When You Buy The Whole Album And Only Like One Song.

@artemus_5 

"Because of my curiosity, this sparks my question of whether the OP (and others) are listening to it because it is the "in thing" to do. Or do they truly like it. If the later, then great. You seem to fit that group."

Curiosity is good and yes; I do fit the latter group, although, just like anyone else, I have my preferences. 

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly would surely qualify for "bought albums because of one track...only to find out that one track was the only one on the entire album that was listenable"

OP… “The only tune I can listen to on that album is 'Snoopy's Search/Red Baron'.”
 

We completely agree!

The internet is awesome.  You don’t have to buy entire albums to get the single song you want.  In my pre-internet days, as a newly-turntabled young man, I loved that I could buy “Alone Again, Naturally” on 45 and not have to own a whole Gilbert O’Sullivan CD or LP, or that the same could be achieved for “Voices Carry” by Til Tuesday, and many other one-hit wonders who had a humdinger of a hit.
I’ve indeed begrudgingly purchased entire albums for one song, but when that song became available in a digital form, I got rid of the crappy CD/vinyl LP containing 95% crap and talking up space and making me feel embarrassed to own 😜

However, there’s something fun about having something, something that’s good,  on a physical format that is currently unavailable digitally.  It feels special.

I love purchasing vinyl or cassettes and discovering a gem.

I grabbed a cool-looking Girl Groups compilation cassette at a record store a year ago.  It yielded a rare gem I’d not heard before: “I Can’t Let Go” by Evie Sands (eventually a Hollies single) and it knocked my socks off.  When I made a mix-tape and wanted to include it, I had to use YouTube as the source.   Couldn’t find a digital copy anywhere. That original 45 goes for $150-$300 in good shape.

I have bought  many, many albums/CDs for just one song, One of my favorite songs as a kid growing up in the 60s in Los Angeles was "Fire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, the ultimate example of a One Hit Wonder. I never owned the single or album when I was younger, I only heard the song on the radio. When I got into CDs in the late 80s-early 90s, there was a mail order catalog I used to get that sold  hard-to-find import CDs. One of those CDs was a Dutch re-issue of the original Crazy World of Arthur Brown album that contained the hit song Fire.Feeling nostalgic, I ordered the CD, which ended up costing around $25 with shipping. That was a lot of scratch for one CD at the time. The CD arrived, the first song was Fire, which was great, really happy to hear it again, but the rest of the CD was absolute dog feces. Painfully unlistenable. Spending $25 for that one song still ranks high on my All-Time Biggest Wastes of Money list.