Would you say you still tend to listen to albums?

[Cambus731]

There may be a bit of a generation gap on this.
Im 56 and I do still tend to listen to albums maybe about 75% of my listening time. And I could probably bore you all with a list of about at least 200 albums that I’m perfectly happy to listen to in full without skipping a track. But when I say about 75% of the time, that’s also including minidiscs which I’ve recorded of albums that have maybe 1,2, or even 3 not so good tracks or tracks that I’ve grown a bit tired of, so I may ‘freshen up the album by substituting other tracks by the artist in there. So I guess it counts as listening to the album even though I’ve ‘home tweaked’ it a little. The other 25% of the time I’d be listening to tracks that I just fancy listening to at the time, or playing a playlist at random.
How does this compare to the listening habits of other members of this forum? Would you say you still listen to albums? Or mainly playlists? Or just what you fancy. There and then?

My daughter is 17 and seems to have zero interest in albums. Unlike me at that age as I was already building up a sizable LP collection and seeking out original 1970s LPs by bands like Queen, Rush, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Yes etc as most of the 1970s original LPs had been deleted and replaced by cheap re-issues with inferior packaging.

 

[styles]

Not really.

Thing is, albums were cost-effective ways of buying music, along with compilation discs. For the cost of just a few singles, you could have a whole album. So I suppose the habit of listening to albums naturally followed.

In the world of Spotify, YouTube Music, etc, this isn't really the case.

I find myself listening to the radio more and more though.

 

[Cambus731]

Not really.

Thing is, albums were cost-effective ways of buying music, along with compilation discs. For the cost of just a few singles, you could have a whole album. So I suppose the habit of listening to albums naturally followed.

In the world of Spotify, YouTube Music, etc, this isn't really the case.

I find myself listening to the radio more and more though.

That’s a reasonable answer. There was still an emphasis on albums in the mainstream in the 1980s and 1990s. What I didn’t mention is that I’m a big proghead so not only did I sort of grow up with the idea of concept albums, there are still a lot of progressive rock albums being released even now which tend to either be a concept album, or have a theme or a bit of direction to them. Or that isn’t your cup of tea then I could see how your listening tendencies haven’t gone in the same direction as mine.

 

[J-2739]

Albums can be streamed, no?

 

[Cambus731]

Albums can be streamed, no?

Yes of course. I wasn’t excluding listening to albums via streaming. I do it myself while I’m out and about. Sorry, I should have been clearer about that.

 

[Harpo]

I am most definitely a ‘listener’. My system is set up for accurate stereo including a right speaker bias to compensate for deafness. I’ll also wait for folks to be out so I can listen undisturbed. And loudly. (More deafness! )

My 900 or so CDs are ripped to my Bluesound Vault so it’s easy to programme a playlist but I still do whole-album listening. I don’t see how some albums (like Dark Side) can be experienced any other way.

 

[Falcon1200]

Yes, I still listen to albums, and, even more archaically, still buy CDs! Because the bands I love (Gazpacho, IQ, Marillion for example) produce high-quality music, IMHO.

 

[Non Multi]

Very much so. Two things have happened in the last decade that have enabled my CD collection to be as large as it is:

1. Lots of people offloaded their CD collections to charity when they discovered streaming. Immediately after the pandemic, I was hoovering up CD albums left, right and centre for pennies!
2. High capacity flash storage cards are cheaper than they've ever been. I can rip discs to FLACs and listen to my entire collection out and about in full CD quality, ad free and without fear of songs being taken offline.

 

[Cowley]

I don’t really buy albums (CDs etc) these days because of having a Spotify subscription, I do however listen to albums right through frequently.

If I’m with other people and it’s me in charge of the music I’ll quite often put a playlist on though as they tend to appeal to more people.

 

[gg1]

Yes, at least 80% of the times I listen to music it's in the form on an album, though I will skip tracks I'm not keen on.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I listen to full albums through Amazon Music about 90% of the time, the rest would be the radio in the car, I still have hundreds of CDs, just no CD player

 

[75A]

I'm 65 still listen to Classic FM & CD's in my 15 year old car. In my Wifes 6 month old car we travel in silence because neither of us can work out how to use the system. I do know it can't play CD's but a box we've got connected to the digital tele can and also play DVD's.

