That's been true basically since the invention of sound recordings and radio. If you look back, producers really focused on building the best single, optimizing

That's been true basically since the invention of sound recordings and radio. If you look back, producers really focused on building the best single, optimizing for radio play. While I personally mainly listen to full albums, unless it's explicitly a concept album or a classical suite I'm not sure it's possible to make a broad generalization that "it's how the music was intended to be heard".