What counts as an 'album' nowadays? - Music

Rockdrigo

Gender: Male
Age: 29
Location: Cochabamba, Bolivia

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

It was just aggressive.

And your right, it is your opinion, which you can have, it's just a shit opinion.

Glad to see the forums are as outsider-friendly as ever.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

You're critiquing art based on extra-artistic qualities…

How is length not a quality to consider when talking about music? It's the canvas on which the work exists. Music lasts for a time, as paintings occupy a space. If not using your framework correctly is not a valid criticism, what is?

It’s ironic, because you commented on the “Women's History Month” thread, which actually IS about celebrating music for non-musical reasons.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

…your biases and preconceptions of what music (or, in your case, the rock album as a format)

What’s the “rock album format”? We are not in the 70s anymore; most recording musicians, regardless of genre, want to create on album format out of their own volition.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

A quadruple album can leave a lot to be desired when exploring the possibilities of its theme or whatever…

The “too long” discussion is a whole different beast, since it’s not about not living up to your potential but about overstaying your welcome. Since this is about EPs, I rather not go there.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

…ten minutes can be an impactful statement, and vice versa. […] I don't have the shit opinion that time is correlated to quality.

I did not say it works like that, I’m just stating you need a bare minimum time to convert me into thinking you did your best and not just rushed it out.

You can make a lot of great things in 10 minutes, but 10 minutes of genius seem a lot less impressive when the art form pulls-out 40 minutes of genius regularly.

baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

Rockdrigo wrote:

It’s ironic, because you commented on the “Women's History Month” thread, which actually IS about celebrating music for non-musical reasons.

I'm pretty sure everyone in that thread is celebrating the music we're posting based on its own artistic merit.
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DommeDamian
Imperfect, sensitive Aspie with a melody addiction

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: where the flowers grow.

Rockdrigo wrote:

raadfactoryxny wrote:

EP:

3-8 tracks (no more no less)
+
15-39mins

Don't you think 39 minutes is too long for an EP? Last time I checked, the standard album was 40-45 minutes long, which implies you think almost half of what people consider to be an album not an album.

Maybe 15-35mins then, but it means that Eazy-E's It's On is an album
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Kool Keith Sweat

Rockdrigo wrote:

What’s the “rock album format”?

The popularity of the 33 1/3 LP rose almost concurrently with the dominance of rock in popular music. It's where this assumption

Rockdrigo wrote:

40 minutes

comes from. The popular canon is almost entirely 40 minute albums because of the limitations of the LP. It's what most people grow up listening to, so entire cultures have a bias towards the normality of a ~40 minute chunk of music. A moment of introspection on whether you're listening to music for music or whether your listening for whether music is in a culturally inculcated frame might help.

Rockdrigo wrote:

We are not in the 70s anymore; most recording musicians, regardless of genre, want to create on album format out of their own volition.

You're right, we're not in the '70s anymore, which is exactly why musicians aren't bound by the limits of relict physical media but only the expectations left behind (e.g. 40 minutes). An excellent example that comes to mind is Autechre's release schedule the last few years - they are finally realizing the freedom of the digital age. And your viewpoint is still skewed towards popular music (rock). Classical and jazz lean towards compositions, which range from seconds to years. >80% of house and techno are singles, not LPs. There are performances that are never recorded. There is music that never ends. And music that never was. Some composers and musicians bend time and space like taffy. And what are you listening for? 40 minutes?

Imagine this. The Mona Lisa. Now imagine the Mona Lisa enlarged 2x. Now imagine the frame the museum put around the Mona Lisa enlarged 2x, but it surrounds the originally-sized Mona Lisa. I imagine the second doesn't seem so silly but the third one does. Would you critique the Mona Lisa in the third scenario any differently than the first? Wasn't it the museum's folly to put such a silly frame around the Mona Lisa? According to you, the third scenario is only "half a statement." I use frame instead of canvas (or time for musicians, like you said) because you are explicitly not concerned with what musicians do with their time but rather that they fill some frame that you think is a proper size, like a 40-minute release, the rock album format.

Rockdrigo wrote:

Glad to see the forums are as outsider-friendly as ever.

Also, this is always used whenever there's a disagreement. No one's here to pat you on the back for your utterances. If you don't want strong discourse then don't share strong opinions.

baystateoftheart wrote:

I'm pretty sure everyone in that thread is celebrating the music we're posting based on its own artistic merit.

Also, this. We're categorizing music based in gender. We're not critiquing music based on gender. Lrn 2 think critically.

Last edited by Kool Keith Sweat on 03/16/2019 01:59; edited 1 time in total

Rockdrigo

Gender: Male
Age: 29
Location: Cochabamba, Bolivia

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

We're categorizing music based in gender. We're not critiquing music based on gender. Lrn 2 think critically.

