Full Albums or Individual Songs?

[Mittens95]

For me, it depends. Sometimes I'm adhd and would rather listen to individual songs. But if I feel like chilling for 40 minutes to an hour I would give an album from an artist I like front and back.

 

[antemortem]

Full album all the way, especially if I can enjoy it from start to end without repeating any songs. That's rare, though, but there's usually only ever one or two songs that I skip on any particular album. Sometimes I'll sample albums by buying a couple singles first and if I like what I hear, I'll complete the album.

 

[Firox]

Most of the times I buy individual songs, many albums I won't like every song on the album (unless it's more convenient to buy the album instead of songs) - before I make my purchase decision I will try and listen to the songs on YouTube (or other sources to listen to music) and decide if it's worth to buy the album or buy 2 or 4 songs.

 

[Demon Days]

Usually full album, although I generally tend to go between different songs when I'm exercising.

 

[curiousnathan]

I'm more of a singles kind of guy. It's extremely rare that I'll find an album where I loved every song.

single4lyf

 

[Goo]

I find that a lot of the music I listen to is meant to be an entire album so I hate to take away parts of it like that. I will listen to individual songs from an album but I like to have already had the whole album and had the time to enjoy it as a whole first.

 

[Raine]

Considering that individual songs are generally the better ones, singles are probably the better than full albums, in my case. Considering that 90% of my music is Korean, they actually don't release full albums all that frequently compared to Western labels; rather they place more emphasis on EPs and singles so that's a bonus for me. Back when I listened to American music though, all the songs were great and that's why I bought them.

 

[Banz]

Full albums. There are a lot of albums which are meant to be listened as a whole and are meaningless if you buy the individual songs.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

As I am an avid CD collector, I buy the entire CD (obviously). I find that you don't really get a taste of what the artist's message or mood is for a song/group of songs unless you sample the entire CD which is why I buy the entire CD. Plus, I think a lot of people miss out on some great music by only sticking with singles; I know that I would have missed out on some great songs if I didn't buy the entire CD.

 

[pokemasta92]

Both. I ALWAYS go and listen to full albums on YouTube and watch their respective music videos if there are any and if I truly enjoy every song, I'll buy the whole album. Out of the 248 albums I have songs from on my iPod, only a few of them are the full album. Every single artist I have is very talented and I appreciate them all, but if I have listened to an entire album and only have interest in listening to a few songs long term, then it is my choice and right as a consumer to only purchase singles.

 

[MurkMire]

Individual songs. My taste in music is VERY particular, and I rarely buy full albums. The only time I DID buy a full album was a complete, classical album of gothic music.

Not a very wise investment, but I still kinda like the music. Some of them are pretty good, but... eh. So, I end up buying a few songs from an album.

 

[Orogenes]

I'm more of a singles kind of guy. It's extremely rare that I'll find an album where I loved every song.

This was always my problem in the "oldie times", when you couldn't look up the songs online before purchasing an album and then ended up with 1-2 songs out of 10 that you enjoyed :(. At the same time, if you really liked an artist it was a calculated risk because you didn't want to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" either.

Fast forward to present date and I'm a bit mixed. If I really like the artist in question I tend to buy the album because sometimes even though you might prefer only some songs at first the album might grown on you. I also really think that albums are meant to be listened to as a whole; like watching a whole season of something instead of picking individual episodes - you might get only the good ones but you loose context. The great artists tend to have at least some connection between the sons, and some of the best albums like Pink Floyds "The Wall" are almost impossible to listen to any other way than as an album sitting.

That being said, I also have this contradictory dislike of having a lot of songs on my iPod/Library that I never listen to or just skip whenever they pop up. This was especially a problem back in the day when my mp3 player had a size of 256 mb - you couldn't afford to have a lot of things clogging up space. Even today if I select randomize and end up skipping the majority of songs I feel when you've collected a bunch of papers that you don't need, obscuring the important ones - you want to "clean".

So in the end I compromise a bit. Regardless of wether I buy singles or albums, I tend to end up with only a select few songs I enjoy for the moment, but I might have the album on "standby" when I tire of the current songs so that I can I switch to a new set of back up songs - rinse and repeat. This also helps remedy the exhaust risk of listening to a song too many times so that you grow tired of it.

 

[Hiatus]

I would say individual songs. I usually don't like all songs in an album (happens very rarely), so I just hand-pick the ones I'm actually fond of and put them into my playlist. Only time you'd ever see me listening to full albums is when I'm a huge fan of that particular band or artist.

 

[pyx]

Full albums for me XD when I listen to a song it´s kinda hard for me to not listen to everything else on the album as well.

 

[Luck]

I almost always start off with the whole album. Partly because artists intent and all that jazz, but mostly because most of the artists I listen to place their songs in a certain order so it could be fully appreciated and enjoyed.

Obviously there are songs that I prefer more than others, and I play them a little bit more, but that's after I listened to the full album a few times. If I only like 1 or 2 songs from an album of 10, sucks 4 me, I'll delete the whole thing. Having bits and pieces of albums cranks my minor OCD to 11.

 

[maccrash]

94% of the time I listen to a full album.

 

[kuzronk]

Albums by a long shot. I listen to standalone songs somethings though.

 

[mangamusicfan]

For me full albums, Then a band can show if they can make you feel good for a couple of minutes, instead of some min with only 1 song, a cd can show you the power of more songs

 

[Cordelia]

I stream my music using Google Play All Access, so it's usually individual songs in a mix but I can listen to full albums easily. I like it a lot ♥ Sometimes it matters on how I'm feeling to what I listen to.

 

[Nick]

I'm an album person. Usually, the singles that are released on an album don't appeal to me as much as other songs on the album. I like to listen to an album all the way through, multiple times. After a while, I'll stop listening to the full album and only focus on my favorites, but most of the time, those aren't singles.