Slashdot Mirror
Death of the Album?
panth0r asks: "I know that a simple search for ' death of the album' will give you about 2000 finds of personal websites and their owner's opinions of what is to come of the music industry. Of course I can't resist the chance to ask Slashdot for their take on the issue, so here it is: Do you think the traditional music album is dying out because of advances in technology?"
Actually, since the death of the CD longbox, albums have generally become something relegated to the past. It's no longer something that you buy to add to your collection, rather it is something that you consume and toss out when the latest fad washes away the fading memories of it.
The fact that most artists suck these days (Rush? Tool? These are good??) doesn't help the situation much, but it is more a symptom of the real problem which is that album covers and cases have become cheap plastic "jewel boxes" rather than the more permanent cardboard with intricate artwork on it.
If you go back even as far as the forties or fifties, you had a lot of groups that existed just to pound out singles and disappear. One-hit wonders aren't a new phenomenon.
Even in the sixties (the height of album-oriented rock), both albums and singles had their place. In 1967, the Beatles released the Sgt. Pepper's LP and "Strawberry Fields Forever" c/w "Penny Lane." Both formats have their strengths (and the Beatles certainly got the most out of both of them that year).
Last year, we had, to start, the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat, the Arcade Fire's Funeral, and Green Day's American Idiot, so clearly album rock isn't a dead form yet.
I'm reminded of this review of (of all things) Vanessa Carlton's first album. Basically, he says that her single, "A Thousand Miles," was great, but that the record company is a bunch of bastards for trying to milk an entire (horrible) album out of her. He makes a good point that some people just have one good song in them, and that's that. Why not simply allow them to make their statement and get on with their lives?
I think that's what the trend of digital music will help accomplish. A lot of artists only have one good song. People just want that song instead of the entire album, and now there's an easy distribution method in place for that.
(Of course, this may not be the case either. Why are single sales so bad in the U.S., I wonder? I miss B-sides.)
But there are also a lot of artists who are full of great songs and, moreover, know how to use the album format to form a complete and coherent artistic statement (and don't listen to the cynics here who say all modern music is crap, there's still a ton of good stuff out there if you look for it). They'll continue to do so, like they have been through all the other format shifts. Record companies will continue to support this since they can sell albums at higher margins than they can sell individual songs, iTunes or not.
As an addendum, I hope that the era of physical media for music isn't over yet. There's something nice about getting something tangible for your money (not to mention you get the freedom of ripping it in the format of your choice, given that the disc isn't crippled with copy-protection crap). I think this will always exist, if only as an audiophile niche (maybe SACD has a future after all?).
I still buy the original, full CDs.
Amazingly in this digital age, some of us still have CD players. I rip everything I buy - all my music is on my computer and I listen there or on my MP3 player. But I like to have the originals in a lossless, archivable physical format. Not to mention that I still have a CD changer in my car.
However - the second they start encoding the CDs I buy with "copy protection" that makes it impossible - or a hassle - to rip my CDs, that's probably when I'll switch to buying music online and do something like wiring up an iPod to my car. All DRM will do is kill the brick & mortar retailers.
Do you think the traditional music album is dying out because of advances in technology?
Nope. As long as artists that have something substantial to say exist, there will be albums.
If one's only source of new music is MTV and crap like that, one may think that the albums are a thing of the past. But, that's about the same as eating only in McDonald's and thinking that traditional gourmet cuisine is dying out.
Market for music is much, much bigger than Top40. In fact, if anything, advances in technology, enabling the Long Tail phenomenon (http://www.thelongtail.com/) will do just the opposite. When everyone can trivially access every bit of music ever recorded, albums will have a much easier time finding an audience.
Sure, some forms of music will never be strong on albums (dance, club oriented music), but again, they don't represent the majority of music out there.
The term 'band' is not the be and end all of music, even of popular music. Some concepts do not translate well into a live scenario.
Mike Oldfield, for instance. On Tubular Bells, he played each and every instrument, layered on the album. Cannot be duplicated live. Unless he grows a couple of dozen extra arms.
"The idea of an album has become a conceptual structure. Each song tells part of a the story that an album represents."
Twelve songs on one disc do not an album make.
Furthermore, it's up to the listener. I have never in my life listened to "Operation: Mindcrime", "The Wall", or "Tommy" straight through. Good songs on each, but that's it for me.
Overall, most of the public does not care for "albums."* Most only care for "songs." I don't know anyone at all who's a real album-art-and-liner-notes kind of guy.
* and not just in the "I don't care so I imagine most of the public doesn't, either" sense. I've actaully been paying attention to this for close to 20 years. Remember when CD long-boxes were a comprimise for the album-art crowd? (OK, so they were mostly so retailers didn't have to buy new racks right away, but the idea of "album art" was a part of it.)
Summary: Fuck albums. There's too much pretension in the music biz anyway. Release what you want, call it what you want, but don't expect me to sit in a chair exactly between the speakers in a dark room and listen to the whole thing all the way through.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Don't you understand that this is exactly what your parents thought of your music? And their parents before them? And so forth?
Sure, I think everyone understands that at some level.
The difference is, my parents didn't start to think contemporary music sucked in their twenties. The RIAA has turned the "generation gap" into a 30-day grace period.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.