Opinion: Do pre-release album streams encourage cherry-picking?

I've abandoned Spotify and iTunes this morning in favour of MySpace, listening to pre-release streams of the new albums by Kasabian and Little Boots.A few plays later, and I've got a pretty good idea which tracks are great and which are fodder. Come next Monday when the albums come out, I'll probably be buying 4-5 tracks from each album.As a consumer, the ability to listen to albums before their release is a huge benefit, letting me figure out before buying whether Kasabian's new psychedelic direction means they've ditched the tunes, or whether Little Boots is style over substance (in both cases, the answer is 'not entirely, but a little bit', since you ask).But what's the effect for an industry that's trying to encourage fans to buy more digital albums rather than cherry-picking the tracks they like?You could argue that the increasing popularity of such pre-release streams on MySpace, Spotify and We7 – not to mention the full-fat streaming services offered by those and other companies – actively encourages cherry-picking. With Spotify working with 7Digital on the ability for users to buy entire playlists, this will only increase.I should be clear: I'm not claiming this is A Bad Thing And Should [...]