My 35-ish colleague has labeled me an "album guy". I view an album as a single work of art, and I like to listen to the tracks in the order chosen by the band. So I try not to listen to multiple pre-album releases because it takes the tracks out of the context of the album. Yes, there are many times when I ultimately prefer a few tracks to the complete album, but I always like to hold out hope that a front-to-back spin of the album will be something special. And that can only happen when I haven't already heard half of the tracks.