how often can you hear an album before it gets "ruined"

I would guess that most music fans have done the mistake of overplaying an album (or song). I was wondering, when you find a new album you particularly like, how many times do you listen to it?

Not possible.

I can't say that I agree with the concept of a great album being "ruined" by playing it too much. I actually find that when I discover a new album that I love, it ends up in a pretty small rotation of stuff that I listen to on an extremely frequent basis seemingly without end. For example, I've probably listened to that Chvrches album from last year several hundred times since it was released, and I still love it. I've listened to it several times this very week.

My musical taste itself does ebb and flow a bit between genres over time (sometimes you're just in a rap frame of mind or going through a pop phase, etc.), but I can't think of a great album that I've ever fully written off because I heard it too much.

If I'm listening to an album so much I probably really enjoy it in the first place. I do have a few older albums that I can't easily go back to because of the time I listened to it, it brings back very distinct memories. But the actual act of repeatedly listening never spoiled the album for me.

huh, maybe I would be wrong in my guess then. For me, listening to the same music too frequently kinda spoils it in the same way eating my favorite food everyday would make me tired of it.

Not fucking enough.

Depends on the album. You can listen to the best albums hundreds of times and they never get old.

Van Halen II has been the album of the summer for the past twenty years as far as I'm concerned.

It's not so much the album that gets ruined from overplay for me, it's when the content that a band produces starts sounding mostly the same that I move on. For instance, I often listen to Metallica's Master of Puppets album or Chicago's Chicago II in their entirety, but their later albums I couldn't care less for. Then again, most bands that span several decades tend to go that route.

I don't think I've ever overplayed something to the point that I never wanted to hear it again. Generally when I begin to tire of something, I'll move on until it seems fresh. I still listen to some of my favorite albums from ten years ago, though perhaps not as frequently.

I remember I got the Apocalyptica album with Hope on it, and I must have played that song at LEAST twenty million times a day for over a month. Exaggerations aside, I played it so much that I did kind of get sick of it for a while. Then I started it up again, and god DAMN is it just a great song. It's easily my favorite song of all time, I can seriously listen to that every day and be fine with it.

So uh, I guess I can get a little tired of the song after a while, but I doubt it'll ever be ruined for me.

I'm usually bored with a song before it's over. Never listened to a whole album before.

My 'music' listening software (foobar) looks like this:

Yes, that's right, I've listened to a 2+ hour audio drama almost 50 times. I love it, more than any music.

I disagree with the concept of ruining a good album by overlistening. A great album is timeless. I know I have albums that I have listened to over 700 times. I could listen to it again and still love it. On the other end of the spectrum, it usually takes three to five listens for me to start to like an album. Very rarely do I like one from the first listen.

Never! I could listen to my favourite albums every single day. I quite often have a single album that I listen to every single day, occasionally multiple times. And even if I do get a little tired of something I come back to it a month later and my love for it is renewed all over again. The only thing that really ever ruins albums or music for me is when it's attached to bad past memories.

Never "ruined", but I do grow tired of albums and need to shelf them for a good while before revisiting. When I like an album, I listen to it a LOT.

You can overplay and need some time until you can listen again. How long until you get tired will depend on your mood, what you're doing, the ambient, the sound system, the music style, your taste etc.. Of course when the music itself is to simple you might get tired faster sometimes (doesn't mean it's got less quality though).

I love Bach's violin concertos for instance but that doesn't mean I'm able to listen it non stop. Also some albums or songs can be tiring and demanding to listen continuously.

Even if sometimes an album tires you you can always come back to it later with, hopefully, a better understanding of the music itself.

If it's good enough it never gets ruined.

Im of the type that never gets tired of a media product ... If I like it I like it till the end of times , such a silly concept of yours D:

I end up tired of almost every album I get really into. Then I take a year or two off from it then rediscover it after.

I've managed to (somewhat) kill some songs that way, but never an entire album. And it's less that I dislike those songs that i overplayed, it's more that as I get more and more into an album, the less obvious and less easy-to-listen-to up-front songs turn into the standout tracks for me.

I've never burned completely out on an album before. I've at most taken it out of rotation for a few months before putting it back in.

That said, there are a few albums that no matter what I will always be able to listen to in any circumstances, with The Front Bottoms' self-titled album being the number one there.

Overplaying a song or album has never ruined it for me. An artist I like releasing a terrible album (or a string of them) can however embitter me towards their previously loved back catalogue. Sort of a "You guy used to be so great, and now you are so bad. That makes me sad" kinda thing :P

I'm with you duder. In my case it's mostly because I write music and if I listen to something too much in too short a time span my brain sort of...makes TOO much sense of it, if that makes sense? It puts everything in order and takes away a lot of the magic, basically. I tend to avoid that problem by looking for new things to listen to each day and just coming back to stuff I love occasionally.

Forever? Albums or songs never really get "ruined" for me. I might stop listening for a bit but I've always been able to go back.

Weezer is totally like this for me. Their music now makes the Blue Album seem like less genius than it was. I still love the Blue Album, but man, did everything after Pinkerton suck.

Pinkerton has not been touched by this bitterness, though. Pinkerton is in its own special place of awesome and is in the list of things that never go out of rotation for me.

Depends on the album. Some are just invincible and never get ruined no matter how much I try. Some get old in two replays.

Depends how pop the music is. Some albums will never degrade while others will burn out and become no longer enjoyable. Sometimes a years break from an album I can go back to it but sometimes not.

Anything by The Shins, Radiohead and The Decemberists for me are eternally relistenable. Once a year I often have a Red Hot Chilli Peppers binge and then get sick of them.

As soon as everybody else starts liking it..

I can't think of any albums I've ruined by overplaying them. There are a few that have been ruined because I listened to them during bad times in my life. I can barely listen to Band of Horses' first two albums (especially "The Funeral") and Arcade Fire's The Suburbs anymore, for example.

This.

At a certain point, after replaying a song 300 times in a row, I do get the urge to start listening to something else, but then in the near future I can listen to it 300 times again. It never gets ruined.

I feel that there are two things going on.

A great album that you really like might be replayable forever. However by doing such a thing you can turn the album in question into background noise and it can lose its power.

The other thing that can happen is that you hear an album you like then you stop listening to it for some reason then you hear it again like 5 years down the track and its like brand new and nostalgia all rolled into one...that shit, when it happens is amazing.

It really really depends, some artists and albums are just inherently similar in many of their songs which can make certain albums wear out very quickly. My favorite albums never get old though. I generally really try to listen to new music a lot though to mix it up, its boring to listen to the same thing too much.