the end of the music album as the organizing principle

what? no.

The End of the Music Album as The Organizing Principle
Dave Allen
April 2, 2009

It doesn’t seem that long ago since Radiohead did what was once unimaginable - release an album without being signed to a major record company. On the long march to digital ubiquity as the means of music delivery Radiohead avoided the tar pit that seems to be major label thinking and came out clear winners. Yes, they resorted later to releasing the album as a good old CD into regular retail distribution but they were pioneers and were soon followed with great success by Nine Inch Nails and to lesser success by many others. Both these bands had an understanding of what their fans wanted [price level choice, quality and special packaging] and both bands understood the power of the internet for marketing purposes and direct reach. [NB: Although I believe that the digital music file will rule the day, vinyl still has a role to play and I'll get to that later.]

The most interesting part of this experiment [which at the time, I would argue it was] was not only that it was wildly successful but it laid the groundwork for what I have coined the end of the organizing principle. In other words I suggest that we are now seeing the end of the album-length work as the permenant work, the everlasting body of work that represents the pinnacle of an artists’ creativity. I am fully expecting to hear the howls of derision over this but bear with me.

If you were honest how many albums do you own that demand to be listened to from beginning to end? AV Club recently came up with a list of 25, some of which I agree with and Rolling Stone, Spin and other mags regularly post their lists of the “all time greatest albums” whether its 100 or 50 or less. My band Gang Of Four’s album Entertainment!is often featured on these lists but take it from me it has its flaws. The problem with lists and suggestions is that they are all subjective. Being engaged by music requires too much of a personal commitment on an emotional level for anyone to be able to provide an ultimate list. [Imagine if an art critic attempted to make a top ten list of the world's greatest paintings. Why does popular music suffer from this conceit?]

We live in an era of MP3 players, streaming internet radio, web apps - not to mention the iTunes music application and its ability to shuffle your entire digital music collection - now the cloud and almost-mobile ubiquity, the list goes on; in what part of digital music culture does an album-length piece of work now reside?

I’ll answer that question - I believe it has no place in a digital future.

The original organizing principle of music was of course hand written, composed. It then moved along to sheet music and with that came revenue from sales to the musical public and by so doing helped to move revenue income beyond just ticket sales to the opera or orchestra performances. This wasn’t enough though. It was as if music was demanding to be organized and soon enough inventors jumped in to the fray and began organizing music recording and playback - at first on tin foil.

“From the earliest phonographs in 1877, courtesy of Mr. Thomas A. Edison, the cylinder was the preferred geometric form for a sound recording. The first records were made on strips of tinfoil, the predecessor of household aluminum foil, wrapped around a 4-inch diameter drum. The drum was hand-cranked at about 60 revolutions per minute (RPM) and the phonographic apparatus made sound impressions upon the foil. The expected lifetime of a foil recording was short because after a few playbacks the sound impressions were either worn down or the foil had ripped.” [Source: Tinfoil.com]

And then along came the wax cylinder which turned out to be too fragile for popular use. Music lovers had to wait until 1930 which was when RCA Victor launched the first commercially available vinyl long-playing record, marketed as “Program Transcription” discs. These revolutionary discs were designed for playback at 33⅓ rpm and pressed on a 30 cm diameter flexible plastic disc. [Source: Wikipedia]

Technically then, we can say that 1930 was the year that the organizing principle for the length of a popular music album was implemented, and with the advent of that organizing principle it is worth noting that musical artists had no control over the length of time their masterpiece would run; they were at the mercy of contemporary technology. Album length, roughly 35 minutes over two sides of vinyl, was simply a decision made by technologists who did not consult artists. [The gatefold sleeve containing double and triple albums became the norm later for rock bands with more to say - for better or worse.]

If musicians and bands were not part of this decision in the first place then why would they complain of what modern technology now brings - their craft has been unchained from early technological limitations and they now have endless amounts of time and bandwidth to spread their creative message far and wide; along with unfettered artistic control.

The Browser is The New iPod.

On March 24th I attended the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville as a speaker. That morning I heard the keynote speech by Rio Caraeff, EVP eLABS at the Universal Music Group. The stand out phrase from him that resonated with me was “the browser is the new iPod.”

