Anybody else think the album is on its way out?

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I honestly can't see the full-length album surviving another ten or fifteen years, at least not as the predominant method of musical expression, and regardless of format. It appears right now that the single is enjoying a resurgence in popularity due to the Internet, but that may just be temporary. If the album does go the way that sheet music did in the first half of the century, what do you think will replace it?

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 00:55 (eighteen years ago)

Cohesive sets of songs unbeholden to a 30-50 minute run time.

― bendy, Monday, 26 March 2007 00:58 (eighteen years ago)

It will survive. Like most other formats do too. And nothing will replace it.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 26 March 2007 00:59 (eighteen years ago)

bendy OTM though.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 26 March 2007 00:59 (eighteen years ago)

Five Hour MP3

― sexyDancer, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:24 (eighteen years ago)

If a more expansive format is introduced and mass-marketed (such as the Minidisc, although that never caught on as it could have), artists will undoubtedly have the opportunity to produce longer works, but I don't think this is necessarily a good thing. The current time constraints of the compact disc (and the seemingly unspoken consensus that most albums should hover around 45 minutes in length) provide musicians with a discipline that I think is beneficial to their facundity. The only albums I can think of for which a single-disc release would be insufficient are 69 Love Songs and Zaireeka.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:34 (eighteen years ago)

I guess "them corporate types" would be happy to see the death of the album as singles are a neat little bundle of profitability.
Shit we can't have some band make another Dopesmoker, can we?

― Drooone, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:39 (eighteen years ago)

Ha, good point.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:42 (eighteen years ago)

I guess "them corporate types" would be happy to see the death of the album as singles are a neat little bundle of profitability.

not even remotely true. big record companies have been fighting for decades -- since long before anyone knew what the internet was -- to kill the singles market. retailers love singles because their customers love singles, and this has been the case since before anyone here was born. record companies hate them because they think the real money is albums, and they think singles cannibalize albums. again, they thought this long before anyone had a home computer.

The current time constraints of the compact disc (and the seemingly unspoken consensus that most albums should hover around 45 minutes in length)

if that unspoken consensus is really there, pls note that it has nothing to with the time constraints of a compact disc. 45 minutes is the time constraints of a vinyl album, a format that most people stopped buying 20 years ago. which is to say, if people think that's a good length for an album, it's ALREADY survived the death of its format.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:02 (eighteen years ago)

Did we have a stupid thread on this very same stupid subject not more than a month ago?

― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

if that unspoken consensus is really there, pls note that it has nothing to with the time constraints of a compact disc.

I thought that went without saying.

45 minutes is the time constraints of a vinyl album, a format that most people stopped buying 20 years ago. which is to say, if people think that's a good length for an album, it's ALREADY survived the death of its format.

Good point which raises a number of questions in itself.

Did we have a stupid thread on this very same stupid subject not more than a month ago?

Don't know, I wasn't around then.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:11 (eighteen years ago)

Ah. Then the search function needs to be your friend...

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)

OK, fact checking cuz, I'm happy to go with what you're saying, but could you point me to some resources which back up what you're saying?

Also, are you saying that record companies don't like the single downloading market?

― Drooone, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:19 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder if the general attention span of the populace isn't getting too short to support interest in the album as a conceptual whole. The CD already beat the final nail in the coffin of sitting through songs you didn't like, making it easier than ever to just skip through them instead. Perhaps the next trend will cater to an even greater impatience on behalf of the listening public.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:19 (eighteen years ago)

Christ, that's an overload of the word saying.
Sorry.

― Drooone, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:20 (eighteen years ago)

"I wonder if the general attention span of the populace isn't getting too short to support interest in the album as a conceptual whole."

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:23 (eighteen years ago)

seriously! if millions of people can watch 3 hour Lord of the Rings movies...

― latebloomer, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:33 (eighteen years ago)

drooone: i apologize that i don't know know where exactly on the internet this information is being stored, but it's an old story that's been covered anecodatally by the music press from almost every angle over the years. for example:

--in the '80s and '90s, record companies routinely put singles out of print as soon as they hit the top of the pop charts and/or as soon as the album from which they were taken was released. the message: once they had done their job of promoting a band/album/tour, the singles were no longer needed, and in fact were now seen as harmful. why else top selling them at the moment of their greatest popularity?
--in the '90s and '00s, record companies cut back sharply on the manufacture/distribution of cd singles, despite an outcry from major retailers, who said they continued to be big sellers.
--go to any subscription music service right now and count the number of albums -- especially urban/hip-hop/pop albums -- whose singles and radio tracks have been withheld from subscription download. you'll find quite a few.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:34 (eighteen years ago)

in first bullet point above, that's "why else stop selling them," not "why else top selling them." d'oh.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:35 (eighteen years ago)

Excellent. I stand corrected.