I’m critiquing how you feel insulted that I consider length-managing a valid music-related topic, yet feel comfortable bringing up a totally unrelated one (gender) to a music conversation. Lrn 2 read m8.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

[Wouldn’t it be] the museum's folly to put such a silly frame around the Mona Lisa? According to you, the third scenario is only "half a statement." I use frame instead of canvas (or time for musicians, like you said) because you are explicitly not concerned with what musicians do with their time but rather that they fill some frame that you think is a proper size, like a 40-minute release, the rock album format.

This painting comparison is getting out of hand. There is not a format for paints with a distinguishable track record at showing the best the art form has to offer, as I believe there is for recorded music.

I do care about many other aspects, you are just supposing otherwise because one of those variables makes you uncomfortable.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

- It's what most people grow up listening to, so entire cultures have a bias towards the normality of a ~40 minute chunk of music.
- You're right, we're not in the '70s anymore, which is exactly why musicians aren't bound by the limits of relict physical media but only the expectations left behind (e.g. 40 minutes).
- The popular canon is almost entirely 40 minute albums because of the limitations of the LP.
- A moment of introspection on whether you're listening to music for music or whether your listening for whether music is in a culturally inculcated frame might help.

It may be hard to believe but not everybody lives like in your country. Where I come from no one listens to albums. Nobody told me to like the album format, I made the choice to explore its world because it looked fun.

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

[Autechre's is] finally realizing the freedom of the digital age. Classical and jazz lean towards compositions, which range from seconds to years. >80% of house and techno are singles, not LPs. There are performances that are never recorded. There is music that never ends. And music that never was. Some composers and musicians bend time and space like taffy. And what are you listening for? 40 minutes?

Doesn't it occurs you that I KNOW there are many more ways to make and listen to music than albums, yet I still find albums the most compelling one? I rather not eat whatever random shit artist decide to make-up trying to stand out. I have reasons to like what I like. I gave you some of them, yet you prefer to go off tangents.

You seem to have a fixation with the 40 minutes too, when it’s just a number I used as an example. I even said I can see how a 20 minute album could feel “complete” in my very first post, if you are even reading them. Seems you are just supposing things at this point, like:

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

Your viewpoint is still skewed towards popular music (rock)

I didn’t say that. What I did say was that artists, regardless of genre, shift towards making albums, including independent ones that don’t need to oblige to any industry’s standards (just take a look at Bandcamp, ffs). The album format just ticks most people’s boxes because (maybe, just maybe) it’s a good, rounded format.

Clearly we will not see eye to eye, since what you find restrictive I find liberating. I didn’t even shit on the EP format, just stated why I feel it’s incomplete; yet you are cool with dismissing the format you don’t like as “entry level to the real shit”. I don’t assume everybody else is just ignorant, but you act like musicians and listeners are going to come to a similar conclusion to yours because yours is right.

(This next rant is veering off-topic, but anyways…)

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

Also, this is always used whenever there's a disagreement. No one's here to pat you on the back for your utterances. If you don't want strong discourse then don't share strong opinions.

I don’t have problems with a strong discourse, if what you want to do is have an actual discussion and not sneak low punches every few lines to feel more secure about your opinion. You didn’t even say anything until I asked you to explain yourself. If you didn’t notice, I’m calling you out on your dickness aside from giving arguments, not instead.

It’s almost a joke at this point that the forum dwellers wonder how to attract more people while shooting down opinions that go against their cannon. If a user’s first post experience was getting it shun down on a sardonic tone as “naïve”, “boxed-in” or straight-up “shit” (by a moderator, no less), I doubt he would stay around for long.

I guess is good to know that I have to “take it like a man” if I ever dare to share an incorrect opinion on how to enjoy my hobby.

ForegroundNoise
for worn-out boys

Age: 26

I know this topic has gone cold for a little while but...

With the 2010s ending, I wanted to collate a list alongside my favourite albums of the decade with my favourite EPs (**I tend to differentiate these as full-length release and short release, with my cut off being 30 minutes, see the above posts for justification**).

Now I understand that this site wants to celebrate the 'album' as an art format, and I respect that decision entirely; the last thing we want to see is lists clogged with singles of songs that have already seen release on albums or compilations. But...

Since the definition of 'album' as designated by artistic intent is not one that this site follows (some EPs count as 'albums' according to BEA's rules, others not) I feel the assimilation of EPs into the site is something that it still struggles with. It's clear that this assimilation can be done; sites such as Album Of The Year and Rate Your Music have managed to do this effectively.

While there is nowhere for me to keep a record of some my favourite EPs this feels like a problem that is driving me away from the site, which is something I'd obviously like to keep as very much a last resort.

In a similar vein to the above two sites that I have mentioned, I would be happy to keep things between albums and EPs as entirely separate if albummaster thought that was necessary, with EPs getting a separate identification and existing in ranked charts that were entirely separate to the album ones. I understand that the site is going through a major overhaul at the moment, and this would entail another massive amount of data moderation so I understand if something like this wouldn't be immediately possible.

