Is the album dead? US album sales slump

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/02/is-music-album-dead-us-worst-ever-sales-figures

"The album is dying in front of our very eyes," industry commentator Bob Lefsetz wrote. "Everybody's interested in the single, and no one's got time to sit and hear your hour-plus statement."

Somewhere steve m is chuckling away to himself

Lefsetz is a putz.

Analysts blame Spotify, YouTube and other cheap or free streaming services for broad declines that include a 4% drop in digital downloads – the first since Apple's iTunes was launched a decade ago. Despite opposition to Spotify from songwriters, who say streaming services pay so poorly they threaten what remains of a meagre living, streaming now contributes 16% of the industry's revenues.

Album sales, analysts say, are further threatened by fragmenting of genres, the poor quality of music and shopping chains carrying a limited selection of discounted releases to bring in customers.

so that's why they changed the rules to specialist charts ? so to make sure the superstars sell more at the expense of niche acts.

About fucking time

" It seems that the 10-song, artist-statement format that originated with the advent of the 33⅓ long player in the late 1940s could itself be nearing the end of the line."

when in the last thirty years since the CD arrived have albums been 10-song artist statements?

But it's still to be seen whether streaming can ever be as a profitable as albums. "You just don't know," said Christman. "It's like asking how big the universe is. Right now it's a small universe."

Deep.

Ed Christman, of the industry publication Billboard, said there was no definitive data to show streaming was cannibalising traditional sales, but added that in terms of revenue it took 2,000 streams to equal one album.

He said: "Is the album going away? People have been speculating about that forever. There are those that think the album should go away and plenty of artists who still believe in the album." If albums are still selling 300m copies, it's unlikely to be abandoned. "It's up to the artists to decide what happens to it."

One school of thought holds that the decline of the album is related to the introduction of the CD. Musicians were able to put out 80 minutes of music – far more than the LP, limited to 21 minutes a side – making for often self-indulgent releases. Others argue that music released in physical form should be abandoned. But as other media have discovered, physical formats still command a premium in both value and prestige.

amazon's download price per song in germany right now is 1€29, an increase of 30%. no wonder digital downloads are going down.

so that's why they changed the rules to specialist charts ? so to make sure the superstars sell more at the expense of niche acts.

Basically

i think that may be assuming too much

http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/what-if-record-business-survived-but.html

was Elton, say even 10 years back, still a big selling album artist in the States? i find that hard to imagine tbh.

the album isn't dying unless you use some really narrow definition of what constitutes an album or have silly idealistic ideas about how or why they're made. if the album is dying then what's replacing it? if the answer is nothing, then what's actually dying is the entire record industry.

wait what? What does that even mean?

Like, the album is dying inasmuch as album sales have been more-or-less consistently dropping for a decade and now are at about 40% of their peak. How does that require "some narrow definition of what constitutes an album"? I would say that's based on a pretty broad definition of what constitutes an album.

well, I think some of those commentators are conflating two separate things: the long playing package of songs, and the idea of "the album" as some kind of grand unified statement. the latter was mostly bs anyway and only existed for a short period of time. but the LP just as a format is still the driving force of the entire industry. are there even any major artists who don't release albums?

it just seems a little bit like looking at bad box office returns and saying "welp, people just want youtube videos now, so the feature length film must be dying. shorts are the new thing."

obviously the whole industry of recorded music is dying, but as long as it still exists in some form, I can't see the album dying because it will always sell for more money than a single. and the best way to make a great single is probably to make a bunch of good songs and see which is best. and it's way more efficient to record, market, and tour for a whole collection of songs rather than just a single or two. unless we're going to go back to the old package tours of the '50s where a bunch of artists would tour together and each only play a few songs. or we could go back to artists playing their one hit single and a padding out the rest of their set with other hits of the day, but I don't see that happening. I think it's rare that anyone even takes an artist seriously if they only have one song. they want to know when the album is coming.

"Album sales, analysts say, are further threatened by fragmenting of genres, the poor quality of music and shopping chains carrying a limited selection of discounted releases to bring in customers."

what stands out here is this weird phrase "the poor quality of music"- what does this author mean by this phrase? that the quality of new music being made has dropped? or that there are too many releases and that the (mystically vague) quality level of the *average* album within that oversaturated market place is now lower than it was, say, twenty years ago? it's a mysterious little moment in a mostly all too straightforward and depressing article

i kind of feel like the album/single duality is kind of the essence of popular music in a way that can never die. artists are always going to make a whole mess of songs, and there are always going to be some listeners that want entire collections of their songs and other listeners that just want the one or two most popular songs. that doesn't seem like it will ever change; at most what will change is the increasing tendency to do shorter EP-like releases or a monthly or weekly series of songs instead of dumping out an hour's worth of music at once every time.

stuff like this just strikes me as not that different from if people pointed to the rise of short YouTube videos and said "people don't want 2 hour movies anymore! everything needs to be under 5 minutes! no longform narrative works will ever be popular again!"

Any article that chooses Lefsetz as its expert voice can go fuck itself tbf

stuff like this just strikes me as not that different from if people pointed to the rise of short YouTube videos and said "people don't want 2 hour movies anymore! everything needs to be under 5 minutes! no longform narrative works will ever be popular again!"

yeah, and even if that were somehow true, it's not like it's just a different format or somehow up to the consumer. it would be an entirely different business! there's no way that existing movie studios, directors, actors, etc. could just switch to making shorter things more frequently and letting people pay a fraction of the price for it.

