# I hate the album but love this song **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 18, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556 "2015-07-18T23:29:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556/21 "2015-07-20T17:31:00Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Oh, man, my record/ape/CD collections over the years have included DOZENS of albums that turned out to have only one good song! I tried to record on apes. They had good bandwidth but low fidelity. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556/22 "2015-07-20T18:14:06Z")
I’m not even tempted to listen to 99% of these records on this thread. I’m fairly sure that for me theres 0 songs on them. But you got to keep an open mind about some things, or else you’ll lose the voice of the artist trying to censor out everything but the hit. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556/23 "2015-07-20T23:37:12Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Or at least, they have some sort of unity that makes them a satisfying experience when listened to from beginning to end. > > And even when an album is just an unrelated collection of songs, I still look forward to getting a whole album’s worth of new songs from a favorite band. > > **Hail Ants** ’s comment is either hyperbole, or it’s based on the ridiculous assumption that _all_ albums contain worthless filler. In fact, I’m having a really hard time coming up with examples of what the thread is asking for. My comment wasn’t directed at the artists who make the albums, but at the millennials who have grown up not really knowing anything except buying only the digital tracks that they like. And consequently, the music marketing teams who pander to them. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556/24 "2015-07-21T16:46:46Z")
I fell in love with Peter Salett’s “Heart of Mine” when I first heard it as part of the _[Keeping The Faith](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171433/)_ soundtrack, enough that I disregarded my personal “never buy an album based on one song” rule of thumb. I found the rest of Salett’s album to be nearly unlistenable/at the very least unremarkable, but I still listen to “Heart of Mine” every now and then. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556/25 "2015-07-21T17:29:20Z")
Lots of artists have had one-hit wonders, but I guess the particular variety of “one-hit-wonder” where the hit is stylistically completely different from the rest of the artist’s work is what would qualify it for this thread. A few I can think of (from long ago, because I’m old): _C’mon Eileen_ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. A massive hit, but the rest of the album sounded like it was performed by a completely different band. I think I tried listening to the album a couple of times, but … meh. _What’s Up?_ by Four Non-Blondes was polarizing. Some people hated it – I liked it. Bought the album. Which was rubbish. Actively unpleasant to listen to. Apparently other people thought so too, because the band didn’t even make it to the second album. And yet another album from that period, KD Lang came out with _Constant Cravings_ which was an evocative torch song, albeit with somewhat repetitive lyrics. Bought the album, _Ingénue_ and found it to be insipid – more torch songs with even less interesting lyrics. It became one of the few CDs I actually disliked so much I sold it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-the-album-but-love-this-song/725556.md?page=1)