Social media before social media.
Artists were giving/forcefeeding you a a dose of their personality/lifestye/comedy. When used correctly they set the tone and created aural cinematic experiences but most of the time they were just space filling goofing. Not to mention they got old quick if you had the album on repeat. No playlist editing back then although shout out to my real ones who knew just how long to rewind a track to bring it back or exactly when to flip it to the B side for another dope jam.
Worse than that was when tracks were blended together on retail albums. No good when you were trying to make a mixtape.