DL you didn't write it then? ;)

Chris Molanphy has written some good pieces about how the music industry has tried over the years to keep people from being able to buy singles to inflate album sales, and how in the iTunes era we're just kinda seeing the aftermath of that war having been completely lost: http://www.idolator.com/400826/once-more-with-loathing-are-labels-moving-to-kill-the-single-again

that's a good article (the idolator one, that is). one thing it doesn't mention is that in the '90s, when labels were routinely deleting singles at the peak of their popularity (he cites a couple examples, but every label was doing it), it wasn't just singles fans who were missing out. record stores hated the strategy, and complained loudly about it, because singles -- cd singles, cassingles, all that stuff -- were huge and steady sellers (and probably had really good profit margins, too). there's not a lot of businesses where wholesalers could get away with steadfastly refusing to accommodate their best retailers.

Any thought given to the depreciated attention span of the listening collective? I suspect that much of the current common reaction to record albums is equivalent to "too long, didn't read."

i taught a class full of 18-21-yr-olds who collectively did not much listen to entire albums; one of them had almost literally never heard an entire album, just skimmed through them, even through tracks, to find good spots, and had a conversion experience during the course because she found out that it was awesome to listen to albums

On the "declining quality of music" point, while that's obvious nonsense, I do think there are probably fewer avenues for the promotion of "album music" (i.e. the kind of music that focuses on the quality of an entire album as a "work" rather than on singles) today with the consolidation of radio, the decline of MTV (and its sister channels) as an actual music outlet, etc. Of course the run of the popular music album as a unified "work" has had a relatively short timespan.

i knew people in the CD era who didn't know what songs in their own collections sounded like because they usually skipped forward to favorite tracks. i'm sure some people like that, but not as many, existed in the vinyl era, and far more exist now, but the bottom line is that tendency has always existed, and the technology has just enabled it more and more.

I'd actually be quite excited if short films were more dominant than feature length films. I think most films feel too padded out (I have seen a few 3-4 hour films I love but that is rare). Short films can be very potent but I guess they can also be too long. Lots of people complain of bloated novels too and a need for more stripped down novellas.

yeah i think preferring short works is fine and doesn't necessarily denote a 'short attention span' -- in fact one of the side effects i enjoy about the way things are now is, as i said, EPs are more common and, because people are no longer giddy to fill 79 minutes of a compact disc and/or aren't waiting around 2+ years between projects, we're getting shorter albums that feel more digestible and judiciously edited.

i knew people in the CD era who didn't know what songs in their own collections sounded like because they usually skipped forward to favorite tracks. i'm sure some people like that, but not as many, existed in the vinyl era, and far more exist now, but the bottom line is that tendency has always existed, and the technology has just enabled it more and more.

― some dude, Saturday, November 2, 2013 8:22 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't really understand why this is "the bottom line." You could just as easily say "The tendency has always existed to some degree, but the bottom line is that the technology has enabled it more and more"

For some reason when talking about music on the internet, people get really emotionally invested in the idea that nothing ever actually changes.

"bottom line" is a figure of speech; he could have said "the fact is" too

yeah i think i actually didn't have 'the bottom line' in that sentence at all when i first wrote it and then threw it in there for some stupid reason

I do think there are probably fewer avenues for the promotion of "album music" (i.e. the kind of music that focuses on the quality of an entire album as a "work" rather than on singles) today with the consolidation of radio, the decline of MTV (and its sister channels) as an actual music outlet, etc.

wait, mtv was a champion of "an entire album as a work rather than singles"? that sounds like slightly revisionist history to me. (and i'm a big fan of mtv.)

and what avenues besides seventies FM radio would have played an entire album? I'm not familiar with other venues.

the increasing tendency to do shorter EP-like releases or a monthly or weekly series of songs instead of dumping out an hour's worth of music at once every time.
― some dude, Saturday, November 2, 2013 6:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Today's EPs are more often than not the same length as old albums

there feels like kind of an unstated but palpable divide between artists who are considered 'album oriented' or not -- like Flo Rida, no matter how long he hangs around on the charts, will never be looked at that way. his last album had four huge top 10 singles that combined sold 9 million copies, but the album itself didn't get halfway to gold. xp

xp not really saying that they would play entire albums, but they would play more *album artists*.

I found an empty CD rack (fits ~200?) in my basement this afternoon under a huge box, it was covered in dust and looked like a relic from some forgotten time.

I'll take it.

I know this would be really hard to quantify, but I'm really curious what the actual economic effects of all these things are. The strong suggestion is that fewer people are able to make a living making music, but I don't know if that's "fewer" in absolute numbers, as a percentage of the total number of people trying to do it (which seems like it may actually be higher than ever, though that's hard to measure too), or some other metric entirely. I know a lot of musicians, a few of whom have managed to mostly make their living making music, some of whom have maybe tried or managed that for a few years and then quit, many others who have only really done it for fun, and I have no idea if those percentages are different now than a generation ago.

My guess is that indeed there are fewer full-time working musicians than maybe a generation ago, but that's really based on my correlative experience in print media, which has been affected by a lot of the same things that have affected music. There are definitely fewer full-time newspaper reporters in America now than there were 25 years ago, so probably the same holds true for musicians. But has anyone actually tried to measure that?

boomers are dying too, after which there'll be a brief lull in the death of musicians.

i can remember when rolling stone did their best albums of the 80s issue in 89 their big think piece writeup saying that albums didn't really matter anymore, that albums were just collections of singles now be it bitusa, joshua tree, or purple rain. there was probably a point about the blockbuster model that could've been made w/ a more analytical less sentimental eye but the jist of it was that rock (in the rrhof definition of the word ie all 'worthy' pop) had been cheapened somehow. i can also remember it singling out the 80s as the first decade (w/ an understood since the 50s, since rock, since music mattered) where pop had had no paradigm shift had occurred, no major new styles or sounds had emerged. yknow the decade that gave us hip-hop and techno.

