How many of you actually listen to a whole album at a time?

[gunslinger_burrito]

I do a lot because I paint. But what about the rest of y'all?

[IEatCats]

Almost always. I very rarely play just a single track, and if I do, it's usually because it's from a mixtape instead of an album.

[Ugly Nora]

I always intend to. Sometimes I don't get through it all due to time constraints, but I always set out to to do that. I never use the random function on my ipod because my brain cannot handle the constant change of bands and styles and such.

An album is, or at least should be, a journey. Listening to 1 or 2 songs from 1 album, then going to another album by another band doesn't work for me. I feel the same way about "clip shows" like a UFC knockout highlight show. I don't just want to see the knockout, I want to see everything that led up to that point - the whole journey. Oddly enough, I do enjoy cumshot compilation videos.

[OddKnowledge]

i prefer to listen to whole albums. when i drive, i pick an album and listen until through it until i reach my destination. if the album ends before i get there, i start another one.
i'm too picky to leave it up to shuffle, i can never settle on anything that way.

[fishtankdork]

I like whole albums, going from song to song is like a journey

[D.o.S.]

Depends on what I'm doing.

[Chankgeez]

Yeah, I prefer it and since I do most of my listening on YouTube these days, I've been happy people've been uploading full albums.

[jrmy]

I do when I can. I usually listen on earbuds at work, and if I don't have a lot of meetings I can make it through a few in a day. Today it was most of the Jesus & Mary Chain discography (kinda cheating, since their albums are mostly on the shorter side).

Sometimes I like the ol' shuffle or a good mix, though.

[Chankgeez]

I hate shuffle.

[gunslinger_burrito]

Shuffle or random would be too crazy for me, too. I usually want music to either match my mood or change it to something I want. I love listening to whole albums.

I'm asking people because I listened to this podcast with Stephen O'Malley yesterday and they were talking about the length of music and peoples' attention spans. Sometimes I have to divorce myself from the internet and phone for a couple days here and there because I can't handle the constant jumping around.

[D.o.S.]

I think that the whole "people have no attention span nowadays" thing is widely over-exaggerated.

So, while, yes, it's true, not many people sit down and listen to an entire classical movement anymore, the reality is that most people weren't doing that anyway. And the only ones that were were doing it in a situation where it would be a major faux pass to bail on it in the middle of the performance.

[retinal orbita]

I think that the whole "people have no attention span nowadays" thing is widely over-exaggerated.

Word holmes. For every bonged out hippie who had the time to sit and listen to Yessongs in it's entirety, how many people just bought 45s or listened to pop radio in the "good old days". The 45 was the MP3 of their time.

I pick an album and digest it on the way to work (usually about 40 minutes from leaving my house to getting to the hospital, I may or may not get the chance to listen to a record or two at work depending on what I have going on that day and then I pick something on the way home to absorb. I have a whole room for records and music stuff but realistically between walking the dog, working full time, buying groceries and spending time with my wife do I get to go in there? Not as often as I'd like, that's for sure. Even though I still buy records all the time, I rarely get to listen to them as often as I'd like. I'm planning to add a full hifi setup in my dining room but until I'm done finishing the renovations that's just not happening as there's perpetually dust and debris everywhere. So I use my wife's Tivoli from my laptop while cooking or eating or whatever else we're doing.....

To work today: Noveller No Dreams
From work: Entombed Left Hand Path (I had a shitty day)

[jfrey]

Almost always. I like albums that are meant to be listened to as a whole.

[jrmy]

I hate shuffle.

I hate a totally collection-spanning shuffle. I tend to build playlists of specific genres, sub genres or moods, and shuffle within them. That way it's more like a mix tape I don't know yet, or a radio show without commercial interruptions... made up entirely of music that I vetted ahead of time.

[Chankgeez]

OK, gotcha, jrmy, that's fine, proceed.

I do like freeform.