In hindsight, a lot of everything great about psy in general was how easily they embraced technology and how they pioneered making full use of digital sound and soundscaping.
Seems to be hard for them right now - the scene in general. Synthesized sound is so much more common now, and making use of a band (live instruments) or recorded sounds (concrete music) very difficult for them to adapt to.
They have a certain identity crisis I believe; psy is reaching mid-age. It was quite apparent in their last album, with the singing and such; better blend than the adolescent rock-pop stage acting of infected though.
That's a bit general, but that's how I feel. I've listened to psy all my life, and now i'm not sure where it's at. Last shpongle album seemed over-produced without any real direction or composition. I'm afraid this will be the same.
Depends what you mean; if you look around you, you'll notice most people listen to songs. I think what most people do is, in most cases, is that they listen through an album a few times, and then pick out favorite songs that they listen to later. (?)
In an absolute sense, the idea of albums differ widely. Some albums have a constant life-pulse throughout, others are more like a collection of hits.
In a relative sense, people who search for novel experience or want to evaluate must focus on the overall aspect (full album), to glean as much information about structure, story and composition as possible and to learn the intent, meaning, and beauty behind it.
Me being 16 and only listening to avocal music at the time, that album was perhaps one of the 10 albums or so I had listened straight through more than 5 times.