I would also guess that there are almost certainly fewer working (i.e. primary income from music) musicians than a few decades ago, and some of that is almost certainly from reduced recording sales. However the advent of the DJ and the rise of electronic programming have also greatly reduced the demand for working musicians (no need for live bands at dance clubs or weddings, far reduced demand for studio musicians, etc.) (not trying to imply that the DJ or programmer isn't a musician, but it's still one dude replacing 3 or 5 or 15 dudes).

ipod/itunes is just a more convenient listening apparatus for most people. Probably plenty of music enthisiasts exist now because of this delivery system... people who would never purchase an Album or w/e

xpost That's true, "working musicians" in raw numbers has always meant primarily hired hands and bands -- bars, clubs, symphonies, studio work, whatever. So I guess the real question, at least in regard to changes in the recorded-music marketplace, is whether there are fewer people making money from the sale of recorded music. Or maybe there are more people making some money, because it's so easy to record and distribute, but fewer people making a living?

i could imagine that where the decimation of music industry jobs has happened has been w/ studio musicians and that general infrastructure, w/ technology possibly a bigger factor than obv economic pressures (cf industrial jobs). thinking that even here it wouldn't approach the job loss among suits, in pr, etc and even here w/ the internet a definite culprit/hero that it doesn't begin to compare to the role that mergers have played. thinkpieces always want to point to indie rock musicians as the victims, like they're the artistic equivalent of a cute furry endangered species, but i've always thought the internet has had a positive or at worst (or best depending on perspective) an ambiguous effect on the livelihood of indie rock musicians. the pre-'fall on me' rem albums took years to sell what the new arcade fire sold in a week, and that was w/ considerably more monoculture media support (at a time when the monoculture really existed) and effectively major label promotional muscle for rem. let's not even start to compare say grizzly bear and husker du's relative standards of living.

xp

Lou Reed's album sales may have risen 607% in the US last week

the pre-'fall on me' rem albums took years to sell what the new arcade fire sold in a week

http://headlineplanet.com/home/2013/10/30/arcade-fire-reflektor-sales/

CHOM 97.7 (a classic rock station) recently started doing Vinyl sundays where they play an entire album front to back on vinyl. i was working a shitty job the first weekend they started doing it and they played ok computer. the other week they played Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield lol

The strong suggestion is that fewer people are able to make a living making music, but I don't know if that's "fewer" in absolute numbers, as a percentage of the total number of people trying to do it (which seems like it may actually be higher than ever, though that's hard to measure too), or some other metric entirely.

depends when you are comparing it to, for example pre-dj era p much any asshole could "make a living" playing covers in a bar band. if you limit it to people making original music, i would say there are definitely more hobbyists recording music now, due to cheapness/proliferation of music production technology (laptops), but prob the same number of people who strum acoustic guitars in their spare time. fewer people are trying to make a living off it only in the sense that fewer people expect to make a living off of it, because they are rational. anyone in a band with a decent amount of buzz can not have a job, but you have to tour alot, or like, live off artist grants (don't know if US have access to these). so if you assume the number of buzzed bands is approximately constant since, say, the 90's, then it should have tapered off a little bit, as the number of artists who would have survived off some touring and some sales hold onto their jobs bc they don't want to tour 8 months/year

If the recording sales pie is 40% of what it was in 2002, then there are almost certainly fewer artists making a living from music that includes a large portion of income from recordings. And I doubt that it's the case that the sales income is all that much more dispersed than it was, like I don't think there are tons more artists selling 10K or 20K or 50K records on indies than there used to be, probably fewer.

Especially compared to 2002, which was kind of a sweet spot since it was a peak for overall record sales plus a time when it had become increasingly standard to forego the major label route.

word

I feel like in rap at least, the current landscape actually incentivizes labels to invest in album-oriented artists over single-oriented artists, even if the former are of dubious quality. If this was 2003, Sage the Gemini and YG would be having major label albums rushed into stores and have big promo pushes at radio.

def except i would say there's more of a tension between milking existing profitable album-oriented artists for all they've got and investing in new ones

yeah, and not saying sage and yg aren't necessarily dubious themselves, but because they have very organic hits but not the loyal fanbases that more album-oriented artists can build, they don't fit the profile of what labels are trying to put money into in 2013

Posted the following tweets yesterday, after reading Lefsetz' "soon no one will do it" ("it" meaning "make albums") comment. Asked a higher-up to run some numbers, which I did not find the least bit surprising.

In the Rovi music database, @allmusic's provider: over 10K new albums each year from 2003 (11K) through 2012 (13K).

No reissues, single-artist comps, various-artists comps, singles, EPs, etc. -- strictly albums and DJ mixes.

The numbers for the 2000s exceed those of the 1990s by a significant margin. As a format, the album is nowhere near death.

yeah i think there's def a threshold thing where despite declining sales cost of putting out a cd is low enough that you don't have to release less music, just make less off represses or whatever

as someone who put out his own cds on our own vanity label in the mid 1990s, then got signed to a biggish indie, and is now on a smaller indie, and has been more or less constantly touring and releasing records since 1997 when not working at my other job, I can say firsthand that more and more people are putting out albums than ever but fewer and fewer people are buying those albums. don't get me wrong, there are still tons of people interested in music and interested in going to shows, but just a lot less buying of music. sales have cratered, and popular records are popular on the basis of a much smaller splash, and so too down the line to smaller scenes. as this shrinkage/contraction has happened, the economics of scale have also impacted the underground, hence the rise of tapes and small run stuff for noise and experimental folks. it used to be that even for fucking weird music you would "make 1000 cds, see what happens". And you could, with some luck and some love from distro folks, sell those CDs (I'm talking about the mid-90s and Mordam, Revolver, FE, Cargo, etc.). Now you huff and puff and tweet and pay press people and bend over backwards to just barely, barely approach former sales numbers. I"m not saying this just based on our own career, which obviously has had the same kind of rise and decline that is inevitable as any cool thing becomes a familiar thing becomes a "remember them?" thing. I'm saying it based on watching friends with labels hire people, and more people, and then more people, and then watching those friends with labels let people go and then let more people go, and then let more people go, and watching as sales figures shrink and shrink some more for even their "big" records, as the whole thing shrivels into a weird diminished version of itself. money is still being made, sometimes plenty, sometimes enough to get by, but it's not the same and it's not coming back as far as I can see. which is why you'd better love making and playing music on its own terms, in the moment, and be grateful when you somebody actually takes a chance on your record.

