The death of the album?

[Himu]

Seriously, on a pretty wide scale, I'm one of the few people I know who actually listens to albums -- and occasionally buys them! -- anymore. I'm not sure if these other people I know ever DID listen to albums on a wide scale, but it appears to be, on a case by case basis, that just about every person I know only listens to songs rather than albums. The whole thing is puzzling.

Like, my teenage female cousin threw on Lady Gaga a few days ago as I have both her albums on my ipod -- to which I listen to both frequently  -- and she gets to Dance in the Dark, Monster, and Speechless and she just skips them because she hasn't heard them before. But isn't that the whole point of listening to music? To hear and experience new things?

One time I even had Thriller (the album) playing in my apartment and I had a friend over. He's like, who's this? "Michael Jackson...it's Thriller." and this is fucking Thriller, something I thought just about every 20-40 something year old person has heard at least once.

So EB, are you one of the few people in your circle who still listens to and appreciates the art of album making?

Did ipod really kill the album?

[Himu]

Is this a generational thing? I definitely find it's more common amongst people your age.

[Stoney Mason]

Like, my teenage female cousin threw on Lady Gaga a few days ago as I have both her albums on my ipod -- to which I listen to both frequently 

You better watch out. Your periods might sync up.


I tease...


On a serious note albums are fine and great but honestly the ipod has forever changed my notion of how music should be grouped. Doesn't mean I won't listen to albums. It just means they don't hold the same creative appeal they once had for me. And I'm old.

I imagine most normal young people have even less reverence for the format. 

[Mupepe]

I think it comes down to what Diunx said, the work just isn't put into whole albums anymore.  I buy single songs off amazon and zune marketplace 99% of the time.  I have bought 2 cd's in the last 3 years or so.

[Rman]

It's gonna happen when the majority of albums only have 3 or 4 songs worth listening to.

[Mr. Gundam]

I go to a record store 3-4 times a month and buy stuff. I will support albums on physical media until the day I die.

[Stoney Mason]

It's gonna happen when the majority of albums only have 3 or 4 songs worth listening to.

To be fair I think that's always been the case with pop music.

Pop music started as a singles driven affair. In that sense the ipod has probably only turned it right back into what it was destined to be and what it originally was.

Madonna and Janet Jackson and people like that were singles artists who made albums because that's the way the market worked. Its probably better if 90% of the artists don't have to pretend they are "artists" any more.  

[Stoney Mason]

I go to a record store 3-4 times a month and buy stuff. I will support albums on physical media until the day I die.

You're a dying breed. Not that there is anything wrong with that.


I've pretty much stopped buying all physical media whether its music, movies, etc. And I think that will only decrease more and more as we go into the future with the next generation. I was a massive music fan at one stage. Spent tons of money on it. I don't anymore. For lots of reasons.

[fistfulofmetal]

Stop listening to shitty music and you won't notice this problem.

[Diunx]

I think it comes down to what Diunx said, the work just isn't put into whole albums anymore.  I buy single songs off amazon and zune marketplace 99% of the time.  I have bought 2 cd's in the last 3 years or so.

Can't get me out of your mind papi?

The last cd I bought was AFI's All Hallows back in 2005.

[drew]

ive never heard thriller all the way through

probably because im white

[Himu]

I use album view too, wrath.

[Positive Touch]

ive never heard thriller all the way through

probably because im white

everybody, white and black and everything else, had that album son

[Stoney Mason]

Is this a generational thing? I definitely find it's more common amongst people your age.

I'm part of the generation that made Soulja Boy a millionaire making it very clear to the music industry that all we really care about are singles and shitty dances associated to those singles. How many people do you think can name more than five songs off Recovery? I guarantee most people my age will name off Not Afraid, Love the Way you Lie and give up. Or, they'll start naming off songs he's featured on like Romans Revenge.


If only I was born just a few years earlier, I could have avoided being guilty by association.

See but I don't think this is the right way to look at it. I think the better way to look at it is that hey I only had to spend 99 cents or whatever on that Soulja boy song instead of spending $9.99 to listen to a shitty album. And I can guarantee you I wasted hundreds of dollars over my life buying albums for things that really only were there for singles.