 

[DelW]

At home I'd usually listen to CD albums right through, though with compilation CDs I might pick a selection out. I also still listen to LPs, usually right through, though sometimes only one side then move on to another album.

In the car I have a USB stick with about 90 albums on it, each recorded as a single file, from my CD collection.

I've not used streaming much, though I have recently signed up to Spotify, with the intention of using that plus over-ear bluetooth headphones when I encounter the "play out loud" brigade on trains.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Yes, most definitely! Can't see myself ever changing!
Zero interest in Spotify.
My car has a CD player still, if I had to upgrade (I mean buy a more recent model) I'd probably use a USB stick as suggested by @DelW

 

[Bevan Price]

I still listen to CD albums, mainly when car is parked at the lineside waiting for trains for me to photograph.

 

[778]

There may be a bit of a generation gap on this.
Im 56 and I do still tend to listen to albums maybe about 75% of my listening time. And I could probably bore you all with a list of about at least 200 albums that I’m perfectly happy to listen to in full without skipping a track. But when I say about 75% of the time, that’s also including minidiscs which I’ve recorded of albums that have maybe 1,2, or even 3 not so good tracks or tracks that I’ve grown a bit tired of, so I may ‘freshen up the album by substituting other tracks by the artist in there. So I guess it counts as listening to the album even though I’ve ‘home tweaked’ it a little. The other 25% of the time I’d be listening to tracks that I just fancy listening to at the time, or playing a playlist at random.
How does this compare to the listening habits of other members of this forum? Would you say you still listen to albums? Or mainly playlists? Or just what you fancy. There and then?

My daughter is 17 and seems to have zero interest in albums. Unlike me at that age as I was already building up a sizable LP collection and seeking out original 1970s LPs by bands like Queen, Rush, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Yes etc as most of the 1970s original LPs had been deleted and replaced by cheap re-issues with inferior packaging.

Sometimes albums can be a lot more than the sum of their parts. There are a lot of songs that are not that good if you listen to them on their own, but sound much better within the context of an album.

 

[Cambus731]

Sometimes albums can be a lot more than the sum of their parts. There are a lot of songs that are not that good if you listen to them on their own, but sound much better within the context of an album.

As a big proghead I certainly agree with that. I am a big sucker for concept albums or albums that have a theme or a musical direction running through them. Good examples of what you said are Crest of a Knave by Jethro Tull or Afraid of Sunlight by Marillion. Neither are full blown concept albums, but both have a sort of them running through them musically and lyrically and the impact of the tracks on these albums are diminished if listened to in isolation

 

[DelW]

As a big proghead I certainly agree with that. I am a big sucker for concept albums or albums that have a theme or a musical direction running through them. Good examples of what you said are Crest of a Knave by Jethro Tull or Afraid of Sunlight by Marillion. Neither are full blown concept albums, but both have a sort of them running through them musically and lyrically and the impact of the tracks on these albums are diminished if listened to in isolation

Back in the early '70s heyday of prog rock, some bands* subtly encouraged listening in sequence by issuing double albums as "autochanger sets", with sides 1 & 4 on one disc and sides 2 & 3 on the other. You could load both discs onto an autochanger turntable to play the first two sides, then reload once to play the last two.

I once had a copy of "Tommy" (by The Who) set up that way, which was a minor pain as I always had a single play turntable. I've just checked the double LPs I still own, and they're all conventional 1/2 and 3/4 pairings.

*or possibly producers?

 

[Harpo]

I once had a copy of "Tommy" (by The Who) set up that way

LPs on auto changers were prone to slipping and speed fluctuation because they didn’t have those little teeth next to the end of the run-off to engage each other.

The Who pushed the boundaries with quadrophonic recordings too. Can’t say I’ve ever knowingly heard anything quadrophonic? As Kenny Everett said, ‘I’ve only got two ears’.

Back on listening (or not), I’ve been to countless other households with stereo speakers but nowhere to sit in the sweet spot.

 

[DelW]

The Who pushed the boundaries with quadrophonic recordings too. Can’t say I’ve ever knowingly heard anything quadrophonic? As Kenny Everett said, ‘I’ve only got two ears’.

