How do you usually listen to music?

[Amadeus]

I'm a shuffle/playlist kind of guy, I haven't listened to a full album since Neon Bible and Funeral about 3 weeks ago.

[Leaff]

Full albums, rarely anything else. Sometimes if I just want to check out a little of an artist I'll listen to one song, but otherwise not really anything else. Unless I absolutely fall in love with a song, which leads to repeat for a while.

[Vyacheslav]

One artist at a time.

[toasters]

I shuffle albums until I get an urge to listen to something in particular.

[Pheidippides]

One song/album/artist at a time. And by one song at a time, I mean repeat it endlessly so everyone but me gets sick of it.

[Kablizzy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11SvDtPBhA

[乳头的早餐谷物]

I generally use the shuffle as a starting point and then skip some songs and pick other songs (often from the same album or artist). I do like to listen to whole albums, but only when I'm in the mood to do so.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I really only over listen to music when I'm driving, but this ends up being pretty often since I started commuting an hour away for school.
Realistically, the process goes something like this:
Let "Song X" be the song I'm presently obsessed with.
1. Turn on shuffle. Start with Song X.
2. Repeatedly skip songs until I find a song I feel like listening to. Average number of skips between songs could be 2 or 3 on most days, or up to 10 on others.
3. Repeat step 2 one or two dozen times.
4. Play Song X.
5. Turn off shuffle and listen to a bunch of songs by the same artist who performs Song X.
6. Play Song X.
7. Go back to step 2.

[Seneschal]

I have a playlist of my favourite songs at the moment with shuffle enabled, however after about two/three weeks of doing this I find some albums I've never heard before and listen to them. Then I buy the albums/tracks I like, add them to said playlist, and the process repeats itself.

[SlappyMcGee]

I'm currently marathoning through music, as a lot of you guys know, but even when I'm not, my last.fm always looks very biased because I pretty much exclusively listen to albums. I'm pretty OCD about it too. Example. The Perfect Drug by NIN doesn't exist on any of their LP's, so I have the Lost Highway soundtrack (which is awesome in its own way.)

Listening to a whole album really helps you evaluate the artist in question. There are some people who I think truly benefit from the album format, like David Bowie or Animal Collective, and there are other bands, like Death Cab for Cutie or my hip hop stuff benefits from single song or a few shuffled.

[Tunco]

Because I'm a picky guy I select another song when one ends. It depends on my mood though, sometimes I want to listen a whole album or all songs of an author, which happens very rarely. Also, I do like to listen same song over and over again (like Pheidi), until I start to get annoyed from it.

My music taste depends on situation I'm in at the moment, weird.

[Tanner]

I always listen to the full album. I almost never just listen to a single track from an album. I also read full books, not just the seventh chapter and watch whole movies, not just the part where the antagonist dies.

[SlappyMcGee]

I always listen to the full album. I almost never just listen to a single track from an album. I also read full books, not just the seventh chapter and watch whole movies, not just the part where the antagonist dies.

I dunno, I find myself reading the issue of Transmet where he storms the religious fair more often than the other issues.

[rocket_thumped]

I usually listen to every song on an album. Unless I'm stoned, then I usually go song by song, wherever the smokey stupor takes me.

[yungerkid]

I always listen to music on youtube; it's the most convenient source. I listen to music rarely, but when I do it's usually either to be reminded of how a song goes, to find new songs, or because a song is of particularly high quality. As such, I either go on youtube with a specific song in mind, or look up a band and try to find related music. Mostly I just listen to music in my head as I remember it.

[Amadeus]

You're seriously missing out with all your "thou shall not steal" religious anti-torrenting ideals. I mean, who needs ethics anyways.

[SlappyMcGee]

You're seriously missing out with all your "thou shall not steal" religious anti-torrenting ideals. I mean, who needs ethics anyways.

This sort of talk is discouraged, brosher.

[unoriginal name]

I always listen to the full album. I almost never just listen to a single track from an album. I also read full books, not just the seventh chapter and watch whole movies, not just the part where the antagonist dies.

This. This.

[aids]

I always listen to the full album. I almost never just listen to a single track from an album. I also read full books, not just the seventh chapter and watch whole movies, not just the part where the antagonist dies.

Your logic is impeccable. I love you.

[yungerkid]

I disagree with that. Each song is a story and a journey in itself, whereas in a movie or book each scene is by nature and necessity dependent on others in its sequence to be able to form a meaningful overall plot and aesthetic. In movies and books, the individual scenes are designed solely to work in a group. So one would expect to experience all chapters of the story. An album on the other hand is different. It is possible for songs to not be individually good, but rather to work best within a whole and be excellent in that right. But I have never seen such an album. Practically speaking, songs have to amount to something individually. That's not to mention the fact that most of the albums I know of do not attempt to correlate their songs in such a mutualistic, progressive way. So generally I can assume that for any given album the songs will be more than viably powerful on their own right, even if the album does happen to be a progressive, entire-experience-based one. It is true that most strong albums will carry the best form if one does listen to all songs in succession, but I generally don't have the time for that, and what overall synergy there is is often not very significant. As such I always presume that songs should carry weight on their own.

My point, though, is that tracks can be isolated from albums and still carry grandeur, a strong message, and powerful atmospheres, in a way that differs from the individual natures of scenes from movies or books, which (scenes) are almost invariably designed with a holistic point of view. The comparison is unfair.

[SlappyMcGee]

I disagree with that. Each song is a story and a journey in itself, whereas in a movie or book each scene is by nature and necessity dependent on others in its sequence to be able to form a meaningful overall plot and aesthetic. In movies and books, the individual scenes are designed solely to work in a group. So one would expect to experience all chapters of the story. An album on the other hand is different. It is possible for songs to not be individually good, but rather to work best within a whole and be excellent in that right. But I have never seen such an album. Practically speaking, songs have to amount to something individually. That's not to mention the fact that most of the albums I know of do not attempt to correlate their songs in such a mutualistic, progressive way. So generally I can assume that for any given album the songs will be more than viably powerful on their own right, even if the album does happen to be a progressive, entire-experience-based one. It is true that most strong albums will carry the best form if one does listen to all songs in succession, but I generally don't have the time for that, and what overall synergy there is is often not very significant. As such I always presume that songs should carry weight on their own.

My point, though, is that tracks can be isolated from albums and still carry grandeur, a strong message, and powerful atmospheres, in a way that differs from the individual natures of scenes from movies or books, which (scenes) are almost invariably designed with a holistic point of view. The comparison is unfair.

Depending on the album, I agree. Certainly an album like Liars' Drums Not Dead needs to be heard in its entirety, but I simply can't agree with Tanner in thinking that music is at all like books or films. Many albums do not have plot, or themes that even connect the songs. So, I can certainly see the benefit of singles as well.

[scythe]

It depends. Either I shuffle everything, or I listen to Dispatch exclusively.

[sheganican]

On a long walk, especially when bundled up for the cold, i put it on everything-shuffle mode, and if i come across stuff i don't care to listen to, i just skip it until i find something i like. When i'm just chillin' out, (maxin', relaxin' all cool and all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school) i almost always use "artists" to navigate, and i usually skip over songs involuntarily because of how many times i've seen the artist name. One of the main reasons i want an ipod touch is the cover-flow option. It seems hella easy to navigate.

[otters~1]

All of the above.

(maestro's lost his mind.)

[Tanner]

I'm not saying that just watching the ear chopping scene from Reservoir Dogs is entirely without merit but the entirety of the work is more than its climax and that's always true, no matter the medium. Maybe I could more easily understand your point with some examples?