This is just my suggestion, but I am open to the suggestions of others that I have seen voiced in the above thread. At the end of the day, I don't mean to be so reductive but the sentiment "good music is good music" really does ring true on a community site like this one. We're all here (hopefully!) to share music we love with other like-minded people with the end goal of showing them something which they might otherwise not have discovered themselves. Restricting what that music entails along the lines of an arbitrary numerical cut off point seems a little rash to me. If I am in the minority in voicing these opinions I also respect that too! - maybe I am beating a dead horse and should just get used to the idea that some great music will inevitably slip through BEA's cracks.

FN xx

albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

An album is determined based on the number of tracks/length of the material. Whatever the length of a release is (and the definition varies between US and UK etc), the length is the determining factor and BEA doesn't really differentiate between EPs and albums because all releases on BEA are also long enough to be classified as 'albums' (regardless of whether an artist calls a release an 'EP' or not); so whether a shorter-length album should also be known as an 'EP' seems quite arbitrary unless there is a clear guideline that can help distinguish these.

I personally wouldn't be against adding the ability to flag up EPs if there was clear guidance, but keeping the site true to its core 'album' concept is important (to me at least) as it holds together the whole site. I accept the argument that adding EPs would be useful for a lot of people and obviously want the site to be as inclusive and as useful as possible, but to achieve this, we'd need to think of a way of combining EPs without affecting the current functioning of the site. However, if EPs were added the argument would then be why not include singles (or individual tracks) as well, and this would pose a greater problem with the way things are at the moment, and this is one of the main balancing factors when pondering this.

PurpleHazel

ForegroundNoise wrote:

I know this topic has gone cold for a little while but...

Nothing wrong with you finding an older thread to post in rather than creating a new redundant one.

Quote:

With the 2010s ending, I wanted to collate a list alongside my favourite albums of the decade with my favourite EPs

There is a workaround for individual songs, but it wouldn't work with most EPs: you can add albums that contain the songs you want to include to your chart and then in the notes that appear above the albums enter the song's title.

The only option for EPs I can think of is starting your own Music Diary thread in the Music Diaries subforum and just make a list of them in the first post. You could also insert images under the titles, if you were willing to devote the effort, and create your own rudimentary chart. I realize this wouldn't be completely satisfactory, but maybe better than nothing. It obviously wouldn't be "alongside" your album charts. I've also seen members post their best song lists in the notes for a whole chart and you could do that as well -- the chart itself could just be some of the longer EPs that are in the database. One member here maintains lists of best films and visual artworks in the Music Diaries subforum.

I get your point, but comparing this site to RYM isn't completely fair because on RYM you can list songs, EPs and movies.

Given the work involved and the other issues albummaster delineated, unfortunately I don't think EPs under the time/track limits will be included in the database in the near future. One problem is there's no standardization of EPs -- some are short album length, others are extremely short -- the artists and labels can call almost anything they want to an EP.

You're far from alone about wanting EPs included. Others have definitely voiced that wish. Hope you'll stick around regardless.

albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

PurpleHazel wrote:

One problem is there's no standardization of EPs -- some are short album length, others are extremely short -- the artists and labels can call almost anything they want to an EP.

You're far from alone about wanting EPs included. Others have definitely voiced that wish. Hope you'll stick around regardless.

I think that's the crux of the issue, but I do recognise that some people really want to include EPs here and I wouldn't want that to be the main reason people stop visiting. I'm thinking of a way that EPs could be integrated without affecting the core functioning of the site (e.g. perhaps just allow them in custom charts - which didn't exist here a few years ago), but coming back to the first sentence again, that really is the showstopper. Unless there was some kind of lower limit (track count/length etc) which would stop singles being listed, it creates a back door that could water down the essence of BEA.

ForegroundNoise
for worn-out boys

Age: 26

PurpleHazel wrote:

I've also seen members post their best song lists in the notes for a whole chart and you could do that as well -- the chart itself could just be some of the longer EPs that are in the database

This is what I'm doing at the moment; detailing everything in a listening diary is a possible alternative though not half as accessible as the charts on this website.

PurpleHazel wrote:

Hope you'll stick around regardless.

What a lovely thing to hear! I guess the internet isn't all doom and gloom...

albummaster wrote:

I'm thinking of a way that EPs could be integrated without affecting the core functioning of the site (e.g. perhaps just allow them in custom charts - which didn't exist here a few years ago)

I was going to suggest just this! That way the overall charts would remain unaffected. Let me know how doable this is, I think this might be a good compromise.

As for the concern about singles: having dedicated lists on this site that rank the highest rated tracks of each decade still provide a decent avenue for people who want to categorise their favourite songs. Non-album singles that are also people's favourites I tend to find are a bit of a rarity.