play albums in their entirety and in sequence, that's what they were made for. Despite having iTunes and an mp3 player, the only time I use the 'random' function is when I don't have time for a full album.

Anyway, to answer your question, my last 3 were:
Victory for the Comic Muse - The Divine Comedy (though I streamed that from last.fm, does that still count?)
The Holy Bible - Manic Street Preachers
Tigermilk - Belle and Sebastian

while "in its entirety" is another.

Surely the sequencing of the songs on an album is part of the artistic endeavour? Shouldn't the songs have a flow and a structure across the piece, even when it isn't a "concept" album?

Granted there were space limitations to the vinyl format that probably affected the sequencing of some albums, but for the most part, as has been alluded to here in other threads, the track sequence plays a part in the whole listening experience.

I never listen to vinyl in anything other than its original sequence; apart from anything else it's just too much faff to chop and change. Getting off the sofa more than once every 20 minutes or so isn't natural anyway. So, once side 2 starts rotating, it gets played to the end, every time.

As far as CDs go, that's where we get to the important distinction between sequence and entirety: with all the remastered albums I have on CD, I still want to hear the songs in their original sequence, but I rarely if ever listen to the "bonus" material more than once or twice when I first purchase it; it's not usually good enough material to bother with.

I'm not sure if it's the result of decades of vinyl based listening having conditioned me, but I rarely want to hear a full CD's worth of stuff from the same artist anyway, 45 minutes or so seems to be about right!

I listen to new or new to me albums as intended..

Fountains of Wayne
The Bongolian
Dennishopperschoppers (6 times on the bounce in fact)

But I'm a terror for 'randomizing' albums I already know.

by I am Kloot. see post elsewhere!

They're just wrongity-wrong any other way.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
Sigur Ros - ( )

I flit between using shuffle and playing full albums. One of the very best things about the shuffle function, as mentioned by Dave C in the original entry, is that it throws tracks up that you haven't heard in ages and you think "I really should check that album out again".

But Dave, you're just SO wrong about Ziggy Stardust!!

play albums from start to finish. I have found myself getting more obsessional about records as I get older. When Kate Bush's 'Aerial' came out, I literally did not play anything else for 3 months. It's great getting that familiar with an album... when you feel you know every note, every nuance in the music.

'Rock Bottom' by Robert Wyatt has been getting some serious airplay round mine recently... not the sort of album you want to dip in and out of.

I think Dave C has it about right; new to my ears have always to be all the way thru', once or twice, immediately. Thrice if stunning.
The whole then digital transfer can take place, but, and here is the rub, only of the tracks that are worth the returned visit, purely for the random enjoyment aspect, WHEN that is the format required. Thus I listen to cds and LPs as nature intended, albeit often agreeing that the former are often certainly too long, either for the time available or for my patience with 'em. Random i-poddery is another delight entirely and I never use the i-pod in any other way, apart from the "have you heard this scenario". Plus, says the smug git, i-pods aren't big enough to hold all the content, to include the fillers and the clunkers, which, another strand reminds, are so necessary to the CD/LP whole. Last 3 all thru? "Between darkness and dawn": Mary Gaulthier (a thrice listened, at that), "Basquiat Strings" : eponymous and "Mark O'Connors Hot Swing" : eponymous trio.

I always listen to albums in order if I can. I mostly have iTunes set to Shuffle Albums rather than songs so that I get the full album but the selection of which albums to play is random.

My last three:
Vienna Teng - Waking Hour
Air - Talkie Walkie
Rilo Kiley - Talk Offs & Landings

I can't remember how I have set it up on my iPod, but I really like having all the tracks I have by a band on one 'album' or 'playlist'. Shuffling on this can take me through from a track on album 1 to album 3 etc and it revitalises them all somehow.

I have only done this with groups who haven't had many albums and are fairly similar in style and all top quality. So for me it works magnificently with The Strokes, Kings of Leon, Interpol, The Smiths.

I am a serial shuffler and happily randomize all by a selected artist IE John Martyn, so the irony wasn't lost on me - while attending a show on the 'Solid Air' tour - that I was one of the first to huff, puff and raise an eybrow when 'Solid Air' was played out of sequence. A live requirement due to JM's unusual tunings.

