Are you a skipper?

[DvChWi]

I read peoples reviews of CDs, and one thing that I often see is"I can listen to this entire CD without skipping a track!" Now, when I listen to CDs, I pretty much never skip a track.  I'm an album person, so hearing the album straight through is the only way to go, for me.  Others, however, seem to skip quite often.  I've always wondered why this was, so if any of you are skippers, please share why you skip.  

[bloop]

I'll generally run through a CD once and then skip to songs that I want to hear again the second time through.

[enemy anemone]

I almost never like all the songs. invariably there is a song or two that I just find annoying.
but now I always rip my cds to my computer, so I only have the songs that I like on my computer and playlists.  

[Josh]

Sometimes.

Some albums are not nearly as rewarding when you skip around (Kid A, for example), and some albums are so note-perfect (The Joshua Tree) that there's simply no reason to skip around, but most albums warrant skipping, at least sometimes.

[oneafroboy]

I put always. Now, maybe I should have put frequently, but always I think is closer to the truth--I virtually always skip tracks, even if I'm listening to an album as whole. The album has to be pretty darn good and I have to be driving or something or not in the mood to skip tracks to listen all the way through.

Perhaps people wouldn't consider me a tough music critic (I don't know, maybe, maybe not), but to me a good or even great album is one where I like about 1/2 the songs on it. Just to use the examples Josh mentioned... I only listen to about a little over 1/2 of Joshua Tree. Kid A, I can listen to all the way, but I rarely ever do unless I'm in an album mood and in a big Radiohead mood.

My favorite CDs I barely skip on, but even then... I skip tracks on some of my Beatles records, even if they're good. :::Shrug::: I also have a 300 CD player/ holder, so going from track to track from CD to CD is a lot easier, so I'm more likely to just hit songs I want to hear instead of listening to whole albums. If I'm in the car, I'm less likely to skip tracks. I mean, why listen to a whole album of a mix of good and bad, when you can listen to a bunch of good and great songs?

Really the album is a convention of rock music. Music's basic unit is still the song. And that's what I go on.

[hannah28]

I generally listen to a cd through the whole thing the first time, then i skip if I don't really want to listen to one of the songs.  But even after listening to it the first time I still don't skip that often, so i put sometimes.  It all depends on what I'm listening to.

[DvChWi]

I only listen to about a little over 1/2 of Joshua Tree.

Interesting responses so far.  Man, I'm rathered surprised, actually.  I'm actually closer to "never" than "almost never."  I was expecting more people to be like me, but I guess not everyone likes albums as a whole so much that they won't ever use random(like I do.)  BTW, Afro, what tracks are you skipping on The Joshua Tree?  Skipping on a top 15 album.  Who woulda thunk it.  

[oneafroboy]

As I said, I'm really tough on music. If I buy an album, I hope to like a few songs on it, half is great. I think Joshua Tree falls apart about halfway through. I listen to tracks 1-5 (sometimes I might skip Bullet the Blue Sky, though, because I have to be in a certain mood to listen to it; this set also includes Running to Stand Still, one of U2's masterpieces) and 7 (I really like In God's Country, nice guitar sound). I think there are 11 tracks, and I listen to 6. The rest of the album simply doesn't interest me. And te last two tracks are a bit strange. They're kind of cool, but not something I want to listen to every time I pop Joshua Tree into the ol' player.

Despite what I consider flaws, the beginning of Joshua Tree, especially the first three tracks, are so strong and are such great songs that they trump something like Switchfoot's New Way to Be Human, even though I can listen to and enjoy all ten songs on that album.  

[murlough23]

I put "never". I'm really friggin' stubborn about this. I believe albums should be listened to all the way through, so I'll only resort to hitting the "skip" button if something is really getting on my nerves. I mean, even songs I rate as being in the "skippable" category in my reviews, I don't usually skip. I guess I'm just patient with the occasional weak song on most albums. If the album is rife with weak songs, I'll probably hardly ever put the album in anyways, and the songs I like most from the albums I own tend to end up on my mixes, so that's my other way of hearing those songs.

I guess the curious part of me tries to look for whatever it is that I'm not getting about the song that I didn't like... or just for fodder to ream the song when I review the album (assuming I haven't done so already). But for the most part, I don't skip songs because I'm too lazy. I like to put something on and just let it play and not need to control it... that's why I like albums that flow well.

I suppose the thing I would "skip" most often is a hidden track - I just yank the CD out before it gets to it if I'm not in the mood to either fast forward to it or wait for it.

Which brings me to another question - if you have a CD on and it ends, do you let it play over again, or can you only listen to it once before moving on to something else? I never listen to an album twice in a row. I hardly ever listen to an album twice in the same day (though I might hear a song several times a day, if it's on a mix I'm working on or something like that). It used to drive me nuts when my Mom would leave the same tape in the car stereo for like a week. I guess I just like variety.

EDIT: I just realized that I don't do "random" as much as I used to. I use it most often for albums that either have clean breaks between all of the songs and don't seem like they have to be listened to from front to back in order to make sense. Albums that have a lot of songs with quick beginnings or endings, as opposed to fade-ins and fade-outs and songs that bleed into one another, are often prime candidates for the "random" button just because it's fun to hear how one song transitions into the next randomly chosen song. Of course, you have to have a CD player that finds the next track a few seconds ahead and cues it up so that there's no lagtime in order for this to work. (Or be listening to mp3's on your computer; whatever.)

NP: "Too Soon", Eastmountainsouth

[bloop]

Which brings me to another question - if you have a CD on and it ends, do you let it play over again, or can you only listen to it once before moving on to something else? I never listen to an album twice in a row. I hardly ever listen to an album twice in the same day (though I might hear a song several times a day, if it's on a mix I'm working on or something like that). It used to drive me nuts when my Mom would leave the same tape in the car stereo for like a week. I guess I just like variety.

I love variety, also, but I usually skip to a couple songs that something caught my attention the second time through a CD, then I'll put in the new one.  Being close to work is a blessing and a curse though.  I used to be able to get through two albums a day just in the car.  Now, I might be able to get through an EP on a drive.

[murlough23]

I love variety, also, but I usually skip to a couple songs that something caught my attention the second time through a CD, then I'll put in the new one.  Being close to work is a blessing and a curse though.  I used to be able to get through two albums a day just in the car.  Now, I might be able to get through an EP on a drive.

Yeah, sometimes if I really like a few songs that are piled at the beginning of a CD, I'll let it wrap around again if the CD ends while I'm almost at my destination and I don't want to fumble for a new CD for only 10 or 15 more minutes of driving.