He spoke of lamenting the loss of the experiential and tactile nature of recorded music; he missed the tactile experience of music delivered in its vinyl and cardboard form [his father was the famous album sleeve art director, Ed Caraeff.] The digital file, he argued, had stripped the experience from the music; listening to music was now a flat and unemotional activity compared with holding a well-designed sleeve filled with images, lyrics and artwork. Because of this flat experience he predicted that there would be no future for selling recorded music directly to music fans.

He mentioned one area of success for Universal; the advent of the video game. An all-encompassing experiential medium that included more than just the games - the games came with a community of like-minded people and music. They also generate millions of dollars especially through the subscription fees that are required for online gaming activity.

Welcome to the Cloud

With his phrase ‘The browser is the new iPod’ Caraeff alludes to the ubiquitous access that we have to music. The browser is no longer limited to laptop or desktop computers - mobile devices have browsers too and in the case of the iPhone the music apps have been wildly successful. 4G promises to expand music delivery to mobile users even farther. Very soon there will be even less reason to ‘own’ music as it will be easily available at our fingertips everywhere. The cloud is the perfect place for storing your music collection. All of the above condemns the album to the trash can of history, it also suggest that online music subscription services may finally gain the upper hand.

So what are musicians to do?

First they must put nostalgia, tradition and the old business models and paradigms far behind them. They must, as Umair Haque argues with regard to any business - provide something of value. Haque also pushes the concept of ‘ideals’ - “because they are what ensure the value we are creating is authentic, deep, meaningful value — not just the shabby, threadbare illusion of value.” [Ideals were sorely lacking when the labels sold CDs full of filler for $18.99.]

Humans are subconsciously moved by the emotion of music, it provides a link to their ancestry and to their tribes, it stirs not only positive but sometimes negative feelings linked to moments in time and is often steeped in nostalgia and memories. No other art form is ‘consumed’ as broadly and passionately as music on a daily basis around the world.

How music was delivered used to be in the hands of the few - bands, concert promoters, record companies and their retail distribution companies, radio, and video shows such as MTV. In tech-speak this system embraced ‘push’ - we the mighty and powerful will “provide you” [at a price determined by "us"] with access to our treasures when “we” feel like it. These days that system is rapidly breaking down as music fans now ‘pull’ what “they” want to listen to.

Control has moved from the few to the millions of many. Dull labels and dull bands offering dull, flat, non-experiential product e.g. a CD, will go the way of the CD as it goes the way of the Dodo. Consider what Cirque Du Soleil provides as an experience compared to Barnum and Bailey’s circus. Or Burning Man compared to your average music festival. Even the Las Vegas Beatles-themed show ‘Across The Universe’ wipes the floor with most rock concerts these days.

Music fans are no longer patiently waiting for their favorite bands to deliver new music according to the old customary cycle - album, press release, video, radio, tour. No, the fan base has to be regularly and consistently engaged. Some Ideas:

• First, communicate openly and ask your fans what they want from you
• Listen to what they have to say. Really listen
• Provide unique content such as early demos of new songs
• Never under estimate the power of a free MP3
• Forget completely the idea of an organizing principle. Invent a new one
• Use social media wisely. Twitter and Facebook Pages are best, MySpace is too cluttered
• Don’t push messages to your fans, have a two way interaction with them
• Invite them to share, join, support and build goodwill with you
• Scrap your web site and start a blog
• Remember to forget everything you know about the CD “business”
• Start to monetize the experience around your music
• Remember - the browser is the new iPod

And finally I leave you with one organizing principle that works as a tactile and experiential format and gives great pleasure - the vinyl album. Having said that I do not want to contradict any part of this article as I do not suggest using vinyl as a format for delivering an album-length piece of work. I do suggest using vinyl for the physical manifestation of your demos, out takes, live tracks etc, and always accompany it with a coupon for free download of any related digital product.

"Too many brackets, Allen."

Very strange piece, really. In fact rereading through it again it gets stranger, my reaction is somewhere between "Well, um, yeah, we knew that already" and "The hell?"

I do suggest using vinyl for the physical manifestation of your demos, out takes, live tracks etc

waaaaht

what he means but doesn't want to say in as many words is "you can still actually turn a profit with vinyl"

there is some serious straining for coherence there, which it never actually achieves. reminds me a little of john mellancamp's old-man-yelling-at-clouds routine, but at least dave allen isn't grumpy about his imaginary future and doesn't say anything like "nobody can sing the chorus to a single mariah carey song."

on the bigger question though, "the end of the album" is getting to be the new "death of the novel." people keep talking about it, and it keeps not happening. if anything i think ipods and digital files create whole new kinds of possibilities for the idea of "album," which have sort of barely been tapped. (also, nobody tell thomas friedman "the browser is the new ipod," because it's the kind of tortured quip he'll spin a whole nonsensical book out of.)