Not to mention there are plenty of great artists who were singles driven in music history. James Brown was a singles driven artist for most of his career. That was how music was distributed back then.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I think its honestly more honest for music to be singles driven in some cases. If some artist wants to make great albums or concept albums I think they still can do that if they want. We just don't have to pretend that all the shitty artists out there need to do it.

Not to mention I honestly don't think there is anything wrong with being a singles driven artist conceptually. I think the idea of the album as the best way to concentrate a group of music isn't necessarily the best way for every artist. Its like how writing has novels, graphic novels, short stories, poems, etc. Forcing everybody down the same path because the beatles made some good albums 40 years ago isn't the correct approach either.

[Himu]

Don't bring that OP shit to eb, we call people by their names here, Ruz.

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

[Phoenix Dark]

great topic

The music industry has always banked on big singles selling albums, but with MP3s, portable media, and stuff like iTunes the single has become even more important than the album. You can have a gold selling single without selling 200,000 albums, thanks to iTunes, Zune market place etc. Hence many pop, rock, and hip hop albums are essentially just vehicles to introduce a couple songs. Record labels get a big fat check without having to worry about manufacturing costs.

Personally I grew up with albums. My parents would play What's Going On, Thriller, Synchronicity, Superfly, etc on their old record player. You can listen to all those albums front to back for the most part, and I did as a kid. When I get a new album today, I listen to it front to back regardless of whether it's good. If a song sucks, I listen to it; I like the experience of an album.

[Stoney Mason]

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

What?

So an individual song can't emit emotion?

Why do you think movies put all those individual songs or pieces of music at key moments during a movie.

[Phoenix Dark]

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

Why do you think movies put all those individual songs or pieces of music at key moments during a movie.

to manipulate humans!

[recursivelyenumerable]

I always buy entire records and usually listen to them beginning to end, whenever I listen to music. I have never bought an individual track by itself in my life. I couldn't care less what other people do.

[Himu]

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

What?

So an individual song can't emit emotion?

Why do you think movies put all those individual songs or pieces of music at key moments during a movie.

I didn't say they don't. I'm just saying that putting a song on par with a short story is silly.

[Himu]

By the way OP (there I go again!), are you seriously using little children in your close environment as a starting point for your hypothesis that albums are dying?

No. I'm using just about every mother fucker I know.

[Stoney Mason]

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

What?

So an individual song can't emit emotion?

Why do you think movies put all those individual songs or pieces of music at key moments during a movie.

I didn't say they don't. I'm just saying that putting a song on par with a short story is silly.

hmmm... I don't really care about this argument but I'll just say I disagree and your explanation for why they aren't comparable wasn't very good.

[Himu]

Well, the comparison isn't a good one to begin with!

[Stoney Mason]

An album is either just a collection of songs or a thematic collection of songs that are assembled in that manner to have a cohesive theme.

For 90% of artists its simply a collection of songs. It's whatever they made in the studio and decided to bundle together to sell well. Most "artists" aren't really "artists". Most pop music doesn't aspire to be anything greater than what it is.

Albums aren't dead in any significant sense. Artists still put them out. Now whether everybody attaches the same importantance you do to the concept of an album is a completely different debate.

A single individual song can and does tell a story and evoke emotion. Perhaps that's all I want from certain artists. Other artists are capable of putting together an album with a thematic theme or concept or flow.

Of course now with technology I can create my own albums. I can re-contextualize whatever content I want in whatever theme I want. For me that is superior. For somebody else it isn't. As long as an artist is putting out good music, how its bundled doesn't matter to me because I can bundle it in whatever context I want anyway. Someone else is of course free to feel differently and love albums and buy albums. But whether I purchase individual tracks that I like from an artist or an entire album I can enjoy them. I can enjoy an individual song as much as I enjoy an entire album. I can enjoy a smaller sampling of something just as I can enjoy a larger collection of something that is put in the format we call an album. Especially since the very concept of an album has changed over the decades that music has been around. I love a good album. Nothing wrong with it. The same way I might like an artist but not feel the need to exhaustively collect their discography. Different strokes.


And I'm out.

