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Hello You,

Welcome to what might be the most controversial newsletter we’ve ever sent. Naming the best and ultimate no-skip albums is no easy feat. So, we’re giving you a combination of data - you know, we love data - and the opinions of a couple of music critics and our own. Disagree? Take it to the comments.

What is a no-skip album? Well, this album has no genre, no time frame, and doesn’t ever have to be in the charts. It is, very simply, an album that you can listen to from start to finish, including skits, intros, and interludes, the works.

Why do no-skip albums matter? With such short attention spans now, albums that hold attention for an hour or more are hard to come by.

No-skip albums are becoming rarer, and more importantly, most lists online include albums over 20 years old. Perhaps this indicates artists opting less often for entire concept albums and more into having one or two big hits from an album—a conversation for another newsletter.

Although the reasons are varied, we bet that one of our choices hasn’t made a single list - ever.

Before we get started, tell us yours 👇️ 

Three Lists - Digital Stream Pulls

Before we get into it, here are a couple of comparisons of what albums were the most popular 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and 2024. We’ll keep in mind that the number of global listeners and users has dramatically grown during that time.

Aside from the very obvious way that music, and what is popular has changed over the years, the numbers are wildly different. For example, the total streams for TTPD in 2024 were 6,806,057,542 since release, while Hot Fuss has 4,303,071,053 (in twenty years).

Skipping on vinyl, a tape, or a CD took more effort, and we were trained to listen to something in full.

Our digital music consumption has gone wild, and our skip button gets pressed more. Along with our attention span, our listening span has also been reduced, making it harder for no-skip listeners to come by. Are you one of the rare ones?

There are many forums where people make personal recommendations based on genre - and then some aren’t. The forums that are genre-free are goldmines for public opinion. And you’re likely to find a lot of new music.

We looked for a conversation with thousands of comments and thousands of votes - specifically asking to avoid the ‘obvious choices.’ It was made even more interesting that many of the comments were from people who are in the middle of completing One Album A Day. Which we highly recommend taking part in!

Songs For The Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age scooped a mass amount of votes as the best no-skip. Yoshimi Battled The Pink Robot by Flaming Lips and Joni Mitchell’s Blue on the list, too. Even Moby’s Play made the list—a stark difference to the most played albums on Spotify.

What About The Critics?

So we have seen what the streamers are listening to, and we’ve looked at what the people of Reddit (a small portion, at least) offered as their no-skip albums. But what are music critics saying? We've scouted out passionate music bloggers rather than going to the big outlets. As we know, mass media is often paid up, and we get lists that always feature the ‘big names.’

Music Mil has a brilliant list with a couple of notable choices, including I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again, Mama! by Janis Joplin. Pitt News has a list with some very interesting choices, like Presence by Petit Biscuit and Absolutley by Dijon.

The almost undisputed five no-skip albums by critics of bigger outlets is pretty much this:

• Dark Side of The Moon - Pink Floyd

• The Bends - Radiohead (or any Radiohead album)

• The Wall - Pink Floyd

• The Eminem Show - Eminem

• Rumours - Fleetwood Mac

No surprises, right?

Our Turn

Straight out of the gate, one of our team is backing DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS. Bad Bunny’s 6th studio album is one that critics are giving rave reviews for. While it might be premature, they say it is his magnum opus. Cool. With a HUGE 17 tracks, it dances across multiple genres and styles while intricately weaving in cultural reclamation and activism. That is a lot for one album to achieve.

Another one? If you insist… Part of what we love to do is introduce you to new stuff. Here is a no-skip album that might not be on any lists. Baby - by Yello. We will not be taking questions on this one. It made the list.

What might spring to mind if we say new wave, groundbreaking, and 44 years old? Probably not The Pleasure Principle by Gary Numan. Experimental and boundary-pushing, TPP is now 44 years old, and we are starting to see those heavy synth influences come back into modern music. And it’s been sampled by plenty of others throughout the years, take a list and try and place all the samples.

Coming back to 2012, many no-skip forums love Channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean, and so do we. However, this could easily be swapped for Blonde. As a debut album, Channel ORANGE quickly put Frank Ocean on the map; it is unconventional and uses a wide selection of film dialogue and nonmusical sounds, too. The title is also based on grapheme-color synesthesia. The more you know.

No-skip albums as a topic always make for interesting reading because while we have data that we can use, the real conversation comes down to personal experience and preference - making music great in the first place. And, if we consider the rise of vinyl, those complete plays aren’t making it into data - they’re just out there happening.

Remember to let us know yours! We’d love to hear from you.

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