I've never quite understood why digital downloads and shuffle features are supposed to spell the end of interest in cohesive album-length collections of music. There have always been alternate formats--singles, mixtapes, the radio, Greatest Hits collections, compilations--and they haven't killed the concept yet.

Weird, weird article. Too many head scratching moments to count. Like this:

"[Imagine if an art critic attempted to make a top ten list of the world's greatest paintings. Why does popular music suffer from this conceit?]"

Can he possibly be serious? Have you ever seen a weekly list of the country's most popular paintings?

1 through 9 spots held by Thomas Kinkade, 10 by Wyland.

It's not like you ever see lists of the world's greatest movies or books.

MICHELANGELO #1 4EVA

The oddest thing about the article is actually imagining the intended audience (given the site it's on as well).

May or may not get around to reading this. But the passage below, from Xgau's latest Consumer Guide published this week, is probably relevant anyway:

This Consumer Guide includes four full A's, the most I recall in a single month this decade. They're not slam-bam -- except for Lily Allen, every one had to grow on me till now I enjoy nearly every cut. The album is dying, we are told, and sure it's fallen on hard times. I keep listening anyway because aesthetically the long-form hasn't worn out, and right now I'm feeling evangelical about it.

http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/

i was really surprised to see 2009 on the date after the first post on this thread

the 2nd Lily Allen album was a 'slam-bam' 4-A classic? that guy's on some new kinda crack. This Gang of Four guy sounds like he went to a conference, had a light bulb moment and was then famous enough for some other old guy to publish his 'revelations'. Comment above OTM about keeping the iPod/Browser comment away from Thomas Friedman.

i was really surprised to see 2009 on the date after the first post on this thread

― d20 riot tard (M@tt He1ges0n), Sunday, April 5, 2009 10:34 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

ditto

I just bought two wonderful new albums on vinyl yesterday.

"the end of the album" is getting to be the new "death of the novel." people keep talking about it, and it keeps not happening. if anything i think ipods and digital files create whole new kinds of possibilities for the idea of "album," which have sort of barely been tapped.

I agree. The article loses credibility early on when he overlooked the very important fact that the concept of the album actually came into being in 1908, when Deutsche Grammophon put an entire performance of the opera Carmen in an album of several 78 rpm discs. Odeon issued "The Nutcracker Suite" in that form the next year. Artists weren't limited by media format, but rather, the formats evolved to meet the needs of both artists and audiences.

The expectations of performances have varied over the years, depending on the setting. I believe when the Beatles were playing the clubs in Germany, they would do several sets that would span several hours every night. But a few years later their performances were concise sets of their hits that often clocked well under half an hour. It seems like it wasn't until the end of the sixties when audiences started to expect much longer sets, often because their experiences were augmented with drugs.

The standard set for an opening band now is usually 30-45 minutes, with headliners going anywhere from an hour to four hours. I can't see the demand for albums going away, because who's going to bother paying for tickets when the entertainment involves only hearing a few singles? No matter what formats evolve, there's always going to be demand to hear songs from an artist for at least half an hour, both in recorded form and live.

A piece about the end of the music album shouldn't begin with an example of a band releasing an album. I can't imagine Radiohead would have gotten near the amount of press had they released 3 songs that you could download at a price of your choosing.

There's a lot conflated in that issue and so it's hard to untangle the argument. I wanted to comment on just one thing:

"In other words I suggest that we are now seeing the end of the album-length work as the permenant [sic] work, the everlasting body of work that represents the pinnacle of an artists' creativity."

It seems curious to think of art as "permanent" and "everlasting". But Allen suggests that he means the "organization" that the album provides to songs as what is no longer seen as "permanent" and "everlasting". Allen suggests that as a consequence, "Control has moved from the few to the millions of many." The question is then how is the artist to make money given this loss of control. He suggests that the album as an organizing principle was always merely a material matter, at first because of the physical media involved, later because of the financial wealth the album brought about for music companies.