― Drooone, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002HMC.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:43 (eighteen years ago)

"Ah. Then the search function needs to be your friend..."

To be fair, the search function isn't the friendly thing in the world for a subject like this.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:44 (eighteen years ago)

Regarding home recording and charting -- ultimately it's down to the people using the equipment. Here's a snippet from an interview with Phill Brown from 1991 talking about his work with Talk Talk on Laughing Stock:

"We worked hard at creating an ambience and just about all of it is natural room, as we only used a little spring reverb on Mark's voice and an EMT plate reverb on the album to give a wetness here and there. All the rest was achieved using miking techniques and flat eq on the SSL desk. I find you lose a lot of signal if you start eq-ing, so I like to get the signal right using positioning and the right mic.

"On the drums, for example, we tried six different mics, valve and solid state, and ran off a test reel so we could compare all six. The drums were in mono on the record, and we eventually settled for a Neumann U47 and an STC placed 30 feet from the kit. The same was true of the guitars and just about all the instruments including Mark's voice, all distance miked at over six feet from the source. We also had mics there to help us get a sense of the room, a feel of the depth. When you listen you can hear the space and you're somewhere in the middle, these four musicians playing around you."

Now, the question to my mind is less whether or not you can aim to create something like this in a 'home' setup -- I agree it's difficult but not impossible, and what might have seemed hard to do anywhere other than a studio in 1991 is doubtless less so now in 2007. This is the nature of technological progression; nothing stands still. The question is, how many Phill Browns are out there, with that kind of skill and patience? (And maybe to bring a larger point back from the question of musicians who have to hold day jobs, what about engineers etc. who might have to start doing similarly?)

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:45 (eighteen years ago)

Ooh, thanks for that Talk Talk link. Laughing Stock is right up there atop my favorite albums.

And good point about LOTR. You're probably right.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:50 (eighteen years ago)

Mark Hollis on Laughing Stock:

"The record is meant to be listened to in one sitting and you can't appreciate it totally unless you do that. I'm not in the position where I need to make the sort of album other people want any more, I can decide what to do and how those ideas get developed, but I hope in the end to be understood for the music I do decide to put out and meaning and sense the music has. It's almost useless asking me questions about it, the music speaks for itself.

"If you don't understand then I won't help by just talking about it. We're doing something that's outside the conventional form and as far as I'm concerned we only stand out because that form has become so narrow, so constricted. We break the unspoken rules, but then nobody really likes rules do they?"

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 02:54 (eighteen years ago)

ned: there are exactly as many phill browns around today as there were then, and they're exactly as unaffordable today as they were then. the difference is, there's a lot more non-phill-browns around today who can make great-sounding records without testing six different $5,000 mics on the drums. of course, there was no NEED to do that to get on the radio back then, and there's no need to do it today. some people are just obsessed with these kinds of things. but since most of talk talk's audience probably heard this album either on a cassette through a walkman or on a primitive portable cd player, did that mic placement really matter? i mean, it's cool that some engineers do that sort of thing. god bless them for it. but it's not at all a requirement for making hit records.

(and, um, ned, was this whole anecdote supposed to go on another thread?)

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:08 (eighteen years ago)

Mark Hollis wasn't concerned with making Laughing Stock a hit. He knew that the record would be totally unfathomable to most of the public, but that it would eventually find its audience. It was intended to be regarded as a work of art, and in that regard, I think the time and expense was absolutely worthwhile.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:12 (eighteen years ago)

Now, the question to my mind is less whether or not you can aim to create something like this in a 'home' setup -- I agree it's difficult but not impossible, and what might have seemed hard to do anywhere other than a studio in 1991 is doubtless less so now in 2007. This is the nature of technological progression; nothing stands still. The question is, how many Phill Browns are out there, with that kind of skill and patience? (And maybe to bring a larger point back from the question of musicians who have to hold day jobs, what about engineers etc. who might have to start doing similarly?)

