: Lonerism, Currents, The Slow Rush
Grizzly Bear: Shields, Painted Ruins
Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit, Fanfare, Rare Birds, Eat the Worm
Sleepy Sun: Fever, Private Tales
Alabama Shakes: Sound and Color
The War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream
Grateful Dead: So Many Roads, Disc 3
*I believe that these albums are best experience in full. I loathe to stop any one of them in the middle. But I make exceptions for Jonathan Wilson’s first three albums, not because they are not legendary, but because they are roughly double the length of a normal album (incredible the quantity of greatness therein!), and I long to get to the writing.