(based upon https://www.quora.com/How-do-recording-artists-decide-on-the-order-of-the-songs-on-their-CDs)
There isn't a rule of thumb , but there is planning. Look at it as a Classical concert, grouping songs in "moods", then intentionally create longer pauses between the groups.
When Lou Reed was ordering the tracks on New York. He struggled to find the right musical and topical arc until someone suggested he put them in the order in which they were recorded. In that order, the tracks told the story he was hoping for. Y
In a traditional pop context, records were sequenced with the hits or prospective singles "up front" - typically the lead single would be the first song and the other expected singles would follow to round out the first side.
Some try to make sure that successive songs are not in the same key.
The number one track (and usually the last) are the 'great' tracks that leave an impression.
If it's a concept album that tells a story through the songs, then the order is pretty much fixed to begin with. If it is just a collection of singles, they might look at the dynamics - try and mix up the heavy and the soft, the fast and the slow, etc.
Put a lot of thought into the order of the songs to create a good “flow” and the best overall listening experience from start to finish. Open with a song that represents your overall sound fairly well, and break up the “mood” every 3 songs or so.
The whole process is just about placing familiar tracks somewhere in the middle, intros and soon to be released tracks at the beginning and the less appealing at the end - it's about fluidity and using the songs at the beginning as singles as they help sell the album.
It's given a lot less thought than it used to. Nowadays most albums are bought online and when you download it you can put it in any order you want. If you are like me you will put your favourites first and the fillers at the end. Another thing to come into it is the shuffle mode on most players nowadays.
de·brief
dēˈbrēf/Submit
verb
gerund or present participle: debriefing; noun: debriefing
question (someone, typically a soldier or spy) about a completed mission or undertaking.
"together they debriefed their two colleagues"
synonyms:cross-examine, interview, interrogate, question, probe, sound out, examine; informal grill, pump
5th of Piano
after Saturday's weekend studio work on 'Bleeding the 5th' from OHO's upcoming "Gazebo"
OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
. . . with respect to honoring the arts (only) . . . “And today our nation has crowned her greatness with grace, and we gather this evening to honor five artists who have helped her to do so,” - Ronald Reagan at a 1980s Kennedy Center awards ceremony.
"What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate. " -Donald Trump
(https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-insists-he-very-stable-genius-amid-questions-over-mental-n835191)
. . . “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” the president said in a tweet. . .
(from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller)
". . . General Peckem laid great, fastidious stress on small matters of taste and style. He was always augmenting things. Approaching events were never coming, but always upcoming. It was not true that he wrote memorandums praising himself and recommending that his authority be enhanced to include all combat operations; he wrote memoranda. And the prose in the memoranda of other officers was always turgid, stilted, or ambiguous. The errors of others were inevitably deplorable. Regulations were stringent, and his data never was obtained from a reliable source, but always were obtained. General Peckem was frequently constrained. Things were often incumbent upon him , and he frequently acted with greatest reluctance. It never escaped his memory that neither black nor white was a color, and he never used verbal when he meant oral. He could quote glibly from Plato, Nietzsche, Montaigne, Theodore Roosevelt, the Marquis de Sade and Warren G. Harding. A virgin audience like Colonel Scheisskopf was grist for General Peckem's mill, a stimulating opportunit yto throw open his whole dazzling erudite treasure house of puns, wisecracks, slanders, homilies, anecdotes, proverbs, epigrams, apothegms, bon mots and other pungent sayings. He beamed urbanely as he began orienting Colonel Scheisskopf to his new surroundings. . . "
(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html)
President Trump on Wednesday abruptly shut down a White House commission he had charged with investigating voter fraud, ending a brief quest for evidence of election theft that generated lawsuits, outrage and some scholarly testimony, but no real evidence that American elections are corrupt. . . On Thursday, Mr. Trump called for requiring voter identification in a pair of Twitter posts because the voting system “is rigged.” “Push hard for Voter Identification!” Mr. Trump wrote. . . Mr. Trump did not acknowledge the commission’s inability to find evidence of fraud, but cast the closing as a result of continuing legal challenges. . .“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” Mr. Trump said in a White House statement. . ."