Maybe that was how Gang of Four saw their albums, as organized merely for material reasons, but some musicians see albums as artistically organized as well. That's connected to material matters: on the standard story, the Beatles became an album-oriented band for artistic reasons, and their financial success doing so pushed other musicians to follow on this. I don't see why the album will die out as an artistic organizing principle for those musicians interested in organizing their songs that way.

Yeah, my sense is that iTunes/shuffle culture will maintain a space for an album because, oddly enough, they are convenient. If you want to listen to music for 30 to 60 minutes, you can either shuffle your whole collection (which leads to some jarring transitions), take the time to build a playlist, or else let someone else "build the playlist" for you in the form of an album. Apple is trying to kill it with the Genius/DJ things in iTunes, but it seems like they have a long way to go.

Apple is trying to kill it with the Genius/DJ things in iTunes

Not at all, it's merely a way for fans to hear familiar songs in a new context. It's not a malicious move on Apple's part, if anything it's in their to keep the digital album format alive so they can sell an "album's worth" of songs for $9.99 instead of a couple single tracks for $.99 each.

if anything it's in their INTEREST*

bring back the song cycle, I say

Actually, I'm sure you're right, that was worded too strongly.

Hear, hear!

xpost

Why do some people seem so keen on killing off the album format?

.zip files can be albums too

Provide unique content such as early demos of new songs

no thx

Jordan without your early demos I can have no sense of your artistic validity. :-(

If you were honest how many albums do you own that demand to be listened to from beginning to end? AV Club recently came up with a list of 25, some of which I agree with and Rolling Stone, Spin and other mags regularly post their lists of the “all time greatest albums” whether its 100 or 50 or less. My band Gang Of Four’s album Entertainment!is often featured on these lists but take it from me it has its flaws. The problem with lists and suggestions is that they are all subjective

Wow. I learned something.

who does the author take himself to be speaking to? That might explain the weirdness of this article.

The thing with albums is, sometimes I listen to 1 song, sometimes 2 or 3 or 4 songs, and sometimes the whole thing, and that's the way I've been doing it for 30 years. I never knew it was supposed to be an all-or-nothing deal.

You should be burned.

Why do some people seem so keen on killing off the album format?

because they don't really like it as a format or the way the industry is structured around doing things this same way for so long

Many (most?) musicians are still in love with the idea of the album. Ergo, Dave Allen is a gobshite. Vis-a-vis. Concordantly.

MICHELANGELO #1 4EVA
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, April 5, 2009 3:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

(bows)

Not at all, it's merely a way for fans to hear familiar songs in a new context. It's not a malicious move on Apple's part, if anything it's in their to keep the digital album format alive so they can sell an "album's worth" of songs for $9.99 instead of a couple single tracks for $.99 each.

If anything, the Genius/DJ will actually churn up new songs that you might not actually know.

"what I have coined the end of the organizing principle"

Seems like an awfully vague and general idea to invent this late in the proceedings, but anyway.

Oops. Here is his reaction to someone slamming his article in Billboard: http://www.social-cache.com/tag/organizing-principle

Use social media wisely. Twitter and Facebook Pages are best, MySpace is too cluttered

Yeah but who goes to Twitter to advertise their new album? No one that's who. They go to bloody MySpace (or to lesser extent last.fm/emusic etc perhaps), wether we like it or not.

Whenever anyone thinks "hmm whats this band sound like" they don't go to bloody Twitter to find out!

This is a bizarre article, and like everyone's said this argument's been made for years.

My bf, bless his proggy heart, is saying he's going to release hour-long mp3s with song "sections", to force people to have to listen to his album the way he intended it, haw.

So what are musicians to do? First they must put nostalgia, tradition and the old business models and paradigms far behind them. They must, as Umair Haque argues with regard to any business - provide something of value.

Uh, tangibles in this regard - ie CDs and vinyl - ARE "something of value," fuck you very much

cds are about as valuable as used toilet paper these days

the end of money as the organizing principle of the music album

Yeah but who goes to Twitter to advertise their new album? No one that's who. They go to bloody MySpace (or to lesser extent last.fm/emusic etc perhaps), wether we like it or not.

Whenever anyone thinks "hmm whats this band sound like" they don't go to bloody Twitter to find out!

Twitter will probably become more popular for promotion tho. MySpace should eventually become tidy enough to make going there to hear new material less of a chore, but will be eclipsed by the likes of some Spotify/last.fm fusion when it comes to this process anyway.

I agree with quite a bit of this article anyway. Despite some dubious points there are many sound ones.