Would we encounter another bad decade for albums? - Music

paladisiac
= music

Gender: Male
Location: Denver

rkm wrote:

The only problem I foresee is that in the digital age, there is no imperative for artists to make albums at all.

this
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Luigii

Gender: Male
Age: 28

rkm wrote:

The only problem I foresee is that in the digital age, there is no imperative for artists to make albums at all. Consumer attention spans are shrinking, and so it’s conceivable that artists revert to releasing a steady stream of singles rather than larger statements such as albums.

Singles outsold albums prior to 1967, and again after 2009.

It’s ironic really, that attention spans are shrinking right when there is no technological reason for musical works to get longer, not shorter.

That is a thing we would have to wait and see. But I feel like artist will still make albums until the idea of capitalism ends or the artist are content to play the same songs over and over. And both options feel unlikely. And the weird thing is with the digital age, and keep in mind this is a personal opinion, I have been grateful of given the ability to listen to any album from anywhere from any decade. And whenever I get the money, I'll support the artist. I wouldn't say it's the attention span but more of the drive to go and find music. That is what I worry as I get older.

PurpleHazel

baystateoftheart wrote:

The last bad decade for albums was probably the 40s, and that was before the album was prominent as an art form.

i know what you mean, but counting the 40s as an album decade at all is unfair. The first commercially released 12-inch LP was around 1948. In 1952, 78's still accounted for more than half of record sales.

Luigii wrote:

What about the 50's? Thought to be honest I probably be trippin on that decade since I haven't heard that much from the 50's.

To me the 50's are superior to the last two decades. In that decade you had:

Kind of Blue
The Shape of Jazz to Come - Ornette Coleman
Brilliant Corners - Thelonious Monk
Mingus Au Um - Charles Mingus
Blue Trane - John Coltrane
Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins

And also the birth of rock!

There isn't any album in the last two decades that has the stature of Kind of Blue and The Shape of Jazz to Come. Only a few hip-hop albums come close.

rkm wrote:

The only problem I foresee is that in the digital age, there is no imperative for artists to make albums at all.
Singles outsold albums prior to 1967, and again after 2009.

Someone in another thread said that some recent albums are really just collections of singles as opposed to album statements. Going by rkm's numbers, it sounds like album sales are already on the wane, so the album as an art form could start being on the wane at any time, if it hasn't already.

Luigii

Gender: Male
Age: 28

PurpleHazel wrote:

i know what you mean, but counting the 40s as an album decade at all is unfair. The first commercially released 12-inch LP was around 1948. In 1952, 78's still accounted for more than half of record sales.

To me the 50's are superior to the last two decades. In that decade you had:

Kind of Blue
The Shape of Jazz to Come - Ornette Coleman
Brilliant Corners - Thelonious Monk
Mingus Au Um - Charles Mingus
Blue Trane - John Coltrane
Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins

And also the birth of rock!

There isn't any album in the last two decades that has the stature of Kind of Blue and The Shape of Jazz to Come. Only a few hip-hop albums come close.

rkm wrote:

The only problem I foresee is that in the digital age, there is no imperative for artists to make albums at all.
Singles outsold albums prior to 1967, and again after 2009.

Someone in another thread said that some recent albums are really just collections of singles as opposed to album statements. Going by rkm's numbers, it sounds like the album sales are already on the wane, so the album as an art form could start being on the wane at any time, if it hasn't already.

I do thank you for this comment. But the only thing I might and emphasize on might is that I could disagree on hitting the stature of albums like Kind of Blue or the The Shape of Jazz due to the ambition of a lot of electronic albums that I adore the fuck out of like Medulla or Geogaddi. Also still don't think albums will go out of style.

PurpleHazel

No, it'll be a very long time if ever before they go completely out of style. Vinyl never did, though it looked it was going to in the 90s. There will always be some Beatles or Nirvana fan who'll aspire to make cohesive albums, even they're niche artists. But the number of albums-as-art-forms could decline steadily and as time goes on, more rapidly, if it hasn't happened already.

baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

We need to stop making generalizations about music when what's being said is actually referring to mainstream popular music. Going by the BEA database, 2014 has the most albums of all time. Those were in large part the albums that users felt exemplified the album as an art form enough to put in their charts. In recent years, there has been democratization in the music industry that allows more people with fewer resources and without the approval of mainstream record labels to release music to wide audiences. I would argue that the album as an art form is healthier in the 2010s than it has been in previous decades. This is because the whole music-making ecosystem is healthier and more vibrant, not because the album has a higher relative status now when compared to other forms of music (to the contrary, if anything). Who knows what will happen centuries from now. But I will repeat that I am confident the album will outlive every single one of us.
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PurpleHazel

baystateoftheart wrote:

Going by the BEA database, 2014 has the most albums of all time.

