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Floey ,

I'm the opposite. Usually listen to full albums and even if I really like one or two songs, if the album sucks otherwise I'm unlikely to listen to them much, if at all.

valid ,

https://konakona.moe/

Got_Bent ,

This was a real issue back when we had to buy full albums (cassettes) back in the eighties.

Sure, we look back to some epic albums from that time, but a whole lot of them were the one top forty hit and a bunch of crap filler songs. But we had to suffer through it because we'd spent eight dollars of our hard earned money on that crap. (Eight dollars back then would be over twenty dollars in today money)

It was groundbreaking when the CD listening stations came to record stores.

All this said, I love listening to full albums and was one of THOSE guys back in the nineties who would seek out things like Japanese releases that had ever so slightly different versions of songs.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

there are a few albums that only had a top 40 hit but were actually good all the way through, did u ever buy one of them? or was it all just filler?

Got_Bent ,

That's a good question. I gotta ponder that for a while.

I can think of albums like Nothing's Shocking that didn't have any top forty hits but was good all the way through, but one hit supported by an entire good album, that's a challenge.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

steve mcqueen by prefab sprout comes to my mind. it only hit in the uk after its 3rd reissue of the single

also pocketful of kryptonite by spin doctors is solid but i think it had 2 charting singles

Got_Bent ,

It's the one hit criteria that makes it tough. I didn't much listen to anything top forty after 1985, so I can name a bunch of great indie albums that didn't chart. But if it was a good album that charted, it likely had several hits on it. You've really posed a great challenge. It may take me a week to come up with something.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

i thought of another but it depends on how much you like frank zappa, but it fits to a tee for me

Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch had Zappa's ONLY top 40 hit ever, and is also a great album. But I'm a huge Zappa fan so YMMV

Got_Bent ,

Zappa has always been tough for me. His stuff is so out there and so complex, you gotta actively listen to it like a hundred times before you can even scratch the surface of understanding it.

The guy was definitely a generational musical genius.

Got_Bent ,

Found one that's close.

Oingo Boingo had Weird Science chart at 45 on Dead Man's Party.

They're admittedly an acquired taste, but if you were in southern California in the eighties, they were... How do I state this? Foundational.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

dead man's party is a great record

Hobbes_Dent ,

Ok. Hear me out.

Graceland.

Got_Bent ,

I never could get into Paul Simon, especially after he had the gall to go steal Edie Brickell away from me. That bastard!

Got_Bent ,

Found one - Skylarking by XTC. Dear God peaked at . No other songs charted. It's long been one of my favorite albums.

Snowpix ,
@Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

Streetlight Manifesto is one of the few bands I go out of my way to listen to every song on every album, because they're that good and have almost no bad songs. I can't wait for the next album that's supposed to drop this year.

Edit: Beast in Black too.

96VXb9ktTjFnRi ,

I listen to albums atleast 95% of the time. I only listen to separate songs when I'm looking for new stuff

RampantParanoia2365 ,

The last 3 bands I've taken a shining to - The Pretty Reckless, Coheed and Cambria, and Set it Off - all have a lot of great stuff.

Default_Defect ,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

Cindy Lou Who has some pipes, The Pretty Reckless rule live too.

RampantParanoia2365 ,

She does. I really think she has one of the finest voices in a long time, especially for her age. And yeah, I saw them pretty recently. Just as good live.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

With the advent of electronic tools (computers and other digital means of sound creation) IMO it has become rare to find an album that has a decent number of good songs on it. The band or musician(s) just seem to throw a bunch of styles at the wall and see what sticks, or the songs are so similar they just run together in a boring mass. Maybe it’s because music is so cheaply and easily produced with so little oversight and editorial input we just get what any mid can crank out with basic Ableton Instrument packs. Before, bands would have to fight to hold on to the crown and keep airplay and the record contracts coming (not trying to say the recording industry is good - its a shit industry - but it did have a few good points) and that pressure came from the record companies and radio stations. Now anyone can dump almost anything on Spotify and never look back.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I don't usually look up the rest of the album because when I used to do that, I almost never found even 1 more song on the album I liked. There are exceptions, of course. But there aren't many artists that have nothing but bangers.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

I still give it a try once in a while. Often it isn’t the album, but another by the band might have something enjoyable.

