Order you have to listen to the albums in to like the band

[joshtraina]

Try to think of a band that is easier to get into by listening to their album in some kind of order. Like if you like rock music typical the best way to get into Radiohead is to listen to The Bends and then Ok Computer and In Rainbows and then fall back on the more electronic albums.

[pearljammer13]

Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest, Shields, Yellow House, Horn Of Plenty. Veckatimest has the most immediately accessible tunes, although still a ton of layers overall. Songs like Two Weeks and While You Wait For The Others have big hooks to draw a listener back even if they don't get the whole album right away. Shields has one or two that are easy to get into, but the the rest take more time. And Yellow House and Horn Of Plenty definitely take more time to get, at least they did for me. Knife is the only song I really loved the first time through Yellow House.

[drakonium]

I recently re-listened to R.E.M.'s first album, and it was much more amazing than what I remembered, so now i'm listening to their entire discography in chronological order. That's what I usually do for bands with an important discography : I feel chronological order is great to see how a band evolves, etc. However, for a band like the Flaming Lips, it was in the other direction : I started with Yoshimi because it was hugely accalaimed, and I listened to the rest anti-chronologically. Actually it depends.

However, yes, there IS a best way (or at least a best personal way, it depends on someone's taste) to listen to an artist's discography. For example, I do think Moon & Antarctica is the best way to discover Modest Mouse. Also I didn't like Daydream Nation at first, then I listened to Sister, I liked it very much, and after that I listened to Daydream Nation again and now it's in my top ten. You never know what listening to other albums by a band you don't like will change. It's great I think.

[RoundTheBend]

I think if a group is harder for you to swallow, check out their best of collection...

If you don't like that, fat chance you are going to like an album (possibly, but most likely not).

If they don't have it, or you are ready to move on, start by listening to their top ranked album. If that still doesn't work, ask around on the site for their favs, if that still doesn't work... either you don't like it, or time will help you understand it.

Listening to an entire discography only really happens when you know what band well enough to have the patience to do something like that.