Just to put that Talk Talk recording in perspective - even owning 6 microphones around the range of quality of that Neumann could cost upward of 10,000$ (granted, new technology has seen mic's sold for under 500$ that can do a similar job with less 'magic' contributed to the sound). Also, having the mics that far from the sound sources would require studio levels of quiet, which will require a very sound-proofed set up, and a fair investment to achieve that. Quiet & ambient recordings are a tricky thing to achieve on a low budget, especially if you're multi-tracking. I know because I've been trying!

― Faisal Shennib, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:23 (eighteen years ago)

fact checking cuz OTM...

― Faisal Shennib, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:26 (eighteen years ago)

Don't you think Night Ripper is a brilliant response to the death of the album? It's really one long track, or a bajillion four second tracks. Either way, it forces you to confront the entire thing. Not just the good parts. ;)

― Mordechai Shinefield, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:32 (eighteen years ago)

I just Wikipedia'd that. How does it hold together? I was really excited to hear Caps and Jones's Moving In Stereo based on glowing reviews in Spin and elsewhere, but it struck me as the least imaginative sample record I'd ever heard. I'm also fond of John Oswald's work, but not to the point of listening to it frequently.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:57 (eighteen years ago)

The album won't die because people keep making full-length albums that are presented as a single statement rather than a collection of songs haphazardly thrown together. This practice may fall out of favor on the hit charts, but I'm not really sure that it has been in favor for a long time. Most popular albums were just holders for a few hit singles. Perhaps some pop stars will no longer need to put out full albums, but that alone will not kill off the album.

― Moodles, Monday, 26 March 2007 04:09 (eighteen years ago)

If sales continue to drop, though, the labels will begin to cut their roster of artists even further. I wonder how many bands will continue to put out albums independently.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 04:14 (eighteen years ago)

Some musical forms (electronica, prog) concentrating on lengthy works seem to work well within an expanded CD form, alhough generally the 50 minute limit applies.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 26 March 2007 09:08 (eighteen years ago)

Did we have a stupid thread on this very same stupid subject not more than a month ago?

my stupid album thread

― m coleman, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:00 (eighteen years ago)

The album isn't dying and then single isn't dying - physical formats of music are what's dying.

― Scik Mouthy, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:14 (eighteen years ago)

For example, the physical formats of albums and singles.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:19 (eighteen years ago)

Still available in digital formats.

― Scik Mouthy, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:25 (eighteen years ago)

I don't do digital.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:34 (eighteen years ago)

I am turning into the butt of that Not The Nine O'Clock News hi-fi shop sketch faster than I thought.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:35 (eighteen years ago)

I don't do digital either, Marcello - you should know that! And yes, I am also identifying with that particular sketch.

― Scik Mouthy, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:40 (eighteen years ago)

a new Rough Trade shop is going to open in the Brick Lane area of London

Rough Trade opens massive record shop to fight internet
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/news/article2393338.ece

Set to open its doors to the public in the next two months, the store will occupy 5,000 sq ft of floorspace, sell CDs and vinyl, and be used as a venue for gigs. It will open near Brick Lane in the East End in the summer and, according to those behind the project, the megastore will "reflect the public appetite for exciting new music".

a 5, 000 sq ft this is a similar strategy to America's Amoeba music stores.

Amoeba
http://www.amoeba.com/

― djmartian, Monday, 26 March 2007 10:55 (eighteen years ago)

A London Amoeba equivalent (or even a London Amoeba) is sorely needed.

However they will need to stock used CDs and vinyl as well.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 11:00 (eighteen years ago)

5,000 square feet is a far cry from Amoeba.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Monday, 26 March 2007 11:04 (eighteen years ago)

In addition I estimate that approximately 4500 of the square feet will be set aside for the aforementioned "venue for gigs" by exciting new acts such as Biffy Clyro.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 11:05 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26music.html

― modestmickey, Monday, 26 March 2007 11:30 (eighteen years ago)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/136/319609283_9254f8d426_o.png

obv this is the way to go

― nathalie, Monday, 26 March 2007 11:38 (eighteen years ago)

Album and single won't die but as ppl get more comfortable with digital formats the content packages offered on those formats will diversify - 4-track EPs (Myspace is already bringing this model back), mini albums, 10/15/20/50-best hits packages (voted for by audiences probably), "full discography" purchases like those huge torrents you get all the time, work-in-progress subscription models, single track plus 'free' B-Side thrown in, etc etc.