Tune OTM... Pretty much my own experience... Initial runs of CD's/LP's from indie/experimental/smaller bands are often now 200-300 instead of 500-1000 ten years or so.

But I still can't see the album being dead in terms of more alternative forms of music.

The rise of tapes/special runs and formats mirror the DIY scene of the late 70's / early 80's, but the sheer volume of releases coupled with the fragmentation of formats means that you either have to do everything in order to cater to each listeners preferred medium, or just pick and choose which format you can afford to release on.

Obviously this is a million miles away from major labels who can afford to do all this and more, but for smaller artists, the chances of making a living at all from album sales get smaller each year.. (don't even get me started on trying to break even on playing shows either...)

Heard so many stories from label people of bands you've heard of - big enough to play 800-cap rooms in big cities - having Europe-wide sales of less than 200 for new albums over the past few years.

any names?

Europe-wide sales of less than 200

Wow. Tho I guess that shouldn't really be surprising. If only 316 million total albums of all kinds are being sold in the US, and 43,000 (the population of Maricopa, Arizona) is enough for 4th place on the Billboard chart, and there are 13000 new albums a year, then obviously there are a whole lot of people selling very few albums. Even if all 316 million album sales were for released-this-year albums -- which of course they aren't -- that would only be an average of 25,000 sales each.

i guess the question is, when those bands play to rooms of 800 people, do they all know the words to/cheer in recognition for the new deep cuts? or just the hits and old favorites?

I'd wager at least 2% of the people in attendance don't even know the name of the band they're seeing, on any of these occasions

Journalists with freebies?

The festival circuit is also an interestingly distorted experience w regards to plummeting record sales- like we've played to crowds of 5,000 people at festivals in countries where we've sold literally 10 or 15 records- curators just book you if they like what you do and think it would work, with no real carryover effect into anybody buying your record even if the crowd likes you and yells and screams and claps. our sales in Spain are absolutely abysmal but you'd never know it from the vibe when we play in Madrid or Barcelona and there's tons of people (and I mean even at our own shows, not just at Primavera or Sonar where people are just up for it).

"The single is dying in front of our very eyes," industry commentator Bob Whoever wrote. "Everybody's interested in the ringtone, and no one's got time to sit and hear your three-minute statement."

eagerly awaiting this day.

"The ringtone is dying in front of our very cameras", a cellphone motherboard texted to itself. "Everybody's interested in the granular microsample, and no one's got time to sit and hear your 15 second statement."

dying of LOLs on a Sunday morning, thank u guys

some very interesting insights here... so basically as less and less people buy music the media around it becomes more and more of an echo chamber - an empty one.

in the early 90s writers were already starting to talk about how no-one listens to whole albums anymore because you can skip tracks etc on CD. that didn't make any sense to me because you could 'skip' through vinyl with relative ease! this 'no-one listens to albums anymore' idea dates way back imo.

And then the iPod was going to kill the album because kids love to shuffle

And then the GOP was going to die because 2008 and 2012.

that's still happening.

The album will not die as an idea (just ask Lady Gaga), although it might become diminished in importance eventually. But I don't see that happening for a long time.

It's probably worth mentioning that the decline of music-centric programming on MTV and the rise of commercial radio formats that specialize in recurrents (seriously, in Boston there's a classic alt-rock station *and* one that specializes in R&B throwbacks, in addition to classic rock and oldies channels) have led to an environment where people simply *don't know* that albums by artists they like are coming out. The KT Tunstall album is a pretty good example of this—she broke through a few years ago, still has a presence in US culture thanks to her two biggest singles being in ads currently in rotation, but awareness of her new record, which came out a couple of months back, is nil. (Whether or not those fans would appreciate her stylistic shift is another story, but at least there'd be chatter about her new material. Album is great, BTW.) And for the flip side, two of the last 13 months' biggest-selling albums (RED and 20/20 EXPERIENCE) had their profile boosted by gigantic tie-ins with Target that had TV commercials essentially saying "buy this record at Target, it's out this day."

Bringing Elton John into this argument is weird because his new material hasn't really been selling that much—Songs From The West Coast eventually went gold, but that isn't *great* by the platinum-in-a-week standards of 2001, and that album's campaign led with a very throwbacky track that had a Justin Timberlake video attached to it.

I also think that this is another case of the record industry shooting itself in the foot. How many times can you promise an album then hold it back, then hold it back, then hold it back again? There's a lack of trust about release dates—think about all the albums by even successful artists that have been pushed multiple times over the past year. At some point all those delays imply a lack of trust in the product, and it would be foolish to think that listeners don't pick up on that.

Also, ban Lefsetz. Just on principle. There are so many other, smarter commentators on the music business out there—like everyone posting to this thread, for starters. And given the overall weakness of the Guardian piece's thesis (how is anyone surprised that an album's sales sagged four weeks in?) they could probably be hired to write as well.

There are so many other, smarter commentators on the music business out there—like everyone posting to this thread, for starters.

