Why does it take bands so long to release albums these days?

Etc.

Has this changed since the '60s/'70s?

prince, admittedly in the 80s, released an album more or less every year and toured behind every one too.

Bands on smaller labels tend to have a faster output.

That kind of says it all, doesn't it? If acts today were able to make a living on the backs of their singles, rather than albums (where the majority ends up being filler anyway), they could progress faster rather than recording albums with little internal variation.

christ AC/DC is saying they may put out a double album this year. AC/DC. 2005.

This is a bad thing?

With long waits it discourages experimentation and going in new directions and Franz's new album is sure to be more or less a sequel to the first instead of something really new (note: unless they release some revelation of an album, in which case this post will be used for ironic purposes in future threads)

I'd rather hear Franz's "studio experiment" album than what they'll likely release next. Wouldn't you?

1963: Please Please Me
1965: Twist and Shout EP
1966: With The Beatles
1969: A Hard Day's Night (with Yoko in the movie)
1970: breakup
1972: Beatles for Sale sessions
1974: Paul's Yesterday album, Ringo's Act Naturally album, etc.

well i give some credit to the white stripes at least for releasing their new album, unfinished and feotal as it seems likely to be.

....took 'em two years, though, for two weeks in the studio.

When, how and why did 2-3+ years between albums become the rule instead of the exception?

as stated in that other thread, hip hop and dancehall audiences seem not to give a shit, and expect their stars to maintain constant presence of some sort.

Recording and manufacturing costs have gone DOWN, not up, of course (although the cheapness of recording leads people to do a lot more of it per song), but advances and promotion costs are significantly larger than they were in the 60s and 70s. The major-level industry is configured to try to make every release deemed significant multi-platinum, and that generally takes some period of time to accomplish. Plus, there is a fear of having a new release cannibalize sales of an existing release (a fear that successful bands may share, since if release 1 has recouped a release 1 sale is more valuable for the band than a release 2 sale will be).

This seems terribly wrong in so many ways -- terrible for artistic development, terrible for the artists' careers and their wallets. Luckily, it does not really affect the indie sector at all, and release schedules there are really not so far off where they were in the 70s.

All of that said, everyone -- the Beatles (individually), the Stones, Neil Young, Dylan etc. -- seems to slow down the pace of new releases after some initial period. Sleater-Kinney went from releasing a record a year to releasing a record every 3 years, and none of the foregoing issues had anything to do with it. The reasons were all personal and artistic. That is just one of the ways Ryan Adams is bizarre -- by the end of this year he will have sustained a release-plus-per-year pace for over a decade, and a Beatlesesque (in quantity, if not quality) 10 new material releases in the past 6 years.

Recording costs for "bands" (ie, not for dance and hiphop producer/artists) have definitely not gone down.

This wasn't their fault, though; it was label idiocy, right?

So OTM it hurts.

Also, singles. Singles are the answer. You have a great song - don't sit on it and write 7 tracks of filler. Put it out. Then, chances are, for your next single you'd be tempted to, say, change the drum kit. So this regime subtly encourages experimentation and growth.

Oh, I never thought of it this way. A sad but great point.

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