Music players: Whole albums VS Selected tracks
 

I was reading in the 10 song shuffle thread, and saw that when evaluating others' shuffles, people would in some instances, rate the shuffle lower, because while it did have tracks by artists that the evaluator liked, it wasn't among their favourite tracks by said artists, or tracks they didn't like very much.

I then started thinking about how the shuffles wouldn't be very indicative of someone's musical taste in this respect unless they didn't carry whole albums on their music player/library, i.e. deleting certain tracks they didn't care for as much as others, despite being part of whole albums.

What is your stance on this? Are you completely content with having only or mostly selected tracks, or do you want have full albums in your library wherever possible? If you tend most towards the latter, how much do you feel you have to dislike a track (on an album that you assumingly otherwise like) to delete from your music player?

Personally, I'm definitely one for whole albums when it comes to this, with very few exceptions, almost being in pain if I was to delete a track (or more) from an album on my iPod, very much because there's this lingering thought that someday I may want to listen to that whole album while not having a cd player (or the cd itself) or my computer (to re-sync the track) available, and then the album is not what it was intended to be, gaaahh!!

edit: Urh, I was going to post a poll with this thread, but I was to slow in setting it up, so it timed out. Does anyone know of a way I can still add a poll to this thread? Thanks in advance.

Gee, I'm glad this question generated such an eager response...
Also, still wondering about the poll.

I absolutely cannot dl single tracks. Of the entire 200G of music on my computer, there isn't a lone or missing track in the bunch.

Albums as a narrative, unless expressly indicated, are a ginned-up form of narrative that existed because marketing teams told us it was (and so we'd flip the record) and now so we buy more than one song.

Most albums are **** and not worth the money.

When I want an album, I'll buy it on vinyl. Records are a lot cheaper, better quality, and the full album listening experience is what it should be.

Apart from that, I could listen to a mix of all my favorite stuff forever. If I'm having a special craving, then I might listen to a whole album, but apart from that, last.fm just rolls out stuff it knows I already like.

I don't have a preference for the most part but there are certain albums that just sound better on their own. It's definitely a new topic though, the ability to just filter out songs without having to skip through other tracks is kinda exclusive to this generation of listeners.

While I am one who prefers whole albums to individual tracks, I can't help but be of the opinion that playlists of individual tracks say MORE about a person than whole albums that include un-deleted songs.

My point exactly. When you delete certain tracks consequentially, leaving only tracks you like to a certain degree on the device, every track that comes up on an "All songs" shuffle is indicative of your taste, as opposed to most of the tracks if you carry whole albums.

I generally play albums in their entirety on CD.

Aaah yes, I read that wrong... we agree. However, it also occurs to me that not taking the time to either delete unwanted tracks OR select only specific track may also say something about a person... Does their lack of desire to make this effort say something about their commitment to their playlist?