Back on listening (or not), I’ve been to countless other households with stereo speakers but nowhere to sit in the sweet spot.

Quadraphonic (or similar surround sound) is one of those things like 3D TV that keeps being (re-)invented but never really catches on in the mass market. If you've got a big enough house to have a dedicated listening room with enough space for a chair at the centre, it might just be worthwhile, but I've never been in that category.

I do have my main listening chair placed centrally about 3 - 4m from my speakers which are set about 2m apart.

 

[Cambus731]

Yes, I still listen to albums, and, even more archaically, still buy CDs! Because the bands I love (Gazpacho, IQ, Marillion for example) produce high-quality music, IMHO.

Really love some of the earlier IQ albums, ie Tales of the Lush Attic, The Wake, Nomzamo and Ever. Lush Attic and The Wake are so wonderfully dark.

 

[Falcon1200]

Really love some of the earlier IQ albums, ie Tales of the Lush Attic, The Wake, Nomzamo and Ever. Lush Attic and The Wake are so wonderfully dark.

Agree 100!

I have been a prog rock fan ever since buying Going for the One (Yes) way back in 1977, yet unaccountably I had never heard of IQ until stumbling over them by chance on Youtube a few years ago; I have of course bought all the albums since (on CD), and regularly listen to them, all the way through.

 

[SJL2020]

Yes, I reckon 95% of the music I listen to are studio albums (i.e., not compilations). Mainly rock, post-punk, indie, shoegaze, slowcore, etc.

The other 5% are live albums, mainly jazz and classical.

I spend about half my listening time with favourites, the other half listening to albums I've never heard before. I have a "new album per day" policy, but why stick at just one?

 

[swt_passenger]

All my bought CDs were copied to iTunes, but they’re still in a cupboard. The vast majority that I regularly listen to are also on an iPad, but I delete tracks from there if I find I never bother listening to them. I’ve also got a few highlights playlists set up, eg if I want background music to fall asleep to.

 

[nlogax]

Don't think I've bought a cd since 2013 and I'd already been on Spotify for three years at that point. And even five or six years before that I'd been on Real Rhapsody (think Spotify's granpappy for early adopters of audio streaming). Everything I listen to these days is in a playlist other than maybe a half dozen classic albums I've been listening to from the late 80s and early 90s.

 

[JohnMcL7]

Albums can be streamed, no?

Albums can be streamed but streaming applications tend to focus on dynamic and static playlists instead. Prior to streaming applications I primarily listened to music in albums and often I'd hear a track I liked then buy the album although often I wouldn't be fussed about a number of tracks. Now though I tend to only listen to complete albums for soundtracks and most of the time I listen to dynamically generated playlists based on an artist or music type I'm in the mood for.

 

[Broucek]

Given tiktok, we may soon be asking whether people listen to whole SONGS, never mind albums....

 

[Bevan Price]

Given tiktok, we may soon be asking whether people listen to whole SONGS, never mind albums....

Back to the days of Radio Luxembourg in the early 1960s??. Some programmes were sponsored by record labels, and they just crammed in as many "part song fragments" as they could, depending on what they were trying to "plug" that week. I seem to remember that eventually changed when the "pirate stations" arrived and only played complete songs.

 

[dangie]

I often listen to The Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’. It’s an album that once you’ve put it on it needs to be listened start to finish and not picking out individual songs.

Although I have it on Vinyl & Compact Disc, I always listen on Spotify played through Alexa. It’s just easier.

 

[GusB]

These days, I find that I'm listening to less music than I used to. I tend to listen to Radio 4 (is this this a sign of getting Old?); ten years ago, my background station would have been 6 Music.

When I do listen, it's usually online and I'm quite happy to allow Spotify to feed me stuff from a playlist. That said, if I do come across an artist that I've never heard before, I will have a look at other stuff they've produced and I will look for an album rather than their "greatest hits".

As a classical music fan, I prefer hearing an entire work rather than a single movement; the composers didn't write it as four separate pieces to be played one at a time, after all.

Albums definitely still have their place, regardless of how they're delivered.