Do people still listen to new albums?

[hc4361]

When I were a lad I had to save hard to buy the album of my lust.
When I finally got it, I devoured the sleeve - the album art played a big part of the experience. (Not literally devoured, you understand.)
Put the LP on the record player and played it from first track to last, over and over, doing nothing but listening.
Many of the tracks I hadn't heard before and would have been easy to 'skip' had such a function existed, but they grew on me and became meaningful within the album. Many I came to love and still enjoy listening to today.

Now with mp3 it is so easy to download hit tracks and ignore the unfamiliar tracks and it is so easy to press 'skip' when listening to your music library.

Do today's youth listen to albums the way the artist intended - from start to finish? The tracks aren't thrown together randomly - time and thought has gone in to each and every album. Is the youth of today as intense about music as we were way back when?

Or does the industry cater for this and not produce albums as they used to be?

[MarkRae]

Can't speak for the youth, but I certainly do.

[hc4361]

But do they listen with the intentness of us old LP lovers?

[mjwman]

Excellent thoughts and so eloquently put. I cannot answer but empathise entirely.

[Hopkirk]

Methinks you have rewritten history in your mind.

I remember lifting the stylus off to jump past the rubbish tracks, and recording the best tracks on cassette.

I often felt cheated when, having bought an album, I discovered the tracks not selected as singles were dross.

[Lore]

Oh I definitely do! It's so easy to download tracks these days ( well it has been for a while now, but still) I still like to go out and buy an album - even though I usually put it on my ipod/phone/pc and then not really use the disc again, there's still something in buying it and having the cover and book to have a nose at too.

[Lore]

Haha, hopkirk - that's very true. There does seem to be more of a story line with some albums now. ( I'm suddenly feeling old in this thread)

[RATTER15]

Yes! I also lifted the stylus to skip the crappy tracks. I don't think anything has changed.

[MarkRae]

Indeed, but I still can't help feeling that it's not a "real" album unless it's got a gate-fold sleeve designed by Storm Thorgerson / Hipgnosis and an inner sleeve with the lyrics...

[Hopkirk]

The fun of wasting hours looking through a record shop has gone now.

Some of my albums had clicks or scratches, and if I hear the songs on the radio now I wince at the point where I expect a click to happen.

[Mamyalynne]

Ah, taping an old penny to the stylus arm to stop the jumping.

[paddywak]

I learnt fairly early on to wait till the" best off" albums appeared on the scene and I still play the ones I bought scratches crackles and all. CDs are OK but they're not the same as opening an old L.P. and reading the lyrics and sleeve notes. I think the last album I was Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and that was years ago

[Sooper]

I certainly do, im a record/cd collector, i steer clear of the inferior MP3's!

[Quassia]

I loved my 'White Album'

[Quassia]

& talking about art work .. I bought the 'Beatles Illustrated Lyrics' 1 & 2 .. still have them!!

[Ankou]

todays society doesn't have time to sit alone in their bedsit salivating over some album artwork or some crap b sides that can be easily skipped on an album. and why should they.

i agree with hopkirk and do not share this nostalgic reminiscence of 'devouring' the latest album bought. i can remember as happens today that on every album i bought, there were only ever 3 or 4 decent songs that i'd listen to more than once. nowadays its just easier and less time consuming to press skip or fwd, rather than lift the stylus to the track break point. even better still, just download the songs from an album that you actually like.

[pa___ul3]

I buy CD's as opposed to download, although I probably should just start downloading, I tend to only listen to CD's in the car now, MP3's needed when running, when I'm chilling in my room it's usually to radio 6.
Maybe that's one of the factors, we have some excellent radio station that do the digging for you, also my mate does a podcast of new bands called "route for the underdog" if anyone's interested, he knows what I like and points me in the direction or anything I might fancy.