― Groke, Monday, 26 March 2007 12:04 (eighteen years ago)

just thinking about which bands will be having 'best of' compilations coming out in the next few years (Coldplay! Travis! Muse!) and of course these will be on CD and DVD. 10 years from now will be interesting because you might actually be at that point where a CD release of a 'Best Of' is more a token gesture for a few thousand people...but how to market a 'best of' package in data form when download shops will already be able to present the band's best work/hits in handy list form (in some cases via user votes as tom suggests) with just one click? So the Greatest Hits concept might be on the way out on that basis but not for another ten years or so at least.

― blueski, Monday, 26 March 2007 12:10 (eighteen years ago)

Travis.... Barker? Duet with Shoana?

― nathalie, Monday, 26 March 2007 12:37 (eighteen years ago)

i saw a 'best of' notorious big and i think it didn't have 'mo money mo problems' but promised 'exclusive internets access' to same. wtf?

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 26 March 2007 12:41 (eighteen years ago)

Fopp have a PJ & Duncan/Ant & Dec 'best of' going for £1

the reason it is £1 is because it doesn't have 'Let's Get Ready To Rumble' on it for reasons i can't fathom.

― blueski, Monday, 26 March 2007 12:56 (eighteen years ago)

(We mentioned that on the "Monsieur Fopp" thread)

― Mark G, Monday, 26 March 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

[i]The album isn't dying and then single isn't dying - physical formats of music are what's dying.[i]

Yeah. I don't think its any more complicated than that.

― davie, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:08 (eighteen years ago)

Just had a funny memory: my dad, for his 10th birthday in 1948, got an "album" of Glenn Miller. It is a seven-inch-square white pleather photo album looking thing, the title embossed in gold on the cover, filled with 45s of Miller. So the "album" format predates the LP. I guess that's why we called 'em albums, even.

― bendy, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:31 (eighteen years ago)

wired had a big piece on this a few months ago

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/musicintro.html (the Music Reborn boxout)

apparently the way forward is Beck-like remixing of everything under the sun and the Bare Naked Ladies being their own record label. other things it mentions are cinemas screening gigs, tv shows playing a lot of new music (the OC, weeds), emusic, audioscrobbler, and ringtones.

― koogs, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:51 (eighteen years ago)

I was talking about this yet again last night with a friend after reading the NYTimes article on the same topic. In the US, there's the point that the singles market was virtually destroyed in most places in the late 80s/early 90s. Chain stores which provide the majority of music sales to smaller communities, don't really sell singles. I remember there being a section in Best Buy, but I can't remember anyone actually buying them. There were a few times I remember ridiculing friends because they'd play literally one song from an album, then switch to the next although they couldn't understand not buying the album due to some thought that it was the artifact you're supposed to own.

I don't think the album is going to die, but I think that we're going to finally get a balance where what is actually listened to will be reflected in sales numbers.

― mh, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:58 (eighteen years ago)

re: the physical format, I asked this question over on I Make Music but got no reponses; my own band was offered a deal to get put into iTunes, but no physical Cd produced (label is too busy for the rest of the year). I know you can get yourself into iTunes with some finagling, but I do wonder if I shouldn't just take this. I wonder about promotion, etc; is it possible to get reviewed with a digital only release if you are a new band? Possibly if you're "cool" which we are not, or if you're Prince, which we are not. A former ILXOR mentioned to me that he thinks that in order to be taken seriously by media (and possibly even the public) you still need to have a physical cd. Agreements, disagreements?

― akm, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

(um, i might have meant to post the above link to this thread instead: http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=56837)

― koogs, Monday, 26 March 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

my dad, for his 10th birthday in 1948, got an "album" of Glenn Miller. It is a seven-inch-square white pleather photo album looking thing, the title embossed in gold on the cover, filled with 45s of Miller. So the "album" format predates the LP. I guess that's why we called 'em albums, even.

that's how 78's were packaged and, yes, that's exactly why they're called albums.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

akm - we got into iTunes and haven't seen a dime. The CDs we pressed, however, generated cash.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:51 (eighteen years ago)

Out of interest, what's on itunes of yours?

― Drooone, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:57 (eighteen years ago)

the Society of Rockets' "Where the Grass Grows Black"

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:07 (eighteen years ago)

it's should only be about the 4 track digital EP...

...twice a year

especially for hiphop...

― pollywog, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:13 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, that's what I thought. for smallish bands, who still play out and aren't reliant on radio play, physical formats aren't going to disappear. you go see a band, you like them, you'll buy the cd there.

for giant pop acts I can see this being less of an issue as time goes on.

― akm, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:15 (eighteen years ago)

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