How quickly do you go through an artist's discography?
 

Hi, so I was just wondering about that.
If you discover an artist you like, do you wait till you've fully digested an album of theirs before you move on to another one, or do you sort of just go through as many as you can?

I ask because most of the time I slowly go one album at a time through any artist's compendium. The advantage of this is that the music is distributed over a longer period of time and you have more to look forward to. However, you don't get to broaden your capacity of the music as fast.

Yeah, I'm overthinking this but I was just curious.

I either listen to one album and move on (without listening to it again unless I really, really dig it), or get obsessed with an artist and listen to every single album from them within a week.

This is exactly how I listen to music. Haven't really really dug anything recently except for perhaps Kendrick Lamar, so I'll be meaning to listen to Section.80 sooner or later...

Incredibly slowly. It can take me years, just because I don't like to listen to more of their work until I'm familiar with what I've just heard (else I confuse the contents of the albums).

It usually takes me a long time, but it also depends on the artist and the length of thier discography too. I've fully digested about twenty John Zorn albums, but that leaves about four hundred more for me to work with. Same goes for Frank Zappa.

kinda how i do it lol

Wait, so you often just listen to an album ONCE and move on?!

Why listen to an album you don't find interesting more than once? If it's an album that I have been recommended by people who's opinions I trust, or from an artist I rate I'd give it another shot, but that's about it.

And I don't have any specific way I go about listening to discographys, often not doing it at all.

If I like one of a band's albums I will try to listen to more if there's not too many other albums queuing up behind them. Not that I speed through albums, though (as it appears several people here do), but I do occasionally have several I want to listen to. I usually listen to what I like a lot. I only opt to discover music every once in a while.

Blur is a good example of the discography thing, though. I listened to Parklife and I wanted to hear more Blur, so I got the rest of their albums.

My philosophy is that every album deserves at least three listens before you judge whether it's worth listening to any more. (unless of course the album disgusts you upon first listen) I think three listens is a fair chance for most albums. Of course, there are some albums that need even more than that before they start revealing their intricacies.

So you don't usually go through an artists discography you like?

1. You are going to miss out on a hell of a lot of good music if that's your process. Three times is way too many for albums you don't like (I can understand if you see some appeal but it just doesn't feel like it has clicked)

2. Not always. I listen to so much music, no time for listening to every album by the 3,700+ artists I have listened to.

I find most times after listening to an album once or twice, I don't know if I dislike it or not. Sure, everyone has first impressions, but I don't think you can judge on that. By the 3rd or 4th listen, I feel I can better judge the album and then I decided if I want to keep listening to it or not.

When you listen to albums MANY times, you learn the intricacies of the music and, excuse the cheesiness, the music becomes a part of you.

How rare is it that you dislike an album after three listens then? I assume you are pretty careful with what you choose to listen to as I would hate to waste my time listening to an album I hated three times.

Agreed, the majority of the albums on my personal list of great discs have all required about 3 listens before they fully clicked. I don't see the point in rushing through the ever-expanding quantity of music rather than sitting back and enjoying the quality of what you've discovered, but I'm lazy like that :afro:

^ You only buy physical copies/legally own, am I right? I would be the same if that was the case with me.

Yes and no. I'll stream albums through youtube or grooveshark to check out new material. The only time an album doesn't get a subsequent listen is if I can't make it through the first track. Conversely, if I find myself reloading the same album stream more than a few times I normally make an effort to try scoring a physical copy.

I turn into a listening beast

I listen to all the discography literally and eventually after hours of listening I never find but 2 or 3 good songs similar to the one I liked

I hate it when it happens -_-

i dont own entire discos now a days i just run throw various artist alwasy looking for something new

if i dont have anything by them i sometimes just buy there greatest hists and then move on

but Alot of artist these days dont even have a greatest hits album they never reach tha point LOL

Yeah and I think it's something you learn to pick up on. I can sometimes tell if an album is a grower when I don't enjoy it upon first listen.

Also depends on what/who refers you to the music.

It sounds to me like you try and listen to more and more music rather than actually enjoy what you have already discovered. I mean, sure there's lots of music, but there's also lots of food. Do you also eat meal after meal before the others digest just so you can say you've ate every dish in the world?

You don't have a physical limit on your capacity for music though...

I work a bit like Goofle does, actually, and it suits me fine. I listen to everything once, and if I'm intrigued, I keep it for future reference. If I'm not, I pitch it. I don't feel like I'm missing out, really.

Poor analogy, but I'll throw this at you - Would you rather live day by day eating two meals from the finest restaurants in the world, or have fish and chips every day?

Depends.

I got through the bulk of David Bowie's in about 3-4 months but it was pretty much all I listened to. I usually like variation so normally it would take me ages. It's taken me a year to get through The Roots' discog. for example.

I do the same, but I always download the discog so I can get a variety of albums to listen to, just in case I like one but not the other. I generally skim through it until I hear something incredibly special and then ravage it.

I do one at a time, just because I don't like to get albums mixed up. I once downloaded both Broadcast's HaHa Sound and Tender Buttons at the same time and I still don't know which is which when I listen to them.

I'll almost always give an artist another chance if I don't care for the first album I pick up though.

Yeah that's good, you can't judge by just one album because people change their styles and alternate between different genres all within the space of another album. If that makes sense.

Nearly all of the artists behind my favourite albums only have one album apiece I feel strongly about. I would hate to miss the next favourite because of a poor first, or even second impression.

Poor analogy, yes, but Christmas Eve doesn't allow for much creativity, if you know what I mean.

Of course the answer would be the fine restaurants, but at the same time you may not like what these fine restaurants serve you at first, no? Unless I have interpreted your analogy wrong. The way I interpret it: you go from restaurant to restaurant eating their best meals, as you would go from artist artist listening to their best albums. But at the same time, why wouldn't you want to go back to certain restaurants as you would go back to other artists? Not all chefs make steak quite the same, just as every artist doesn't make music quite the same, even if it is similar, but even the most subtle of differences can still make something better and thus worth returning to, no?

But maybe I'm over thinking this. But what I say still stands, what if you really would like something the second or third time? By pitching that, you'd still be missing out, even if you could have discovered something new by the time you like it, but at the same time, you are never ever going to hear everything, and so, in the end, you are still going to miss out, so why not enjoy what you have more than once or more than a couple of times? No matter what you do, there's going to be a perpetual cycle of "missing out". I heard this, but while I heard this I could have heard that, but by listening to that I apparently missed this but now I'm dead and missed all of these things. It's just music, you know. Which sounds blasphemous considering where I'm posting it, but you're meant to enjoy it, and are you really getting all that satisfaction by increasing your library by large amounts every day? What's worth more, an album you've heard a lot and enjoyed to its fullest extent, or ten albums that you've heard once and thought were good but aren't worthy of another because you're worried about "missing out" on tons of other albums that may really not be as good as the ten you just blew off?

I hope that all makes sense, I was just writing what I thought as I thought it.

The problem with this is that I don't only listen to albums I like once or twice, I give them plenty of time. I was just making a point that I would rather listen to 1000's of great albums (to my tastes) once or twice than hundreds of okay albums 10 times.

Hence why I said "it sounds to me" in my original post. I just thought you were, like, "CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME", you know?