Like a lot of people my age (early… thirties), I greeted the appearance of digital music with relief that you didn’t have to buy a whole CD to get the couple songs you wanted anymore. I am not sure where this relief came from because I barely listened to any music that was popular in my teens, instead mostly listening to an eclectic mix of “symphonic metal,” anime music, and musicals. Anyway.
The point is that I didn’t think about “albums.” I thought about “songs.” There was the song I wanted (often a single) and then there was the other stuff clogging up the album, which I did not want. And if I’m honest, this is still how I listen to music after a first play-through. But I do get something now that I didn’t before, which is that this is dumb and I’m an idiot.1
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