Originally posted by RUMMY:I was simply speaking from my own personal experiences (which I usually) in music stores 15-20 years ago.
In the ones I visited, there weren't many singles - in any format - so if there was a song I really liked, I had to purchased the entire album. This sometimes turned out to be a good thing (e.g., Radiohead's Pablo Honey) and sometimes a not-so-good thing (e.g., the Batman Forever soundtrack).
I never regretted buying any of the GNR albums.
I never had any trouble finding stuff. For exampleI bought most U2 CD-singles at their time of release, starting with three JT in a pack, mid'87. At about the same time I also bought a pre-JT pack, with (5?) CD singles: Fire (EP), NYD (EP) SBS (EP) Pride (EP) & TUF (EP) even though I already had WAIA.
HMTMKMKM I have, as wel as the EBTTRT remixes CD-single, basically everything up to ca.2002.
I used to own some G'nR CD singles too, but gave them away since they had no B-sides. I Kept Sympathy for the Devil (Vampire OST), since I don't own an album with that on it. So generally I bought these to keep my collection complete, I prefer full albums on CD. I don't think I regret ever buying any album, even if I don't much play some of those impulse buys..
Paid downloading makes no sense to me,
1) I don't want to pay for something I can do for free ("illegal" downloads are legal here in the Netherlands).
2) I don't want to pay 10eur for a CD worth of tracks, when I can buy the physical CD for 10$, and receive a nice package, booklet etc. In fact I just bought three metal CDs I didn't have yet for 6eur each. U2 was also on discount; perhaps I should've bought R&H for 6eur, makes a great present.
3) I can hear the difference in quality between a download and an actual CD.
4) my car plays CDs not mp3s.