The main thing that tells me is that there were a lot of albums that year, that it was a year during BEA's existence, and there were more users on here adding more current albums than any other in the BEA era. Also some users are chasing points.

Quote:

Those were in large part the albums that users felt exemplified the album as an art form enough to put in their charts.

All we know is that they liked the albums. Most of the albums probably exemplified the format for them -- in some cases because they like older albums less -- but we don't know if they thought the albums were great art (I realize we've been using terms like "album as an art form" and "album as a statement" interchangeably).

Quote:

In recent years, there has been democratization in the music industry that allows more people with fewer resources and without the approval of mainstream record labels to release music to wide audiences.

Absolutely true. Though there's also less money going into the system, so there are also less artists being able to make a living and devote as much time to music-making.

Quote:

I would argue that the album as an art form is healthier in the 2010s than it has been in previous decades. This is because the whole music-making ecosystem is healthier and more vibrant, not because the album has a higher relative status now when compared to other forms of music (to the contrary, if anything).

Albums as art being healthier and the music ecosystem being healthier are two different things. They're related, but by how much is debatable. If you're arguing that there are more, better albums now than in the sixties, seventies or nineties, I can't get behind that.

Quote:

Who knows what will happen centuries from now. But I will repeat that I am confident the album will outlive every single one of us.

PurpleHazel wrote:

it'll be a very long time if ever before they go completely out of style.

[Bold added]

rkm

Here’s some anecdotal things I’ve noticed about my own music consumption:

- Some albums I love from the 50’s and 60’s are only 30 minutes long (maybe 9 tracks, or even 5 if it’s jazz)
- From the CD era onward, particularly from the 90’s onward, many albums grew to 74-80 minutes long (maybe 16 tracks)
- Perhaps it’s conditioning, but I think a 40ish minute album of 9-10 tracks that all work brilliantly together, is the ideal.
- In the age of streaming, and making playlists, I find myself editing these longer albums down to version that I like, often in the 40 minute range, with 9-10 tracks. Sometimes less is more, and I’m surprised how much I love an album once I’ve ditched the stuff I don’t love. I sometimes wonder if artists give us too many tracks for this very reason.

My point in these observations is that I wonder if this sort of co-creation is becoming the norm? In that sense, it”s not that the album format is disappearing, it’s that the common experience of an album is disappearing.

You could argue that this has been an issue since the album was invented, as releases in different regions often had different running orders and tracks etc.

In future, what if the norm for artists became simply releasing single after single?
Would BEA turn into Best Ever Playlists, whereby we’re all desperately sharing playlists of compiled singles, voting them up and down in a desperate attempt for common cultural experiences from behind our lonely screens?

glynspsa

Gender: Male
Age: 52

rkm wrote:

Here’s some anecdotal things I’ve noticed about my own music consumption:

- Some albums I love from the 50’s and 60’s are only 30 minutes long (maybe 9 tracks, or even 5 if it’s jazz)
- From the CD era onward, particularly from the 90’s onward, many albums grew to 74-80 minutes long (maybe 16 tracks)
- Perhaps it’s conditioning, but I think a 40ish minute album of 9-10 tracks that all work brilliantly together, is the ideal.
- In the age of streaming, and making playlists, I find myself editing these longer albums down to version that I like, often in the 40 minute range, with 9-10 tracks. Sometimes less is more, and I’m surprised how much I love an album once I’ve ditched the stuff I don’t love. I sometimes wonder if artists give us too many tracks for this very reason.

My point in these observations is that I wonder if this sort of co-creation is becoming the norm? In that sense, it”s not that the album format is disappearing, it’s that the common experience of an album is disappearing.

You could argue that this has been an issue since the album was invented, as releases in different regions often had different running orders and tracks etc.

In future, what if the norm for artists became simply releasing single after single?
Would BEA turn into Best Ever Playlists, whereby we’re all desperately sharing playlists of compiled singles, voting them up and down in a desperate attempt for common cultural experiences from behind our lonely screens?

I think in this case it would simply evolve into lists of songs instead of albums.

manurock

I agree with much of what has been said here. However I wouldn't put ourselves as an example for the trend in society.

We are more music lovers than the mainstream, hence we still stick to albums because we like all the output being released by a great variety of artists and bands. We are also generally more keen to move away from the mainstream and enjoy this "democratic" output that's being released.

But what I see for most young people around me is that they just listen to the top singles of the moment and make playlists with them. So maybe, even if this digital music age benefits US because we can access many albums we wouldn't, I'm not sure if it benefits SOCIETY, or even the MUSICAL ARTISTS as a whole.

This, on the longterm, can decrease (and I think IS decreasing) the general quality of the albums released, as it won't be economically viable to make a well sounding cohesive album and only those who have a vocation (and the economic background) to do so will. The rest will just try to make the most addictive singles possible so that they go on radios, clubs and on everyone's Spotify playlist.