fuck.

Ah dammit. This question is evil. On the one hand, my favorite song is probably more perfect to me than any album in it's entireity could hope to be. Alternatively, the album is just a bigger work and therefore a more impressive achievement in my eyes. I'll say album because my favorite album has affected my life much more than my favorite song.

songs, albums are overrated

It's unfair because my favorite song is on my favorite album.

Album, for me. It's still a tough call but I feel like a favourite album stays more constant. My favourite song changes all the time between 20 or 30 different songs but my favorite album switches rarely and only between 2 or 3 albums.

My favorite album and song have been steady for a while.

In most variations of this question I will definitely go with song. I can make song lists easier, and I definitely feel more strongly about my top 10 songs than my top 10 albums. when it's narrowed down to just one though, it's much tougher. I guess I'd probably still go with song though. There are multiple songs I think are perfect, or at least more perfect than everything else, but with my favorite album, if I was forced to I could definitely muster up some kind of complaint (however minuscule) about it.

I prefer Charles Mingus' best album (The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady) in its totality to Charles Mingus' best song (Hobo Ho), though I prefer Hobo Ho to any particular movement of TBS&TSL

I don't have a favorite song, so I hold the favorite album more dear by default.

Songs, mostly because of their brevity. It makes it easier to listen and re-listen, they are more crystallized in repetition for ones in pop form so they rarely get old. Granted there are albums that have a consistent mood/structure throughout to allow for that moment of craving a specific thing, but they won't be nearly as consistently strong each time at bat as a song very much is.

For me personally, a lot of it has to do with resurrecting some kind of deeply felt energy that puts me in a certain state (the song themselves don't have to be energetic tho). And it is more difficult and less instantaneous to achieve that via albums.

Saying that tho, overall, I'm still an album guy through and through because I think they are a better experience all around if you have the time. And they also are a broader display of what the musician/band is going for obviously, if you're into that kind of thing that is.

Some songs can't be extracted from their respective albums without feeling out of place though.

The answer is titties.

oh yeah and to add objective evidence to this poll, doing project treefingers, I receive much more specific and more interesting favorite song lists than I do favorite album lists. And that again probably has mostly to do with the brevity issue.

Album. Favorite song bounces around between (at least) half a dozen different ones. Favorite album has been London Calling for 10 years and always will be.

If it was "songs" vs "albums" I would have gone songs, but "my favourite song" vs "my favourite album" makes it easier for me.