Paste into notepad to get rid of the pictures and then stick it in Excel. A lot of really interesting lists there.
The main thing, from my point of view, was to get back to listening to a slab of someone’s music in a sitting, rather than a song here and there. So I do that now when I hear a song that I like by an artist new to me. I find the album and listen to it in some kind of context.
Artists that I listen to now that I was formerly indifferent to include Laura Marling, Artic Monkeys, Frank Ocean and Bon Iver. I had heard stuff by all of them but would never have bought one of their albums.
The first album I ever bought was Heart’s “Dreamboat Annie.”. I don’t recall the exact numbers but my theory was “This has three songs I know I like—Magic Man, Dreamboat Annie (3 ways, what?!), and the AWESOME Crazy on You. If I bought 45 rpms of each of those it would cost…and this whole album costs…so the extra cost gets me some extra songs…” and I rolled the dice.
The other songs were meh. I went back to 45s for awhile. Next album purchase: zero duds, and one of the best-selling of all time: [The Eagles/Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.](Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) - Wikipedia
Worldwide, the album has sold over 45 million copies as of 2020.[31] Therefore, it’s the best-selling greatest-hits album, as well as the third best-selling album of all time.
Whole albums can be great. There are some songs that don’t get played on the radio, sometimes due to their length. One early example of a song that stands out to me is Billy Joel’s “Until the Night,” a song that’s better than a lot of his hits IMO.
And when the hits get overplayed, the other songs that stay fresh…so the “Greatest Hits” approach has its flaw as well.
Even if there isn’t a theme or concept to an album, there is usually a consistency in the studio and musicians used that make the songs a cohesive collection beyond just a sampling of the artist’s work. An album is also a snapshot of a particular stage in the artist’s development. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of Greatest Hits albums.
Fair enough. One listens to music in different ways at different times. If I am at the gym, I want a single song I find motivating. If I am working, I want something I like but will not find too distracting. If I am purely listening for the music, I might listen to a whole album. Not usually, though. There are a few albums that are worth it and fewer still where that is the only really acceptable way to fo it.
I agree with this. There are concept albums that I like listening to like Rush’s 2112 or Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger, but there are plenty of albums that the artists have put the effort into making them flow. Like the above mentioned Revolver, how can you put on Paul’s Boutique and not listen to it in order?
I also listen to albums over and over and expect the songs to be in a certain order.
I like hits Box Sets. George Strait and Merle Haggard had long careers and just their box set of hits is 4 cd’s. I can spend an entire morning listening to Haggard and reading the news. Same thing with Straits box set.
I’m not a fan of box sets that include everything a band recorded. I don’t need to hear six alternate takes of a song.
The Motown Singles Collection (1959-1971) is a fantastic Box Set.
On one hand, there are certain albums where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. Everybody had their favorites, and I endorse several of the suggestions in this thread.
On the other hand, I love living in the digital era where I can pick the tracks I like and skip the filler. I have a bunch of playlists titled “[artist], Loose Ends,” with a few songs each from several albums.
“Greatest Hits” albums almost always disappoint me, especially those originally from the vinyl era with the 11 song maximum. They usually leave out at least one important song. There is no room for under-appreciated rarities. Most importantly, they invariably include 1 or 2 stinkers.
Count me in at number three. Except I can’t think of a single album where I like every song on it. I’m definitely a song person, not an album person or even a band person.
A year or so back someone started a thread about albums where all the songs were great. I thought maybe I could pick up on something good I had missed. Nope, album after album that I may have liked one song off of. Many times it was no songs.
It has saved me a considerable amount of money tho, because I never purchased any music until digital downloads started. Otherwise I just listen to the radio, where I’ve developed the ability to have it on for a couple of hours and only hear the songs I like. The rest is just background noise.
I was a teen when cassettes became de rigueur. Since it was a PITA to skip a song, I would listen to the whole side. So I listened to the non-hits and a lot of them became enjoyable parts of the album as well.
Usually an album is either “full side” worthy, or it absolutely isn’t. But there are a few full-side albums that crop up with one unbearable song in the middle.
The one that defines the category for me is “Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band”. I can listen to that album all the way through…almost. As soon as I hear the sitar in “Within You Without You” I have to skip it. That song breaks up the flow in a terrible way.
And that’s why mix tapes exist, to fix tiny flaws like that in otherwise perfect albums!
Yeah, and, just after that, Blue Jay Way. I’ve never really liked either track, and, since they were both written by George Harrison, it put me off him for a long time.
