3 ms·

I have been thinking for a while that it was only a matter of time until bands started moving towards recording and publishing a fewer number of songs at a time

by notirk 17y ago

I have been thinking for a while that it was only a matter of time until bands started moving towards recording and publishing a fewer number of songs at a time due to digital sales. Albums make sense when you have to press a physical medium and distribute it across the country/world, not so much with a purely digital distribution. The making of individual tracks also works well with pop music and its mentality, actually, it makes tons of sense, cutting costs by only writing and recording a few songs and spoon feeding it to the radio stations and the general public. The move away from albums is a total shame from an artistic view point. You'd never end up with masterpiece albums like "Dark Side of the Moon" with bands recording a few tracks at a time. I also connect so much of a band and their era's by albums too. Metallica and their change with the black album and everything after that. Even when I download new music today, I acquire full albums to hear everything else the band has made. I'm not looking forward to the day it's mostly individual tracks!

mrshoe 17y ago
Radiohead has proven to be ahead of the curve in the music industry, yet frankly I'm surprised to see this coming from a "real band" first. Pop artists generally pay big name producers for 2 to 3 tracks per album, which they plan on releasing as singles. The rest of the tracks are more or less filler so they can justify charging $15 for a long play album. With digital distribution becoming more popular and consumers buying more singles instead of full albums, I thought pop artists would be the first to stop releasing full-length albums. I guess this is just another example of the music industry being unable or unwilling to adapt to the changing landscape. I really do hope, though, as you mentioned, that real musicians continue to put in the creativity and hard work it takes to produce full albums. The result is just far better than a collection of singles.
koepked 17y ago
I agree with you much on how much this makes sense for music as a business. I don't lament the death of the album though, because I don't think this will be the death of the album, this will be a filter. Many albums today are no more than a list of potentially hit singles for the "artist". If the industry heads in the direction inticated by the article, I'd bet that entire albums would still be released, but only when it made artistic sense to do so.

by notirk 17y ago

mrshoe 17y ago

Radiohead has proven to be ahead of the curve in the music industry, yet frankly I'm surprised to see this coming from a "real band" first. Pop artists generally pay big name producers for 2 to 3 tracks per album, which they plan on releasing as singles. The rest of the tracks are more or less filler so they can justify charging $15 for a long play album. With digital distribution becoming more popular and consumers buying more singles instead of full albums, I thought pop artists would be the first to stop releasing full-length albums. I guess this is just another example of the music industry being unable or unwilling to adapt to the changing landscape. I really do hope, though, as you mentioned, that real musicians continue to put in the creativity and hard work it takes to produce full albums. The result is just far better than a collection of singles.

koepked 17y ago

I agree with you much on how much this makes sense for music as a business. I don't lament the death of the album though, because I don't think this will be the death of the album, this will be a filter. Many albums today are no more than a list of potentially hit singles for the "artist". If the industry heads in the direction inticated by the article, I'd bet that entire albums would still be released, but only when it made artistic sense to do so.