Pretty rare to have a whole A-side’s worth of songs that slaps these days.

evranch ,

EDM / techno is kind of an exception with many albums that were designed to be played from start to finish, going hard all the way.

If you like techno or funk at all check out Griz, almost all his albums can be put on and listened to straight through, especially if you're out driving or something.

In particular Good Will Prevail and Ride Waves are almost entirely bangers with only a couple duds. Funky as fuck

jjjalljs ,

I find it really interesting how different people have radically different relationships with music.

You've got like depth first listen to everything. Listen to stuff on repeat until you know it by heart. Listen to it once and forget. Critical analysis of lyrics. Getting all the words wrong.

I tend to listen to the whole band's discography if I like them , and if there's only a song or two I like I don't really stick with it

caseyweederman ,

I'm with you. I'll put albums on repeat, and it just makes sense to listen to them in discographical order. You get to follow along with their growth.

BuboScandiacus ,

Ngl the rest of the album is often trash

RGB3x3 ,

That's rarely true for me. I hear a great song and the rest of the album is generally great.

ghen ,

Yeah though I feel like if you only listen to pop music that you hear on TikTok then you're not going to have so much of a good time, but if you listen to artists that aren't put forward as pop stars you'll get better depth.

Dearth ,

That's the difference between a good musician/ band and a bad one.

tetris11 , (edited )
@tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

It's not. Most of Pink Floyd's Animals album is trash, except for Sheep which I think we can all agree on being a fucking great song from a great band.

Steven King's The Dark Tower series is trash, except for The Gunslinger (and, okay, the final chapter of the final book The Dark Tower), which I think we can all agree on being a fucking great book from a great author.

The Lamiids's Solanum species of plants is poisonous trash, except for Tomatoes which I think we can all agree on being a fucking great fruit from a fucking great subclade.

KillingTimeItself ,

this comic is actually one of the reasons i really like sitting down and listening through the full discog of a band/artist.

It's genuinely so much more enjoyable than spotify and streaming.

w2tpmf ,

You do know you can listen to a whole album on Spotify, right?

KillingTimeItself ,

spotify, the service notorious for song recommendations and not serving people the entire artists discog.

"hey did you know you can just listen to their albums?"

yes i knew that. That's not the point. This is literally an entire comic panel dedicated to the phenomenon. If you actually have the works of an artist/band you are significantly more likely to listen through it all the way. As opposed to streaming, where you often just let the recommendations take you through, or a playlist. Often not containing an entire album of music.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

i use spotify everyday and have listened to thousands of full albums, discovering something new everyday. am i just using spotify wrong? how are people using spotify?

KillingTimeItself ,

i mean i wouldn't say it's "wrong" it's just not how spotify intends to work, nor how most people use spotify.

It's primarily based on recommendations and user curated playlists, which aren't a bad thing. The problem is that it doesn't really push users to go listen to the discog of an entire artist, as would owning albums from that artist for example. Which isn't a bad thing for artists, who hate making albums. But a lot of albums are a collective piece of work for a reason, you can't really just enjoy one song from an album without comprehending the entire album, it leads to a more complete experience.

For example, i've listened to a lot of boards of canada. They're albums are often thematic. For example the entire album of geogaddi is reversible, you can reverse the ENTIRE album, every song, front to back, and play it from end to beginning, and it still sounds just as good. Now it's fair to say most people probably wouldnt realize this, but then again, the entire album is written to have symmetric rhythms for that explicit reason, so it's not like it isn't a collective work either. A lot of songs will have lead in tracks that are pretty short, to transition from one song to another, so that way it's much more fluid as well. Boards does this also.

