Had I never bought a cassingle I would've never heard Breadfan. Metallica thought it sucked, fans loved it.
Real music I buy albums or for bands that I feel could use the boost. I bought the newest Bad Brains album on principle alone. For pop music I only buy singles, I like my Britney Spears in small, measurable doses.
albums
David S. Wallens wrote: The "10 favorite songs" thread got me thinking: Are you an album fan or do you do individual songs?
Absolutely albums. If I don't like enough songs by the band in question to make it worth buying the whole album, I guarantee I won't be interested in that one song after a week or two anyway.
And, I never buy stuff via download. Call me a dinosaur, but I've been dicked over by DRM enough times that I want an actual, physical, first-quality, permanent copy of whatever it is.
Albums for my own listening. If I am snagging stuff to DJ at a dance, I frequently grab just singles or best ofs.
I like Amazon's policy of giving you the mp3 download when buying the CD. Best of both worlds.
Albums. I still buy CDs but never do downloads. I like having physical media for my tunes.
In all the years of buying music, I've only bought singles when the tune wasn't available in album format. Typically a B-side. Some albums have been duds with only one or two good tracks. Typically they were the singles. But overall the albums tend to contain more gems than duds.
I tend to lean toward buying albums- even when buying online from iTunes- simply because they're the better deal. Being able to preview all of the songs on an album online though has been quite nice since there ARE some artists/albums where I really only like one or two songs so I can just get those. It's pretty rare these days that I'll listen through entire albums in a sitting though- it's almost always my iPhone set to shuffle.
Jerry wrote: I LOVE the concept of not having to buy an album to get 2 good songs played on the radio & 8 filler (commercial radio since the dawn of time).
Not to go all hipster or anything, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. If it's a band that has a radio hit single I happen to enjoy, I will already be tired of it long before it goes off the air. So I have no need to buy that song, if I don't like the rest of the material.
It depends on the artist, and the album/song/songs in question.
In general, songs, but a good album kicks the ass of a great song any day of the week. Typically because a good album has more than 1 great song.
Albums.
If an artist is good, and the album is good, there's nothing like sitting back and listening to an entire album's worth of songs unwind. I know when I listen to an album for the first time, I can anticipate exactly what I want to hear next, and if it doesn't happen, I'm disappointed a bit. If the artist gets that and nails it, the album will flow better and the whole experience will be great.
Now, I'm going to sound like even more of a music snob. 
Being a musician who formerly tried his hand at a serious music career (and failed miserably, I may add) track listing on an album is important. If you give a crap about the listener, you will want them to almost anticipate what is going to happen next. When we recorded our 5-song EP, we built it to flow and make the listener want to hang on until the last note of the last song. We had about 20 songs written at the time, and selected the strongest tracks for the EP, but carefully placed them to entice the listener to want to keep going. Even though I personally moved on stylistically from that genre of music (post hardcore), I can still listen to that EPand be happy with the results.
Great albums will start strong, let you settle in, smack you in the face to remind you that they are there, let you recover a bit again, and then close with a bang. Check out the show on VH1 Classic cleverly titled "Classic Albums". They do in-depth looks at the making of many classic albums, and they do a lot of hard rock and classic metal albums. So much stuff goes into making these complete masterpieces that you would never know. Some of the good episodes:
-Rush: 2112 and Moving Pictures (two for one!)
-Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
-Black Sabbath: Paranoid
-Motorhead: Ace of Spades
-Def Leppard: Hysteria
-Judas Priest: British Steel
-Phil Collins: Face Value
-Nirvana: Nevermind
-Deep Purple: Machine Head
There are a bunch more too.
My standard for buying albums has always been: are there 3 songs on the album that I enjoy. But there are exceptions. Desperado by the Eagles is a great album but most of the songs individually are too liteweight to make it as classics.
Man, it's got so bad that when I hear a song on the radio my mind is already on the intro to the next song in line on the album.
At work I usually pull up youtube and find a good album and let her rip. Work flies by.
Then there's the "evolution" from liking "just a few songs" on Appetite For Destruction, or Dark Side of the Moon, to leaning back and playing them "end-to-end" and spacing out. It's an experience to be appreciated.
Think of it as a taste for good scotch. Who the hell took their first sip of whiskey and said "mmMMMmmm"? Not I, I don't mind tellin ya. I mixed mine with coke until my voice started to squeak, then with ice until my chest hair came in. It's only after years of "owie that burns" do I finally get to enjoy Scotch in all it's unmolested beauty.
It seems like "gone are the days" when an artist (or group of artists) could put together anything that could be passed as an "album" (sure there are a couple). It's like we've inherited a world of "one hit wonders".
Oh yeah, and get off my lawn.
Hungary Bill wrote: It seems like "gone are the days" when an artist (or group of artists) could put together anything that could be passed as an "album" (sure there are a couple). It's like we've inherited a world of "one hit wonders". Oh yeah, and get off my lawn.
My sentiments, exactly!
Albums on my record player, individual songs on my iPhone.
Duke wrote:Jerry wrote: I LOVE the concept of not having to buy an album to get 2 good songs played on the radio & 8 filler (commercial radio since the dawn of time).Not to go all hipster or anything, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. If it's a band that has a radio hit single I happen to enjoy, I will already be tired of it long before it goes off the air. So I have no need to buy that song, if I don't like the rest of the material.
I totally get it. But I can think of so many CD's I bought late 80's early 90's thinking "hey that song was pretty cool, I know it's all I've heard from them but the rest must be just as good right?"
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