Anyone listen to entire albums?


I assume the answer is yes since many of you run vinyl rigs, but just wondering how many around here listen to entire albums at a sitting?  In the age of instant gratification and playlists I seem to be, recently, gravitating to listening through entire albums.  I don’t have vinyl and only stream or play from a network drive so it’s easy for me to bounce around from song to song, artist to artist.  Maybe it’s a nostalgia thing but I enjoy hearing a record in it’s entirely the way the artist recorded it.  I’ve flirted with the idea of vinyl for the very reason that it seems to be a format that lends itself to listening through an entire album in one sitting.  I seem to be less inclined to make that move though now that I’ve been doing the album thing via streaming. 

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When your system is good, you can't help but flip the record over to hear side two. After cleaning the stylus.

This is an easy question to answer, I listen only to albums. I am habituated to albums having started collecting LPs in 1956. When tape cassettes became popular I got a Nakamichi tape player and began copying LPs to listen that way to save wear on my vinyl. When VHS came available and then Laser Discs and then CDs, I collected them. None of these formats lend themselves to playing by track so it never occurs to me to listen that way. Now that I have much of my LP collection and all of my CD collection stored in digital format I spend most of my time streaming thanks to Roon. I still have my turntable, my Nakamichi tape deck, my VHS player and my Laser disc player but they are idle most of the time because streaming is so wonderful.

I noticed that when streaming, if I don't like the album, I often don't finish it, and when listening to music from a vinyl record, I listen to it until the end and very often change my mind about the album.

I grew up in the late 70's and early 80's. My local North Jersey radio station, was WDHA, it was an album rock format. They used drop the needle and play new releases beginning to end. My friends and I would record the broadcasts on our cassette decks and have an inexpensive copy of the album. I use to buy cases of TDK cassettes from Crazy Eddies. 

When I listen to vinyl, I listen to one side of an album.  When I get up I choose a different record and pick a new side!  When I stream its playlists or for music discovery in which case I listen to the full album.

I remember back in the 80’s when CD’s first came out they reordered songs on 70’s albums and people lost their minds. The record companies responded by saying you can program the CD player to play in the original order but finally they just repressed as originally put out!