Do you keep songs of an album you don't like? Options

[bernhold]

In my digital music collection, I have some albums where I only like two or three songs and the rest is total garbage. In the past, I always deleted those other songs to save space. But somehow, I regret it now. I feel like an album is like an atomic unit, a piece of art as a whole, and you just shouldn't cut it apart. How do you feel about that, and how do you deal with that issue? I'm really keen on hearing some other opinions as this decision has bothered me for some weeks now.

[garym]

In my digital music collection, I have some albums where I only like two or three songs and the rest is total garbage. In the past, I always deleted those other songs to save space. But somehow, I regret it now. I feel like an album is like an atomic unit, a piece of art as a whole, and you just shouldn't cut it apart. How do you feel about that, and how do you deal with that issue? I'm really keen on hearing some other opinions as this decision has bothered me for some weeks now.

I keep all songs. Space is cheap. And there are albums I hated 30 years ago, that have become favorites. Taste can change. And my musical taste has broadened and matured over time.

[Porcus]

I sold a few albums back in the day. Still kinda regret it. I have too many squirrel genes. I even keep data sessions on EnhancedCDs. Likely I even have one of those copy protection malware things .zipped down ...

[ktf]

I even keep data sessions on EnhancedCDs.

Really?

I even hesitated removing duplicates (having tracks in a regular albums as well as in a compilation, exactly the same recording), I only delete songs I don't like when it's a compilation, not when it's an album.

[ChronoSphere]

Nope, been archiving to image+internal cue but recently changed to single tracks. Still not deleting songs I don't like.

[2Bdecided]

Flac=keep all tracks
Mp3 copies = only keep the tracks I like

[Porcus]

I even keep data sessions on EnhancedCDs.

Really?

Not Cactus (nor other malware!) though ... actually, some CDs even contain bonus tracks in the data session.

There should have been an image format for true copying of EnhancedCDs.

[ktf]

There should have been an image format for true copying of EnhancedCDs.

I believe there are, .mds for example. I used a .mds to back-up a mixed-mode game-CD, which is audio+data too, and it works. There are not many application supporting it though.

[db1989]

Good old bin+cue can definitely replicate mixed CDs that have only one session, and I believe some applications extend this beyond its original specifications to cover multi-session CDs, too.

Of course, such formats read the disc in a ‘raw’ manner, and unless the program being used takes special care to copy the audio accurately, they give no guarantee of complete fidelity to the source.

Besides all this, there’s always the option of copying the individual sessions/modes/whatever into their respective non-image formats, but I guess then you need an additional file to describe their layout, which might contribute to people’s preference for using single-file images in such cases.

[mjb2006]

Every musician thinks that they poop gold, that their albums are priceless and indivisible works of beauty and awe, and that everyone should listen to—and love—everything they've ever done. But if you don't like a song, you're not going to want to hear it. Some songs just aren't that good. So why indulge the whims of Monsieur Artiste? If you have no intention of listening to it, then either set up something where it is automatically skipped, or remove it from your playlists, or remove it from your files altogether. Don't feel guilty about it.

If you do get rid of the filler, though, make sure you do your album ReplayGain scan first.

[bernhold]

But what if your taste of music changes very often? Mine does, and I tend to listen one genre/artist for weeks, thinking everything else I ever heard is crap (and deleting it). I think from now on, I'll keep the albums when at least one good song is on it. For the record, there's a foobar2000 plugin I found called "foo_skip", it will automatically skip songs with a low rating. This way, you can avoid disliked songs and keep them at the same time.

[slks]

5 or 7 years ago when space was tighter, I'd pick and choose tracks from so-so albums to archive. Then two things happened. First, I had a few albums where I regretted deleting the rest of the songs and ended up re-obtaining the album later, which was inconvenient. Second, disk space got cheaper and so less important (relatively).

So now, I'll usually keep an entire album, even if I only like a few songs from it.