[Brehvolution]

My shortlist of albums I can listen to from start to finish:

Pink Floyd - Animals
Suicidal Tendencies - Lights, Camera, Revolution
Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
Metallica - ride, puppets, justice
Megadeth - Rust in peace
Between the buried and me - Colors, The Great Misdirect

[Beezy]

I can't give a musician much credit if he/she only has around 4/5 decent songs in a 14 track album.

me either

[Phoenix Dark]

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

What?

So an individual song can't emit emotion?

Why do you think movies put all those individual songs or pieces of music at key moments during a movie.

I didn't say they don't. I'm just saying that putting a song on par with a short story is silly.

derp derp
[youtube=560,345]-lG3nXyI41M[/youtube]

[Himu]

And I disagree with the comparison of albums and singles to novels and short stories. A short story still has the ability to emit emotion. It's the same thing as a novel, except shorter.

What?

So an individual song can't emit emotion?

Why do you think movies put all those individual songs or pieces of music at key moments during a movie.

I didn't say they don't. I'm just saying that putting a song on par with a short story is silly.

derp derp
[youtube=560,345]-lG3nXyI41M[/youtube]

Did you read ruzbeh's post? He said likens songs to short stories and albums to novels, almost in a demeaning way, as if short stories are inferior to novels.

[patrickula]

Unless I'm just screwing around on Youtube or something, I listen to whole albums (or EPs), front to back. If I get bored I might skip forward or put on another one. This means I don't listen all that much to bands/artists that can't put together a solid album.

[recursivelyenumerable]

what patrickula said!

[Dickie Dee]

I use cover flow almost exclusivly on my classic, and of my 100+ gb  of music, none of it belongs to anything but full and complete albums - no outlying single hobos

But I'd lie if I said I didn't often just listen to one particular song over and over just like I would if I owned a physical copy of the album though  :'(

[patrickula]

Shit, one of my favorite albums last year was a TRIPLE album and I've listened to it many times allllll the way through.

I'll admit to listening to an individual awesome song or two from time to time, but that's usually just b/c it pops into my head and I don't have time for a whole album. The last time I used shuffle/randomize was when I was getting kind of sleepy driving and I needed some mind surprising, but I pretty much never shuffle.

[Groogrux]

I'm in line with the theory that an album is only worth listening to if the artist put work into the entire album, and not just a few of the singles.

We're out of the glory days of music, when an artist wrote an album because they wanted to tell a story.  I can't think of any major artist past Queen or Pink Floyd that still does that regularly. 

The only albums I listen to completely are from artists that aren't major hip hop or pop singers.  It's not to say that I don't like people like Eminem or Lady Gaga, but I can't hear their effort and love in their music as much.  I listen to albums by groups like Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, and Weezer.

I did listen to all of Eminem and Kanye West's last albums though, and I enjoyed them.

[BlueTsunami]

No better experience as far as music than hearing a conceptual album form start to finish. Sometimes an itch can't be scratched by a singular track and listening to a bunch of different vibe music (even if similar) just feel disjointed sometimes.

[Phoenix Dark]

Shit, one of my favorite albums last year was a TRIPLE album and I've listened to it many times allllll the way through.

lemme guess
[youtube=560,345]WqqEdhy7bO0[/youtube]
AOTY

[patrickula]

Shit, one of my favorite albums last year was a TRIPLE album and I've listened to it many times allllll the way through.

lemme guess
[In California]
AOTY

Yup, and that song's melody returns in:
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[TEEEPO]

listen to better music.

[Smooth Groove]

It sucks for music that albums are usually downplayed nowadays in favor of catchy singles.  Led Zeppelin is turning over in its grave. 

[Phoenix Dark]

Yup, Zeppelin didn't release singles. Radio stations pretty much picked multiple tracks from their albums to play, and the public responded. Lots of older artists did that as well. You rarely hear deep album cuts from new bands on the radio, whereas if you listen to oldies rock stations you can hear Led Zeppelin I in its entirety.

[tiesto]

Most of the albums I tend to purchase end up being DJ mix comps... that way (if it's a good enough comp), it's lacking in "filler". Usually I just download or purchase singles off of Beatport.

Was in the city the other day and hit up a record store in the basement of some random place in the Village. They had all this classic house/techno/disco/soul vinyl, I was soooo tempted to just buy and buy and buy and drop hundreds of dollars, just because I like physical media. But then common sense got the better of me.