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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14976953
I guess I'm just Single Minded
P.S. my store is on sale!
I'm the opposite. Usually listen to full albums and even if I really like one or two songs, if the album sucks otherwise I'm unlikely to listen to them much, if at all.
This was a real issue back when we had to buy full albums (cassettes) back in the eighties.
Sure, we look back to some epic albums from that time, but a whole lot of them were the one top forty hit and a bunch of crap filler songs. But we had to suffer through it because we'd spent eight dollars of our hard earned money on that crap. (Eight dollars back then would be over twenty dollars in today money)
It was groundbreaking when the CD listening stations came to record stores.
All this said, I love listening to full albums and was one of THOSE guys back in the nineties who would seek out things like Japanese releases that had ever so slightly different versions of songs.
there are a few albums that only had a top 40 hit but were actually good all the way through, did u ever buy one of them? or was it all just filler?
Found one - Skylarking by XTC. Dear God peaked at #37. No other songs charted. It's long been one of my favorite albums.
That's a good question. I gotta ponder that for a while.
I can think of albums like Nothing's Shocking that didn't have any top forty hits but was good all the way through, but one hit supported by an entire good album, that's a challenge.
Ok. Hear me out.
Graceland.
I never could get into Paul Simon, especially after he had the gall to go steal Edie Brickell away from me. That bastard!
steve mcqueen by prefab sprout comes to my mind. it only hit in the uk after its 3rd reissue of the single
also pocketful of kryptonite by spin doctors is solid but i think it had 2 charting singles
It's the one hit criteria that makes it tough. I didn't much listen to anything top forty after 1985, so I can name a bunch of great indie albums that didn't chart. But if it was a good album that charted, it likely had several hits on it. You've really posed a great challenge. It may take me a week to come up with something.
i thought of another but it depends on how much you like frank zappa, but it fits to a tee for me
Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch had Zappa's ONLY top 40 hit ever, and is also a great album. But I'm a huge Zappa fan so YMMV
Found one that's close.
Oingo Boingo had Weird Science chart at 45 on Dead Man's Party.
They're admittedly an acquired taste, but if you were in southern California in the eighties, they were... How do I state this? Foundational.
dead man's party is a great record
Zappa has always been tough for me. His stuff is so out there and so complex, you gotta actively listen to it like a hundred times before you can even scratch the surface of understanding it.
The guy was definitely a generational musical genius.
Streetlight Manifesto is one of the few bands I go out of my way to listen to every song on every album, because they're that good and have almost no bad songs. I can't wait for the next album that's supposed to drop this year.
Edit: Beast in Black too.
I listen to albums atleast 95% of the time. I only listen to separate songs when I'm looking for new stuff
The last 3 bands I've taken a shining to - The Pretty Reckless, Coheed and Cambria, and Set it Off - all have a lot of great stuff.
Cindy Lou Who has some pipes, The Pretty Reckless rule live too.
She does. I really think she has one of the finest voices in a long time, especially for her age. And yeah, I saw them pretty recently. Just as good live.
With the advent of electronic tools (computers and other digital means of sound creation) IMO it has become rare to find an album that has a decent number of good songs on it. The band or musician(s) just seem to throw a bunch of styles at the wall and see what sticks, or the songs are so similar they just run together in a boring mass. Maybe it’s because music is so cheaply and easily produced with so little oversight and editorial input we just get what any mid can crank out with basic Ableton Instrument packs. Before, bands would have to fight to hold on to the crown and keep airplay and the record contracts coming (not trying to say the recording industry is good - its a shit industry - but it did have a few good points) and that pressure came from the record companies and radio stations. Now anyone can dump almost anything on Spotify and never look back.
I don't usually look up the rest of the album because when I used to do that, I almost never found even 1 more song on the album I liked. There are exceptions, of course. But there aren't many artists that have nothing but bangers.
I still give it a try once in a while. Often it isn’t the album, but another by the band might have something enjoyable.
Pretty rare to have a whole A-side’s worth of songs that slaps these days.
EDM / techno is kind of an exception with many albums that were designed to be played from start to finish, going hard all the way.
If you like techno or funk at all check out Griz, almost all his albums can be put on and listened to straight through, especially if you're out driving or something.
In particular Good Will Prevail and Ride Waves are almost entirely bangers with only a couple duds. Funky as fuck
I find it really interesting how different people have radically different relationships with music.
You've got like depth first listen to everything. Listen to stuff on repeat until you know it by heart. Listen to it once and forget. Critical analysis of lyrics. Getting all the words wrong.
I tend to listen to the whole band's discography if I like them , and if there's only a song or two I like I don't really stick with it
I'm with you. I'll put albums on repeat, and it just makes sense to listen to them in discographical order. You get to follow along with their growth.