Even me?

Sure.

That Lefsetz dude must be bad

Oh you don't even know.

lol, I just looked at the article again and saw this at the end

"The rest of the public is just waiting for a hit single ... they'll tap their toes and snap their fingers and ask, 'What else have you got?

that's pretty much the best argument for the album right there.

I also think that this is another case of the record industry shooting itself in the foot. How many times can you promise an album then hold it back, then hold it back, then hold it back again? There's a lack of trust about release dates—think about all the albums by even successful artists that have been pushed multiple times over the past year. At some point all those delays imply a lack of trust in the product, and it would be foolish to think that listeners don't pick up on that.

yeah one thing i hate is how drawn out the run-up to album releases is -- even in the 80s/90s blockbusters era, you'd get one single a couple months before the album release. something as overblown as Michael Jackson's HIStory, you got "Scream" in May, the video in June, the album in July, boom boom boom. something like the 20/20 Experience was almost a merciful throwback to that, in the sense that they waited until as close to the date as possible to begin the media blitz and then just stuck to the first date they announced.

making the album release one of the last steps in the promotion cycle instead of one of the first also probably hurts the shelf life for listeners. if there are 4 pre-release singles that you've already had your fill of by the time you get to own the album, and only 1 single that peaks on the chart after you've bought it, you might not be as compelled to keep returning to the album as if the singles campaign kept going after the release reminding people to still consider buying the album or keep listening to it once they have it. in hip-hop now it's a miracle if an album doesn't do half its total sales in the first week and virtually of them in the first month, the long tail is disappearing.

i think david bowie proved in 2013 that there is still a demand for a well defined, cleverly promoted album/event.

just requires artists/bands to fuck off for 10 years in between releases.

(in many cases : please)

next up for the excess hype/promo reaction : the new stone roses album in 2014

have to say that in the new world, it feels very weird that for several years, my fave band released an album every year, and, they were bloody good (madness).

this practise does seemed to have died a death with charting bands of late.

no-talent bands, or crap label over reaction ?

It would be great if a streaming service like Spotify would develop more of a format for album art, liner notes, etc.

2013 was definitely the year of longtime recluses/holdouts finally getting on with it: Bowie, Timberlake, Daft Punk, My Bloody Valentine...but you can only do that once or twice in a career, and there are only so many artists that have the particular kind of popularity that makes that move possible. who else is left that could possibly pull that kind of move in 2014 that might make the same impact? xp

http://www.bet.com/topics/d/dangelo/_jcr_content/topicintro.topicintro.dimg/2011-topic-d-angelo.jpg

Lou Reed?

(Too soon?)

the night of the mbv release was closest thing to midnight album release giddiness i've experienced since clinton was president

Bowie's an exception: a boomer figure who drew a large part of his Next Day figures from boomers who (a) want a physical copy (b) don't buy a lot of new music (c) 10 years

totally agree re the return of the old crew in 2013.

i think this has been a special, possibly one-off, year.

a year of definition for the album, albeit in a new form.
but maybe current bands could learn from this if they actually care about the album format.
(hello radiohead, coldplay, u2)
time for labels to allow some of their current high profile b(r)ands to lay low for a while as opposed to the constant need for excess visibility.

and no i cannot name any examples as i only listen to dusty springfield these days.

xpost.

But how many still listen to the new Bowie instead of putting on one of his older classics?

Some relevant parallels:

So here’s my question: what’s the argument which says that Amazon has proved itself to be a mortal, existential threat to the publishing industry? It’s not like Amazon has disintermediated publishers, allowing readers to buy millions of books directly from authors. There’s a very small business along those lines, but I don’t think that’s what publishers are worried about.

The only argument I can think of is the one surrounding physical bookstores. The small, friendly, neighborhood bookstore lives on, romantically, in the minds of most authors, and indeed publishers as well. But customers didn’t love them as much as book types did: that’s why they ended up going to Barnes & Noble instead. And as a result, the number of booksellers declined significantly. Then, just as B&N stomped on the small booksellers, Amazon ended up stomping on B&N. Customers value convenience more than they do any real-world book-buying experience — and while B&N was more convenient than the small stores, Amazon was more convenient than B&N.

The result is that there are fewer real-world triggers which remind us about how wonderful books can be. In a world with lots of small bookshops, you pass such things regularly, and even if you don’t go in and buy something most of those times, at least you’re reminded of their existence, and you nearly always have a good feeling about the store and its ambience. Just about every book reader thinks that bookstores are wonderful, magical places — and, of course, that their contents are wonderful, magical things. As such, small booksellers were the best marketing devices that the publishing industry had. Not through anything they particularly did, so much as just by dint of their simple existence.

It’s a bit like the secret to the continued success of The Economist: it puts a lot of effort into its covers, and those covers are featured prominently on pretty much every newsstand in the world. Even if you’re a subscriber and never buy the magazine at a newsstand, seeing it so regularly in the real world is a great way of reminding you how much you like it. As a result, the next time you pick up your iPad, you’re more likely to read The Economist, and therefore more likely to renew your subscription, when that time comes around. If the number of newsstands in the world fell substantially, that would hurt The Economist much more than its newsstand sales alone might suggest.

Similarly, a world where you’d see a Barnes & Noble in every shopping mall, where you’d see these monster bookstores by the side of every urban highway, was a world which was constantly reminding you of how many books there are, and of how popular those books are. After all, those bookstores were kept in business by a steady stream of book lovers coming in to buy books. In their own way, B&N stores were just as good an advertisement for books in general as were the small booksellers they replaced.

