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How do you listen, individual cut, full album?

After reading a few recent threads concerning ipod vs vinyl I noticed differences in people's listening habits. Many of those who are listening to vinyl describe the act of preparing an lp and then listening to it in its entirety while those who have burned their collections to various digital medium listen in a random select mode. This is a generalization but it got me wondering.
I began serious listening back in the day of vinyl listening to albums from start to finish. This habit has continued with cds. I can tell you my kids listen to cuts instead of full albums as their music is on ipods or hard drives. Is this a generational thing? How do you listen and how did this come about for you?
timrhu
ckorody
640 posts
 
Interesting question -

I am 100% hard drive based and find myself alternating between modes. With classical I tend to listen to the whole piece, and I also do it with a lot of Jazz albums - especially live performances where there really is some context.

But I also really enjoy making playlists and listening to a variety of cuts. As an example I have a smart playlist called Smart Blues... Anything I rip with Blues in the song title automatically goes into that playlist. There's something like 450 songs in there by everyone from Al Lee to Louis Armstrong to Julie London to BB King. It's really a fun way to explore the nooks and crannies of a collection that is too big to listen to any other way.

BTW I can't imagine doing this with vinyl... or even CDs - you'd have to spend too much time moving the physical assets.
timrhu OP
2,778 posts
 
Thanks for the input. As stated I grew up on vinyl and listening to the entire album seemed the way to get the full impact of whatever an artist was doing. One thing I noticed with the advent of cd and it's 74? minute length was albums became longer. This is not always a good thing as they can sometimes be 25% filler that's not worth the effort. I actually prefer when cds are 45 minutes or less, that has to come from the ex-vinyl habit.
tvad
9,467 posts
 
CD = full disc

LP = side by side

chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
I couldnt imagine how many great songs I would have never heard had I not listened to entire albums, alot of times the songs that never were released were the best cuts on an album. Case in point Counting Crows "August and everything after" great albun from start to finish.
jafant
10,525 posts
 
Individual cut(s) when I demo my system.
Full album for myself/ critical listening.
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