I wrote about my love for Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours a couple times last year, but could it be that my enthusiasm was built upon a falsehood? As it turns out, I have never heard the album in its "proper sequencing." I noticed a while back that my tracklisting for the album was in alphabetical order, which I found fishy, as Cut Copy don't strike me as a band that would go for gimmicky sequencing a la The Magnetic Fields. The solution was simple: no track number tags! This story is boring in and of itself, but there are two useful conclusions to be drawn:

1) The album is in decline. When an album geek like myself no longer pays attention to the all-important aspect of sequencing, something is terribly wrong.

2) In Ghost Colours is great however you listen to it, but best experienced in alphabetical order. I fell in love the moment "Eternity One Night Only" first gave way to "Far Away," and while front-loading is a problem on some albums, to have "Far Away," "Feel the Love" and "Hearts on Fire" all up front is a many-splendored thing ("Feel the Love" is the album's best moment, but not an ideal opener). Certainly the transitions are a bit smoother when the album is heard in the "proper order," and I always wondered why it ends in a burst of noise (what is now track #4, "We Fight for Diamonds"). But I also loved that ramshackle unpredictability, which is missing now.