So while there are just as many media-based book discussions as there always were — book reviews, book excerpts, talk shows, radio interviews, that kind of thing — the real-world reminders of the book industry as a whole have definitely shrunk. There are still lots of ways we can find out about individual books that we might want to read — and, thanks to Amazon, it has never been easier to order and read those books. But Amazon’s size and reach isn’t nearly as obvious as the networks of physical stores were — especially since Amazon sells so many different types of things, the sight of an empty Amazon box doesn’t make you think “books” any more. (Although, for historical reasons, the Amazon bookmark in my web browser still says “Amazon.com Books! Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.”)

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/11/03/is-amazon-bad-for-publishers/

I mean, I live in a pretty youth-heavy section of a giant college town. I can walk to three sanctioned music venues; there are also a bunch of DIY spaces scattered around the neighborhood. And the stores near me that sell physical music are a thrift store, a shop that also sells instruments and soccer jerseys, and, uh, the drugstores that have carts of big hits and deeply discounted items. (There's an In Your Ear! about 10 long blocks east.)

making the album release one of the last steps in the promotion cycle instead of one of the first also probably hurts the shelf life for listeners. if there are 4 pre-release singles that you've already had your fill of by the time you get to own the album, and only 1 single that peaks on the chart after you've bought it, you might not be as compelled to keep returning to the album as if the singles campaign kept going after the release reminding people to still consider buying the album or keep listening to it once they have it.

that's a very good point.

i also think there's a certain segment of artists who stopped making albums, per se, years ago. katy perry is a good current example of this for me. i'm a fan, and i think over her career so far she's produced a handful of terrific singles. but listening to her new album yesterday was a real struggle. it was exhausting. every single track sounds so fussed over, so worked over, like it needs just this many hooks, and just this many cool production moves, 'cause it expects to be the album's fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth single. every single song is competing too fucking hard for my attention. there's no room for me to breathe. there are no album tracks. nothing for me to discover on my own. i miss album tracks.

i feel something similar when i listen to the new arcade fire album.

it's possible that if i were the age i am now 25 years ago, i would have said the exact same thing about madonna or prince, so maybe i'm just being old about this. maybe i'm being too fussy over and worked over myself, i don't know.

or maybe it's an ipod/iphone/spotify thing: why bother making throwaway tracks when everyone's going to actually throw them away anyway?

Search youtube for "full album" and you can listen to plenty of full albums with tracks unseparated.

so no one's buying albums, but i get the impression from industry people that an album is still the best thing to do a traditional press push behind, moreso than an EP, single, or tour.

so is the album turning into sort of a necessary evil? you need to make one so people have something to write/post about but no one will actually check it out except hardcore fans?

might have thought that continuous deployment of singles/EPs would work better than occasional albums in the rolling news/blog buzz era

"I also think that this is another case of the record industry shooting itself in the foot. How many times can you promise an album then hold it back, then hold it back, then hold it back again? There's a lack of trust about release dates—think about all the albums by even successful artists that have been pushed multiple times over the past year. At some point all those delays imply a lack of trust in the product, and it would be foolish to think that listeners don't pick up on that."

THIS

Have some fucking CONFIDENCE, music industry

might have thought that continuous deployment of singles/EPs would work better than occasional albums in the rolling news/blog buzz era

i guess that's the trick, you have to keep up the constant momentum.

I keep thinking about wk's remark upthread - "and the best way to make a great single is probably to make a bunch of good songs and see which is best." This seems basically true to me and might account for a lot of what we're seeing - sure, it might make sense just to do regular updates of individual singles or EPs, but you have to have those singles and EPs in the can first, and maybe part of the process of getting that is to record a bunch of material and see how it sounds (or market-test the shit out of it, whichever). Then you have all this stuff recorded, some of it's not all that good - and all of it was striving for the single, which is the thing fcc's pointing out. It's kind of not fun to listen to a lot of albums anymore. But the stuff's in the can and you will be able to sell some of it, and anyway it coalesces into this thing called "album" which makes a good hook for a marketing campaign plus general visibility (the thing gets reviewed, magazine covers can proclaim "She's back!" even though they didn't really go away, the singular 'tour' can exist as a thing with a supposed theme or whatever).

All told, I kind of miss the old-school "singles plus filler" approach, even though of course much of the 'filler' might be 'ehh, not good enough for singles." It was nice that you could count on the Monkees to have a couple of songs of them goofing around doing funny voices, one that was "country" flavored, one with a horn section. But I don't know if the current situation is that unique - in terms of a quality listening experience, if not the economics. The CD era was also known as the era of bitching about how the album only had three good songs scattered amongst fourteen others and eight terrible skits.

i've also heard from friends that it's a lot tougher to do a tour without a new album, even with a big fan base, because media outlets are a lot less likely to give you interviews, show previews, etc without that hook.

the Stones figured that out in 1989 and they had mixed emotions.

I keep thinking about wk's remark upthread

thanks, it makes me crazy how people completely disregard the economic realities of it all. whether you're releasing a single or an album, there are some fixed costs that are the same for both, like pr and marketing most importantly but also other things like artwork.

so lets say most artists throughout history have only had maybe 4 single-worthy tracks at best on an album. the two options are...

- release those 4 songs + whatever else to make it a full album and spend $X on promotion, artwork, videos, etc.
- release 4 singles throughout the year but only spend $X/4 on each.

the album route is better for the artists because it's more efficient and it's better for fans because they get more tracks, some of which may be good.

I feel like "Lady Gaga releases first single from highly anticipated new album" is going to remain a more buzzworthy angle than "Lady Gaga releases standalone single" for the forseeable future.

I almost entirely listen to full albums on Spotify, rather than isolated tracks--had not realised this was unusual.

its the norm for myself.

