I never skip songs while listening to albums, regardless of how bad the song is. Interrupting the flow is weak. If it's good, awesome. If not, I always ride it out.

Also if I really like a song, I don't go back to listen again, I've learned. Otherwise =========>>> http://www.metalstorm.net/forum/topic.php?topic_id=10666

It depends on a lot of things... Short answer: Yes, I do find it acceptable to skip songs on an album though I don't do it much nowadays. If I'm going for that "full album" experience or just want to relax and listen rather than bothering to press the skip button, I won't skip the song. If it's a song I really hate to the point that it will ruin the album for me or put me in a bad mood, I'll skip it. I've spent years just listening to my playlist on shuffle and hitting that skip button a lot, but I've grown to hate that way of listening to music. I'm becoming more of an album listener lately. It's a much better way to truly experience and appreciate music.

I do have songs that I listen to again and again, but those songs change too frequently for me to get sick of them. I usually have a new few songs that I'm obsessed with every week or so :p

If I am in the car, and in a hurry, you best believe I am skipping tracks.

If I am doing something like listening for a review or trying to get an in-depth look into a band, then I won't skip. And generally on my first listen through, I won't skip tracks either.

Anything other than that is fair game though.

Written by Branzig on 08.04.2012 at 03:59

And generally on my first listen through, I won't skip tracks either.

Certainly

Written by Thrashette on 08.04.2012 at 03:39

I've spent years just listening to my playlist on shuffle and hitting that skip button a lot, but I've grown to hate that way of listening to music.

Agreed, playlist without shuffle is a good experience though. Without the skip of course.

I'll normally skip whatever I don't like. If I'm doing something like walking or driving though, then I'd probably have the patience to go through the whole thing. I could probably count the number of times I've finished an album in one sitting on my fingers.

I seem to be on the outs on this

Skipping tracks is IN! Whoo-Hoo!

I don't skip tracks on punk albums usually.

A: Because the songs are all so catchy, why would I want to?!?! and...
B: The songs are so short there is no point lol.

I've come the realization that if you've become overly familiar with an album, your probably going to skip tracks regardless.

Very, very few times.
If I do it's either because i heard that song SO many times that I'm damn tired or if the song can really make me upset.

The latest time it happened was with Lulu, the track "Mistress Dread". I surrendered to that one.

When I'm listening to an album, I'm usually doing schoolwork, so I skip any spoken word tracks because I can't concentrate on both the dialogue and the track. Other than that, I listen to the album in full. Sometimes I skip around, but I don't consider that album listening so much as song listening.

I now spend a lot of my free time discovering new bands, so for the most part, I'll do a quick stream (skipping parts of songs to get an idea of the song) and if I like the first couple of skipped throught traks, then I'll come back to the album fully listen to it and probably end up buying it. Otherwise the only time I skip songs is when my media player shuffles on a band I used to like but now hate but was too lazy to delete from my library.

If it is any kind of "grind" album, I don't skip tracks. There is no point since the average song is usually under the 2.5 min mark haha.

I do it all the time, though it may depend on the album itself. For some reason I've always liked to listen through initially then pick at it afterwards, giving particular tracks which I enjoy more attention. But I also don't like leaving an album as a 'collection of good songs' in my memory so I usually try and make my last listen one which follows the flow set in the song ordering (that is if I feel that that's an important part to the album, with some its not so important). Its sort of like 'finalising' it in my mind I guess. If I come back to an album later I may repeat this process or just listen all the way through.

When listening to individual songs, yes, but when listening to full albums, no.

Written by Branzig on 08.04.2012 at 03:59

If I am doing something like listening for a review or trying to get an in-depth look into a band, then I won't skip. And generally on my first listen through, I won't skip tracks either.

Anything other than that is fair game though.

Basically this. I also never shuffle, just because it takes away from the music to some degree (I think unlike most shitty pop/rock albums, more than just the single is meant to be played repeatedly) and also because I have a pretty good variety that wouldn't do to shuffle.

Written by bloodwrage on 04.06.2012 at 18:23

I also never shuffle, just because it takes away from the music to some degree (I think unlike most shitty pop/rock albums, more than just the single is meant to be played repeatedly) and also because I have a pretty good variety that wouldn't do to shuffle.

I don't get it. Shuffelling music from your library doesn't mean the exact same songs will beplayed over and over again. In fact it's the exact oposite and some media player allows you to shuffle by album too.

I rarely ever skip songs on an album. The only song (if you can call it a song) I skip regularly is satanic mantra on CoF midian album. Otherwise I generally ride out most songs.

Most of the time when I listen to music I bounce around between albums anyways. One or two songs from an album and then switch to something else. But if I'm gonna crack down and listen to an entire album, I wouldn't skip anything.

A lot of albums have filler anyways, or what are otherwise good albums just have cringe-worthy tracks on them I really don't care to listen to (i.e. Metal Meltdown on Painkiller). So on the go, I hunt and peck.

