Albums for entire listening (at least for the first time). Playlists for shuffling non stop.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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I don’t think there is any “proper” way to do something you enjoy so long as you enjoy it. I don’t like the idea that if you’re going to do something like listen to music that you have an obligation to it in a specific way. Art and experiencing art are both subjective acts, there may be a lot of ways to do it wrong, but there is no way to do it “right.”
Albums always have a better side and a worse side and one gets played more than the other. Except Dark Side and maybe Sgt. Pepper.
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I think both types of listening have their place. Especially when listening to music from the era when music was made with the intention of it being heard as an album in its entirety. Like literal albums is a method of playback where you are typically listening to at least a whole side of the album, you wouldnt be skipping around. CD players even you were likely to listen to more than one song of the album, just because it would require changing the CD vs letting it play.
Most music made after the proliferation of MP3s isnt really made in that same vein. Usually at most you get the “concept album” or something where an artist delves into a particular type of music. Those are still cohesive albums, but it’s also very different from something that is literally more or less one piece of music a la Dark Side of the Moon or something like that.
Most modern albums are more of a collection of songs at best, and they may not have much similarity or relevance to each other. Take the Black Keys for instance. They mostly do albums by genre that they want to try making. So the songs have a related sound, but listening to them is more like picking out whatever you like and would want to hear again. I wouldnt listen to the album straight through other than the first time I hear it. They songs aren’t connected in an important way other than being the same genre
you didn't change cds. it had many tracks. you just skip to the one you want. 8 track worked that way to but it never took off.
Yes. What I was trying to say is that MP3 players were the first media player that you could have a ton of different artists music on. Yeah there were mix tapes and mix cds but it wasnt as easy as mp3s made it to have so much music in one player. Having to physically change a cd, or an actual album, made it more likely for people to listen to larger sections of entire albums before changing artists.
Once people could have the diversity of the radio (or a giant mix tape) but with the press of a button we ended up kind of killing off the point of making a cohesive album. All attention is focused on individual tracks now more than ever. It was a slow death though that incrementally progressed alongside technology
oh duh. yeah it would only be songs from that artist and album. I get it now.
Agreed. A lot of work goes into deciding track order on an album, it is part of the process. Back when ipods and mp3 players were how people carried their music around i found it stressful when i was looki at someone elses collection and it was just 1 song per artist because mine was whole albums only.
Nah.
Some are, some are not. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not. But then I'm the guy who mostly just listens to vocaloid covers.
I never stopped listening to whole albums, from childhood with tapes and CDs, through the filesharing days and into streaming services.
I still let the algorithm take the wheel and auto play after the album finishes, and sometimes I use generated playlists and such, especially when I'm playing music in a group setting. But for my own listening pleasure it's full albums 95% of the time.
I still rate music in terms of albums as well. If I only like one or a few songs, it's just an ok album, even if I really like those songs.
I find that the artists who care to make coherent albums tend to be ones who make better music in general, but maybe that's just confirmation bias.
Not every album is conceived like that. A lot of them were produced just to sell a single. I mostly listen to complete albums too, but I make sure they are quality or no-filler albums.
Put on an Album is the only way I listen to music. As you said, it's often intended as one coherent art piece. Nothing wrong with listening to a single song. Still, it doesn't feel right to me to have a compilation of random songs.
I really enjoyed this album that includes a mini audio story, very immersive: The Loop by Volkor X
I predominantly listen to albums, and have done since the 80s. With streaming, I can even queue up an artist's entire discography and work my way through it over several days.
The exception is I'll use a discovery queue sometimes to find new artists, but when I find a track I like, I play the whole album. If I like that album, I'll listen to any others they have.