I keep thinking about wk's remark upthread

thanks, it makes me crazy how people completely disregard the economic realities of it all. whether you're releasing a single or an album, there are some fixed costs that are the same for both, like pr and marketing most importantly but also other things like artwork.

so lets say most artists throughout history have only had maybe 4 single-worthy tracks at best on an album. the two options are...

- release those 4 songs + whatever else to make it a full album and spend $X on promotion, artwork, videos, etc.
- release 4 singles throughout the year but only spend $X/4 on each.

the album route is better for the artists because it's more efficient and it's better for fans because they get more tracks, some of which may be good.

― wk, Monday, November 4, 2013 6:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also if you're paying for studio time it makes no sense to come in, spend 2 hours setting up, getting the drums and everything mic'd, then do one song and say, OK see you soon!

unless you have your own studio and everything is set up and mic'd all the time (and/or everything is just a detailed pro tools template), which is not all that hard to do these days.

yes thanks pro tools i'm aware of that, but some people want to go to a studio and there are a lot of people that don't have living situations where they can track live drums and loud rock instruments.

"I feel like "Lady Gaga releases first single from highly anticipated new album" is going to remain a more buzzworthy angle than "Lady Gaga releases standalone single" for the forseeable future."

is it, though? maybe if the standalone single came after a couple promo singles and failed singles and umpteenth SoundCloud tries, without much return on pageview investment (this varies per artist, and it's often not who you'd respect; my biggest pageview hit for a track post was a fucking Chili Peppers song). a good example of this is Azealia Banks -- at this point "Azealia Banks releases new single" is just not as compelling as it was unless there is an outside hook. or, for that matter, those few tracks Gaga released before the album cycle started in earnest. (Gaga is a weird example because her Backplane thing sort of bypasses the need for blog coverage, but you get the idea.)

oh god respect==>expect. I swear that was not on purpose

also in 2012 there were 316 million albums sold vs. 1.3 billion digital track sales, so that's basically a $3 billion album industry vs. a $1 billion singles industry but I guess nobody listens to albums anymore, so might as well just leave that money sitting on the table.

the case of artists like Azealia Banks is kinda illustrative in that someone can throw 10 different singles at the wall individually trying to make one stick like that one did a couple years ago that made her famous, and in the end they could've had a whole album but instead there are just a bunch of 'failed' singles that are now too 'old' to be on whatever album they eventually do release. ABanks does that because she has to, or her label believes she has to to achieve what they want her to. Gaga gets to make an album, and then just release it after one or two teaser singles, because she made it big already and she's doing what most artists actually want to do, make songs that aren't singles and use the singles to sell the whole package.

yes thanks pro tools i'm aware of that, but some people want to go to a studio and there are a lot of people that don't have living situations where they can track live drums and loud rock instruments.

well yes of course. but a lot of the artists that have been mentioned on this thread can absolutely afford that if they want it. and, obviously, an awful lot of records are made without either live drums or loud rock instruments.

i totally get your basic point: in a lot of ways, and not only financially, recording 10 songs is more economical than recording one. but artists these days aren't nearly as tethered to expensive studios as they used to be.

the people that don't need soundproofed rooms and instruments and a million mics -- rappers and DIY singers and dance producers adn noise artists and indie acts who use synths and drum machines -- are usually the people that churn out an album/mixtape or two every year

Before I get too mind expanding, I have to say that I've really enjoyed reading this topic and everyone's insights. A lot of things to consider. A little unsettling for a lifelong record nerd, but nice to have a forum like this to bounce ideas around among like minded folks.

Anyway. . .

This past summer, I spent just about every day stoned out of my gourd. I would wake up to several very large hits and then snack on bread and very potent canabutter throughout the day. In those late afternoon/early evening post-dinner hours when my high was finally waning, I would often put a record on and nap. In those meditation-ish sessions, I found that I would love to return to the Sea and Cake more often than anything else in my collection. Drifting in and out of THC-induced dreams, I saw a scenario (on several occasions; a recurring "dream" of sorts — though I'm positive that's not the right word at all) of the Sea and Cake as a state-sanctioned and endorsed band in a 1984-esque isolationist America. Everyone else hated America and we hated them right back. But here was this band making the potentially very volatile word at large a sustainable place through their peaceful and idiosyncratic music.

I will spare the details of why I was thinking the band's music was so important as to be world-uniting (quite literally), but the format they "released" it in was the really important part: they would debut material live and only release proper recordings of the songs that got the most positive reactions. In my "dreams", this meant they really only ever released singles and EPs. They did have albums, but most times, those were just bargain collections of the previous year or two's singles and b-sides — mainly put out for convenience to people who couldn't afford to buy singles. Sometimes, the recordings would be newly re-recorded versions, but the point being is that the records always did well, because they contained songs that were already proven popular with the audience.

I understand that's just a pot-influenced pipe dream, but think about it. Maybe the album has come under scrutiny because it is seen as a necessity when, for most bands and artists these days, let's be honest, it isn't.

Anyhoo, feel free to make fun of me now.

(no, I'm not indulging that heavily —or at all— anymore)

some dude some ppl want to make rock music with loud instruments, but I'll investigate tho this "rap" business you speak of

right, but i was just saying that even for acts for whom "it's silly to book a day at the studio and set up drums and mics to just record one song" doesn't apply, there doesn't seem to be any desire to just do one-off songs and not albums

http://media0.giphy.com/media/RQBkc3AF4VZxS/giphy.gif

Drums?

Maybe the album has come under scrutiny because it is seen as a necessity when, for most bands and artists these days, let's be honest, it isn't.

