Most of an album being bad as a stereotype I believe was just from actual bad artists when basically anyone could get a deal and possibly go platinum from a single song. Good artists typically had good albums
Possibly, but I think albums are only significant due to the historical medium of music requiring grouping songs together on various disks. Once it’s digital, I don’t see the importance of grouping certain songs together, outside of certain categories like movie soundtracks.
I guess some albums could tell some story about what the musician was feeling at some time, but that probably doesn’t apply for a lot of music if not most. Certainly not the music I listen to, release it one at a time or all together, makes no difference to me.
it really depends on how you like to listen to music. an album is often like a snapshot of the artist's sound at a certain point in time. if you listen to death cab for cutie's first and last album back-to-back, you might not realize it's the same band. if what you want out of a listening session is to hear a bunch of vaguely similar sounds in no particular order, an album doesn't do much for you. if you're in the mood for a more specific sound, a good album can be a lot better than eight solid tracks.