There are very few albums that you can play anymore as "nature intended". Usually they are too long with too much filler which is why Radiohead In Rainbows is so good. I have lived with it for 2 weeks now and it still gives me a shiver. 10 tracks in 43 mins. Its along time since I bought into such a complete album.

However to your main point
Led Zep IV
AC/DC Black in Black
Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers
Joni Mitchell Blue
Marvin Gaye Whats Going On.

I can't hear anyone of these apart from the way they were intended.

And try Abbey Road on Shuffle. Cripes.

I normally play albums in sequence but since I usually only play them in the car it depends on the length of the journey (and the length of the album obviously) if I get to hear it in its entirety. Last one I played was Nebraska - half way through Used Cars I'd reached my destination.

Because I've got a new car where the iPod sounds crap and CDs sound great.

Only ever in order, I only ever use random on my Zen for the Word Randomiser thread. I'm more of an album than a song man.

...succumb to the charms of the portable mp3 player. Currently my listening is split between a PC and the Hi-fi in my bedroom. While in front of the computer I am usually working on something and have music playing in the background. I generally stick i-tunes on shuffle and see what it throws at me.

On my Hi-fi, I play albums, although sometimes not all the way through. I make a point of setting aside some time each day when I can give my full attention to music.

The last album I listened to in its entirety was the new Black Mountain disc - In The Future. I don't know how you would even begin to make sense of something so sprawling, other than by listening to it as a complete entity.

I was musing to this strand as I drove into work today, listening, for the first time, all the way thru' as nature intended, to "Title and Idols", by Beth Hirsch. This I had recently downloaded from the excellent E music site, that sells me 40 tracks a month for $10 (old rate: more for new subscribers)Somewhat bland and anodyne, inoffensive at best, singer-songwritership with more beeps and peeps than Madge/Ray of Light to make it "modern", so I had time to realise that what I assumed was the "right" order was actually not. The problem with E music is that I seem unable to then "burn" in the right order: onto i-tunes and it comes out in reverse, a dead giveaway if there is a hidden track, and not a little unsettling. If I use my roxio burner, they seem to all appear a little shuffled. But do I care and have I noticed, pace the hidden track nonsense? Well, no, 'cos is it not only (over) familiarity that insists in the "correct" order? Yes, yes I agree about Abbey Road, and probably many "concept albums", but it, side 2 at least, and most of them are rubbish (oooooooo!) anyway. Seldom have I felt shortchanged by the order, even if more frequently by the content.
P.S. What exactly is a Ring Modulator? Is there a related reason why Dikmik was never seen sitting down?

On the way into work today, I listened to Portishead by Portishead. This was inspired by the pop on trial episode I saw on BBC4 last night.

...I tend to always play albums right the way through. I'm a bit of a Luddite in spite of my age! Now I'm playing Japan's 'Quiet Life' right through (first time hearing it, like what I'm hearing so far), before that it was David Bowie's 'Stage' remaster and yesterday, The Groundhogs' 'Split'.

Bizarrely, though, I was in a music shop recently and they were playing 'Dark Side Of The Moon' out of sequence, as if someone had played it on shuffle. An album like that to be played out of sequence is something like a cardinal sin!

I played Revolver recently - and it's all over so soon.
I've become conditioned to mentally prep' for 70ish minutes listening time when a CD goes on, so playing a 40 minute album felt like having the table cleared while you're still eating your main course.

... by Scion. Going through a minimalistic-ambient-techno phase at the moment.

Lambchop - Is A Woman
Curtis Mayfield - Best Of
Anthony & The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
Grandaddy - Sumday
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
Art Brut - It's A Bit Complicated

I hate the shuffle function....it always brings up songs that I am not in the mood for. It also destroys the medley in Abbey Road quite nicely...

Latest albums played all the way through:
The National - Alligator
Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece
Grandaddy - Just like the Fambly Cat
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue

Generally listen to CDs, mainly in the car and generally in the order they were recorded. As I can only justify going to one of the Sparks spring residency gigs where they will play every album in its entirety, I am currently entertaining myself by playing each album in order - so recently listened to Angst in My Pants. Also recently listened to in sequence: Green Day's American Idiot, the Icicle Works Small Price of a Bicycle and the new live album from the Ukrainians.

I posted something and I've now removed it.