Written by Nosurper on 08.04.2012 at 00:02

I never skip songs while listening to albums, regardless of how bad the song is. Interrupting the flow is weak. If it's good, awesome. If not, I always ride it out.

Also if I really like a song, I don't go back to listen again, I've learned. Otherwise =========>>> http://www.metalstorm.net/forum/topic.php?topic_id=10666

I'm with you on this. I want to experience an album as a complete unit of work so I listen to all the tracks, in order, from start to finish. That's the way I listen to metal.

It depends. Usually I listen to the whole album a few times until I get a feel for it. Once I know the general sound of the album and I'm familiar with the tracks, I'll skip a song every now and then to get to the song that I'm in the mood for, because I already know the flow of the album. I know where the track I'm listening to comes from/picks off from, and I know where it's going, so I still get the feel of the album while skipping around now and then.

I sometimes skip some songs that are really atrocious for me...quite rare situation though, usually i listen to whole album

Nah when a song is really bad... I skip it.. as simple as that

Written by Guest on 20.09.2012 at 19:13

If you skip, you're not listening an album. You're listening parts of an album. Just wanted to clear this thing out.

Semantic irrelevance in my opinion.

If you're getting the best part of the bulk of the record at least then you've heard the album. If that wasn't the case then what about re-issues with bonus additional tracks? (or other countries that get new tracks). Are the listeners of the original release listening to something that ceases to be an album? You don't necessarily know how the songs came to be on that album. Some can be old songs that weren't made in the same creative time frame and that have been drafted just to make up the time to reach album length etc.

People speak as though every album is some pre-constructed plan that can only be properly interpreted when listened to in one whole succession. Frankly, I think 90% of time this is romantic bollocks; in actual reality most songs don't have any real connection to each other apart from sounding stylistically similar, with the obvious exceptions of concept or one-song albums and such. Albums should be seen as parts that have strengths and weaknesses. What most people would have you believe is that you're doing a disservice to the "art" or whatever and missing out on the point if you skip songs, when personally I have no issue culling weak, filler tracks or intros / outros that are particularly poor and bring nothing to experience. Some of my 10/10 records have tracks I invariably skip, such as BaN's 'Level-3 (Nothing Becomes)' from the 'Thematic...' EP. Just because I skip that one track doesn't transform it from being an "album" to a collection of songs, It's still representative of what was released under that particular album or EP title. I've listened to the majority of 'Thematic...' hundreds of times and I skip that song almost every time. Are you saying then I've only heard the EP a few times?

For me the album = the overall impression left on me. Not the overall sum of its parts. If after many listens of an album you're tolerating tracks you don't enjoy just to get to the ones you do then that's just a bit retarded and counterproductive in my opinion as you're diminishing what the record can potentially offer you in favour of some misguided abstract concept.

I too never skip. It's just not something I do. I have this kind of "rule", while I'm listening to an album, I'm usually just focused on that, not doing anything else or I can't concentrate, I guess I have my limitations.

However, I have stopped listening to some albums entirely, but they need to be really really bad or I need to be really really tired. But skip, I don't remember ever doing that.

I pretty much agree with Joe. And I think the topic title is very dreary: why would I have or need a "policy" about art and entertainment? I usually don't skip tracks when I put on an album, mostly because it's just too much trouble to get up or alt-tab to my player. But I have no problem with skipping tracks or just queuing up good songs, even if I rarely get around to it. I fully disagree with silly notions about albums being "meant" to be heard as a whole, as if we had some responsibility to respect the artist's wishes or the integrity of the music. Like Joe said, it's romantic bollocks to claim most albums are unified entities, and even if that was the musician's intention there's no reason we need to adhere to it.

I was pretty drunk when I wrote that rant about such a pointless topic. But yeah, I'm happy to cherry pick particular songs from bands. Dredg in particular. Love the band but I only listen to about half the songs from each of 'Catch Without Arms' and 'El Cielo' but I like those songs a lot.

Only two songs I skip on all the stuff i listen too.
Iron Maiden, Quest For Fire off of Piece of Mind, and Daddy from KORNs debut.
everything else I listen to.

I personally don't have a problem with skipping tracks all too much, since I sometimes don't have time to listen to entire albums all the way through to the end. I may sometimes skip songs that i really do like, but I may not be in the mood for at the time. Whenever I'm up and out, I sometimes want to pick individual songs that I really like to get going. Whenever I'm driving on a long road trip or am at home, I of course enjoy playing entire albums straight through to the end. Skipping tracks doesn't really bother me as much as other people, though I still really like playing entire albums all the way through.

To all those who only listens to full albums,try listening to this Ambiant bad boy in one spin. 8 hour of music. 8 hours...

http://thevolumesettingsfolder.bandcamp.com/album/year-i