If you're listening to music, and you aren't appreciating the structure of the album that the artist has put together, explicitly for that purpose (albums wouldn't exist otherwise) you're missing out. Oh and also, it often means you become a more involved fan of their work, certain tracks and albums you didn't like before, can be grown into, and often appreciated as a whole work of discography. That happened to me with morcheeba. I really liked their first 2-3 studio albums. Later i acquired their discog, and then i listened from beginning to end, through all of their works. And they're all incredible, genuinely one of the best bands to ever exist in the modern era. I simply would not have the ability to appreciate them how i do now, if it weren't for that.

Oh and im sure artists/bands appreciate it, but it often means listeners will enjoy their music more, which makes them more likely to buy actual physical media, or apparel, which is good for everyone involved because spotify stiffs the ever living shit out of the artists on their platform (that's another fun fact btw)

tetris11 ,
@tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

end of a majestic song, you wipe away a tear at how great it was
"..."
"WITH SPOTIFY PREMIUM YOU CAN LISTEN TO THIS AND MANY MOR-"

theonyltruemupf ,

I use lots of Spotify but almost exclusively albums front to back

KillingTimeItself ,

i dont use spotify and almost exclusively listen to discogs front to back

BoisZoi ,
@BoisZoi@lemmy.ml avatar

Literally, most people with Goyte; his music outside his one hit wonder is so fucking good. I highly recommend listening to more of his work if you haven't.

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/38e823e8-bfe1-4209-970c-4374b954951c.png

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

I like listening to full albums because then I can decide which songs I can listen to again later on, and which ones to actively avoid.

moshtradamus666 ,

When I was younger I loved listening to full albums but now I kinda hate it. I make exceptions sometimes though.

pantyhosewimp ,

Me too. What I’m about to say was before I was born, but music used to be primarily singles sold on vinyl 45s in drug stores. I’m back to that model with digital purchases.

Also, I recall in the 90s that dance music was single oriented – vinyl 12” stores for DJs and rave flyers.

This is kinda silly but what started me looking into album oriented radio and music business executives was a song by Sisters of Mercy, Doctor Jeep.

Businessmen from South Miami

Humming AOR

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, if you're listening to a concept album, then you're really missing out if you're not listening to it end-to-end.

David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" is this rising and falling ballad of an alien who visits earth on the eve of the apocolypse.

My Chemical Romance's "Black Parade" builds up this soundscape of different numbers in an effort to emulate a carnival.

One of my favorite indie bands, the Protomen, have this entire track list that dramatically recreates the story behind the Megaman video game. Their sequel is this very folk-western prologue with some banger original tracks that get so much better as you move from song to song. Some songs lead directly into one another to create this rising tension that ends in a cathertic heavy metal payoff.

I'll admit I'm a shameless fan of Progressive Rock. Maybe this holds less true in other genres.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

PROTOMEN MENTIONED RAAAA

thank you rock band 4 for introducing me to them. fucking love their song the hounds

Turious ,

I've heard pretty mid songs that turned out to be incredible albums and I've heard amazing songs where it's the only good track. But I always try to listen to an entire album in most cases. There's so much good music out there, just under the surface.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

I always try to listen to an entire album in most cases

I just look for the Best Of album if its an older song.

variants ,

I've done that with artists on spotify but end up not really finding anything then I try on YouTube and find a bunch, it's hit or miss what their popular* songs are on different platforms and if I'll like them or not

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

That does suck. Sometimes you just need to go to the artist's website and see if you can download the album or buy the vinyl.

Muscar ,

And the most popular songs of any band, which are generally the ones you'll hear randomly, might not turn out to be the ones you like the most from that album or artist. I've had songs I liked and listened to a lot but just never got around to exploring the band until years later, and then found some of my all-time favourites after doing so.

A perfect example for me is my favourite song from one of my favourite bands, which I just never heard before actually sitting down and going through their whole discography:

Talking Heads - (Nothing But) Flowers

Emerald ,

I can't think of a situation where I don't like every song on the album.

Hammocks4All ,

Totally. If I hear a really good song sometimes I’ll do a hyper study over a period of time listening to every album, all collabs, the collaborator’s albums, and so on. Definitely did this more when I was younger. But when I hear that sound, it’s mission time.

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