C/D: The Album

what will they think of next..

I think you are wrong here. I think most do. It's just that they don't do this as much.

More often, great albums are simply collections of songs that represent a period or moment in an artists career. They might have a unified sound, but it's really a stretch to think of them as musical wholes.

Possibly, but just because they don't tell a story from beginning to end, doesn't mean that there is no logical sequence. How many tracks work in context, and do not work played on their own?

Bloody Cds. Albums should be 10 songs 40-45 minutes tops. 80 minute CDs = 2x more filler. Bah!

Ipods dont' really change the way people feel about whole albums.
- now there are completeist downloaders. rather than record collectors.

I kind of think I've overdone it a bit. I'm so track-focussed these days, I've kind of started believing albums that I'll love from start to finish won't be made anymore.

In this new environment, I love music more than I have ever done, but the loss of the album experience must count as the downside, I guess. I think the problem lies, as well with the flexibility of mp3 listening itself, in having too much new stuff coming in (both directly and indirectly as a result of the internet) to have the time to get to know albums. That's why I don't understand those who are even worse than I am, buying dozens and dozens of albums a year. They are often the people who go on about albums being important, but I don't see where they fit in the multiple repeat listens that the important albums in my life have required. Most of the albums I really love, and know inside out, were bought when I was a kid and hadn't got the money to buy many records.

Albums I have that relationship with have slowed down to about one a year now, for me. I just feel I haven't got room in my heart or head for any more than that. Maybe it's nothing to do with the internet. Maybe it's just getting older.

I was listening to Luomo's The Present Lover earlier for the first time, and maybe that would be a candidate. The lush, romantic sweep of it. Though I didn't finish listening to it - ha! I'd just bought three other albums (two were V/A comps) and needed to hear some of them. Plus I was downloading stuff.

So it goes.

There are very few albums on which I wouldn't at least eliminate one track, given the choice.

I'll sit in an old chair and soak them in, far away from my computer. Well, as far away as I can get in this room.

It's the awful halfway house of CD players that I want to confine to the dustbin.

On the other hand maybe "filler" tracks serve a useful purpose. Do lesser tracks help to lead into greater tracks and in a way cleanse the pallet between the peak moments? Is there room for experimentation without filler & b-sides?

I have a love/hate relationship with Sloop John B. So many times I simply skip past it without a second thought. But when I take the time to listen I actually enjoy the song. I imagine my experience of the album would be much different if I were listening on vinyl. In some ways that song is essential in its awkwardness.

This game will never end.

depends what this stat is based on but isn't it the case that there are more albums being MADE than ever before as well, so how does the ratio of sales vs releases balance against ratios of previous eras?

do you mean out of the people that frequently download? if so i disagree. if not then yeh but MOST people (in the broadest sense) still don't download.

In fact does anyone know of anywhere online where you can see CD sales breakdowns?
(It'd come in very handy when the sort of 'Rock is Dead' or 'the kids are all into xxx these days' grand claims are made.)

At this time of year, quite a lot.

Anyway, it seems that there is still a huge album buying age group from around 20 and up. The kids download tracks rather than albums, but this just means that the album market is changing, and that the album market will increasingly be aimed at a more grownup market.

Of course, what happens in the future depends whether today's 14-year-olds will still download tracks rather than buying albums at 24. I doubt they will.

(I'm not even sure you're right about illegal downloaders - if those who dl stuff from me are anything to go by, it's usually individual tracks, but maybe that's a Limewire thing)

I'm not even sure you're right about illegal downloaders

most users i've encountered regardless of the software being used are sharing albums and i doubt that many of them ripped the CDs direct (tho i have in several cases).