"Scrutiny" is really not a term I would use for Lefsetz's ramblings or some ilxors whiney poptimist daydreams. If the album is not a necessity then how do you propose that artists get their work stocked in record stores, or reviewed by outlets that only review albums? Are artists supposed to wait several years to tour until they have enough singles to play a full set? And what do they sell at the show lots of separate 7"s? With blank b-sides of course, because you wouldn't want to make anyone buy any filler.

Think about it

Well, I guess I should have prefaced all that with a personal philosophy/belief: bands need to play live **A LOT** before ever thinking about making a record.

those are two totally different paths. bands who play a ton live before recording their first single probably can't write very well. in the heyday of the singles dominated industry it was probably more common for great hit singles to come from a songwriter and a bunch of session players putting something together in the studio and then cobbling together some phony touring band after it became a hit.

bands who play a ton live before recording their first single probably can't write very well.

i think this is completely totally false, playing live is the best place to know which of your songs are terrible and cull the set....if anything you should play out for a year, realize that you suck and ditch an entire album's worth of awkward first songs then record the second batch, plus you're leagues better at just performing and understanding how to sound good together and play together as a band...which honestly some bands just sound good, they understand how to balance each other and how their sounds fit together, that makes getting a good recording way easier...even just shit like drummer that play correctly, know how to tune drums right etc.

Yeah but if you are trying to set up a tour and maybe even get some interviews or press in other towns you sort of need an album (or at least an EP) of material to promote and discuss.

I agree that bands should play a ton live before recording anything but rehearsing for said shows is probably the most important thing you can do in a band and really who has the time for that anymore if you are setting up shows, recording your demos, writing to PR people, promoting your stuff on social media, etc.

That's why Salem played 10 thousand Fader Fort concerts before releasing their first record

hard work pays off

I agree that bands should play a ton live before recording anything but rehearsing for said shows is probably the most important thing you can do in a band and really who has the time for that anymore if you are setting up shows, recording your demos, writing to PR people, promoting your stuff on social media, etc.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, November 6, 2013 12:29 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^yes but honestly why bother with all that stuff if you suck? get good first.

Making bad records until you can make a good one is as valid as playing bad shows until you can play a good one imo. But we're getting pretty far of course of the thread's topic.

the ease of recording and access to protools and doing that over playing live is why we have 10 zillion glockenspiel indie horrible bands that clog up whiney's in-box

That's why Salem played 10 thousand Fader Fort concerts before releasing their first record

― some dude, Wednesday, November 6, 2013 1:34 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hard work pays off

― lorde willin' (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, November 6, 2013 1:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

irl lol at this exchange

bands who play a ton live before recording their first single probably can't write very well.

this is such a ridiculous assertion

one of many recently

I'm just coming at it from the opposite pov from austin. I care about records, not live shows, and I've seen a lot of really great, amazingly tight live bands who make really boring records, and plenty of people who make amazing records but can't pull it off live. I prefer the latter.

If a band is playing a TON of live shows (I guess we would need to define that more clearly but whatever) and nobody is interested in helping them make a record, then yeah they probably don't have a hit song. Playing a ton more shows isn't going to help that.

If a band is playing a TON of live shows (I guess we would need to define that more clearly but whatever) and nobody is interested in helping them make a record, then yeah they probably don't have a hit song.

#mountainclimberwhoplaysanelectricguitar

great example. wu tang clearly should have honed their live chops for years before starting to make beats.

rap is a completely different thing than rock bands.

bands in the 60s and 70s were more likely to have played around on the live circuit for awhile before making albums as opposed today, which is why acts of those days often struggled to make classic albums like we see on today's thriving major label rock scene.

and i wasn't talking about wu tang i was talking about you acting like some kinda a&r who somehow things the music business of all fuckin things is a meritorcracy

I didn't realize this thread was just for rock bands.

actually, I do think a lot of those great live bands of the '60s struggled to make good albums. look at any garage compilation and you'll find thousands of regional bands who had big local followings and played tons of live shows but never did much on record: one hit wonders, minor regional hits, covers, etc. and a lot of the greatest singles from the pre-album era were manufactured studio projects put together by songwriters, producers, and session players.

pretty sure those songwriters, producers, and session players generally had experience playing live music

this is a thread where people tell musicians that they should only release singles and that they shouldn't record until they've played live for years, and I'm the guy who sounds like an a&r?

yeah beatles, stones, kinks, hendrix, the who, etc etc didn't have much live experience good point

regional garage bands and one-hit wonders created some of the greatest music ever recorded

experience playing live music ≠ playing a song live for years with the same musicians before you go into the studio to record it

playing a song live for years with the same musicians before you go into the studio to record it ≠ can't write very well

i'm not talking about years, i'm just saying it's good to be a working band that's playing shows and yes unless you are like the smiths or some weird outlier your first batch of songs is going to be shitty

i'm talking about being a GOOD BAND that generally helps you to be a good band

recorded music has alienated people from music

live music has been dragging down recorded music for a century

I say nobody should be allowed to perform live until they have a few classic albums under their belt

if only there were band that wasn't so tied to these archaic paradigms of being a rock band, perhaps one that embraced the full potential of home digital recording and used the internet as its primary vehicle of communication between itself and its audience instead of outmoded song delivery methods like "concerts" and "gigs". i bet they would be pretty amazing.

lmao

actually they seem like a pretty good example of what the singles over albums people are asking for

totally knew what that was going to be, trusty ilx

Anyone here read Blockbusters yet? It seems to take the Spielberg/Lucas warning of goliath productions eating everything and not just agreeing, but going all-in on that strategy.

The book has been buzz worthy in the tech/entertainment crossover set, but I haven't read it (or much analysis of it)

Maybe this looks interesting, and it's obvious that the trends have actually been towards exacerbating these dynamics - power laws and the 1% - makes sense that they would go all in, managing the margins means you're stuck in the long tail.