When you listen to music, do you prefer to listen to an album in order? If you do, do you skip songs? Or do you prefer to listen to a bunch of individual songs that you like in a playlist?

I personally do both, but I generally prefer to listen to albums over playlists. I think there is an element of creativity, storytelling, and expression that is lost when you choose to only listen to individual songs. This applies more to some albums compared to others, obviously. I don't think it really matters if you listen to a DJ Khaled album in order, for example, but for other artists who create albums around a particular theme or concept, it absolutely makes a difference. The biggest example of this phenomenon for me is To Pimp A Butterfly. Individually, I like the songs on the album. Some of them (Alright, King Kunta, i, These Walls) I would definitely listen to on their own. Some of them (You Ain't Gotta Lie, u, the interludes) I would not. But when all of the songs are put together, a masterpiece is created. The album is a piece of art that is soooo much more than the sum of its parts.

What are your thoughts? Does it depend on the artist for you?

If I'm listening to something new I want to listen to the entire album as it was made. I want to experience the album the band put together.

If I'm listening to music I'm familiar with then I want the playlist I've made. I prefer listening to certain genres together and I have playlists that provide that.

I normally only listen to individual songs but I never knew some artists tell a story throughout the entire album so now I'm really curious about that and may look into good albums that do just that so I can experience that and form an opinion on what I think of that, but as of now I just listen to playlists.

I mostly listen to my favorite songs in a playlist i have on Spotify. If i find a song i like, into my playlist it goes. I do rarely listen to albums but only for artist i really like.

I personally do both. In the past when I used to have albums I would sometimes skip songs and get to the songs I really liked. Other times I would listen to the songs in order. Now with everything being digital. I sometimes listen to a playlist of songs.

I only used playlists when going outside with my MP3 player, otherwise I simply listened to albums or DJ sets. I rarely skipped songs unless they were bad or I wasn't in the correct mood to listen to them.

Lately, I either play individual songs by handpicking them every time I want to listen to music, or I otherwise pick an album I know was very good (or a new discovery courtesy of Spotify). I've been tempted to make playlists, though I have just too much music and thus it can be such an extremely random mix that I prefer selecting the music instead of having it play.

I did make an attempt on Spotify, creating a few playlists to gather songs from several musicians that didn't have much presence there to save me time in searching for them. However, even Spotify has changed over the years and now those artists aren't as underground as they once were so I can perfectly search for their hits and albums with ease.

even I prefer to have playlists I don't always do entire albums on my mp3 player (yes I still use one)

i listen to both on my spotify

I've been a big music listener for almost 8 years now and have a history going back to Michael Jackson's death. When he died, I decided to listen to everything across his discography, album by album, including Jackson 5. I got a lot of thrill out of this experience and I had a lot of good feelings from the cohesive tone and unique feeling that a good album can bring. I was really into a lot of electronic and EDM until I heard To Pimp a Butterfly, which was a concept album like none other. I still can appreciate each of these tracks independently, but giving the entire thing a full spin is such a rewarding experience, even today, after nearly 100 listens to the album as a whole. I decided to dedicate my listening habits to fulfilling that feeling. Minus u, the interludes, and Blacker the Berry for the same reasons you had but I really dug the vibe of You Ain't Gotta Lie.

While I've listened to nearly 1300 albums from different artists over the years, playlists have become my bread and butter. When I got really into music, I'd put the most popular tracks from artists or albums I was interested in into a playlist and throw it on shuffle, stopping the playlist and listening to the album when I heard something that really caught my ear.

Aside from using playlists for discovery, I've been really into using them to go back to my favorites. I have a rap playlist that's nearly 40 hours long, a jazz playlist that's nearly 25 hours long, a general playlist that was nearly 100 hours. Now that Spotify has categories for playlists, I've been more able to break playlists down to subgenres and feelings.

It does depend on the artist but no matter who the artist is, there's limited time out there, so if I'm put off by an artist from 2-3 songs, I'd be a little less likely to revisit it unless I was giving the album a full try.

I'll always choose a playlist over an album. There's a few albums that I really like and there's a bunch that only have a few songs that I like. I'll always prefer to make a playlist that's just for one specific artist and I'll take a few songs from one CD, a few from another, and so on.

I have one playlist that's just for my 3rd most favorite artist and another that's just for anime music that's like 5 hours long instead of going to each album.

I did just buy a physical CD yesterday thought for an album I really wanted, it was the first one I bought since September 2021.

Honestly back then, I would go for the album first before adding a few hits into a playlist that I would create. It’s more so easier to understand the work the artist has done and just feel his or her music before adding favorites to a playlist. Though these days I usually lean more on playlists than albums due to always being in a specific mood whenever I’m playing my music. I mean most of my playlists are basically an interpretation of who I am, from love songs to old school hip hop, even an mgmt playlist… don’t ask.

I like Playlists way better. Here is why, YouTube has them and they are easier to make, although Albums are bigger, but not all the time.

I've made many Playlists, and you can sort them in many different ways. So I gotta go with Playlists.