Album fan? Track fan? Or Both/ depends.

When it comes to checking out new-to-me artists, I often will look at the ratings and reviews of albums before checking them out. Unless it's album recommendations from users here, I mostly discover new-to-me music through looking at RYM using whatever filters interest me at the time these days (sometimes I googlesearch Reddit based on my interests du jour). So I also decide based on how the albums are tagged/ labeled. When checking out a new-to-me album via youtube or some other streaming platform, if not playing the whole album the first time, sometimes I do play bits and pieces of all the tracks looking for that which most interests me. I do find some albums where I might like a middle song but not like the first one (I might grow to like the first song later), and sometimes I do want to more quickly check out music. Likewise, if I were to go the full discography route, I might be put off any the first albums whereas later albums would have appealed.

It's a matter of time and efficiency for me, especially as I don't want to spend many hours a day listening to music (sacrilege I know). I would rather sooner get to those albums that are most/more likely to appeal by an artist and sometimes that can be true of songs. And then if I like a track, I might well play the whole album.

If I buy an album, than I almost always listen to the whole thing. And when I play physical albums in my collection, then I almost always play the whole thing -- same for most albums that I own digitally. It's with streaming that I am more likely to act differently. And as said, I long have enjoyed making playlists (as a kid I made mixtapes)

In sum, I am a flexible listener and quite supple overall -- hardly a contortionist level of flexibility, however. :)

I am 'old school'. I always play the full album. 

Now of course there has been a lot of music designed as hits to be played on their own, but I'm not thinking of that kind of music. I am thinking of more progressive and artsy forms of music than the hits (or the majority of hits) and I'm not thinking of singles. This topic really is about music found on full studio albums, and how one feels about listening to those tracks independently or as compilations (you own or others) and random shuffles....

I've heard it said before at PA a number of times that you can only really appreciate Prog tracks within the context of an album -- I suppose that statement should cover studio albums, live albums and compilation albums put out by labels and artists since lives and compilations were not excluded in the statements and part of my rebuttal was to talk about compilation albums as well as how live albums commonly draw songs/pieces from various albums. I also have heard that real music appreciators only listen to full albums. And that you should not judge a track on its own, or even an album on its own if an artist put out more than one, as that album is taken out of context by not considering the full discography (there usually is some specific context to such discussions, but sometimes those are just the blanket statements -- also read that one should never consider one album better than any other in a discography.

I commonly do listen to full albums, but I also like listening to much from albums in other forms, including making my own compilations, playlists, different live albums and concerts with different setlists. and I have found that randomly shuffling my collection (used to do this on my iPod quite often) has been a wonderful way to re-discover music and gain a new appreciation for music in a different context. I often would be wowed again by music, and actually love the contrasts in the random shuffles.

I appreciate both listening to full albums and hearing and focusing on tracks independently of an album. I do find value in listening to full albums, of course, and I would not want to judge/rate/ evaluate an album without listening to it in full first.

Sorry, the poll options are a bit of a silly mess, and I hope I have explained where I am coming from. Please don't get too hung up on the poll, that is just intended as a fun accessory to discussion and posting. I'd rather read your own thoughts than see how you voted.