Would we encounter another bad decade for albums? - Music

Kool Keith Sweat

Concerning the '40s and echoing purple, I don't think I've ever really searched out or even heard of an album from that decade, and the only thing I ever seem to really come across in record stores are 10" 78s (though I know 12" 33 1/3s were available before the '40s). Though it's not an important album decade, I wouldn't be surprised if someone believed it was the most important decade for modern music. WWII really kicked off the globalization of music, with troops from multiple nations introducing popular and folk music to communities they were occupying as well as returning home having heard musics from those communities. Maybe not necessarily "fun" to listen to anymore, but the decade definitely presented a paradigm shift for access to new music and new musical influences.

As glynspsa noted, collections of tracks (and tracks themselves) have continued to grow in length corresponding to the growing possible length of commercially available media. 3-5 minutes on a 10" 78 or 7" 45; 40ish minutes on a 12" 33 1/3; 70-80 minutes on a CD; and now seemingly limitless via digital media (Autechre's elseq 1-5 and NTS Sessions 1-4 come to mind; not just several "albums worth" of material but discrete, intended collections of tracks, some of which are 30+ minutes, that could not fit on physical media cohesively). Interestingly, most listeners, including those on this site, still view tracks longer than about 7 minutes as "long" and albums longer than about 50 minutes as "long," so it seems that most people have not adapted beyond the capabilities of the LP. I don't really have a preference towards tracks, but I personally think 30-80 minutes is an easily digestible length for an album too. I don't know why, but I have a hunch that it relates to how long a live set usually is; some mutual relationship between how long a musician can play without tiring or retreading ground too much and how long a listener can remain attentive without tiring or feeling like ground is retread too much.

I believe economic viability is a non-issue. You can rent an engineer and a recording space for a few hundred bucks. I've witnessed impoverished musicians utilize kickstarter or just make an album in a free space (like their home, a church, a live venue, or a tunnel) on their own recording devices. If someone has access to an instrument, wants to express themselves through music, and has the live chops, they can record and distribute very cheaply. I believe money is only an issue if the musician is trying to capture something very specific in engineering or wants to diddle around with "studio trickery."

I believe that collections of tracks recorded during a similar period (the album) will never die. The rock-opera concept album might die in our lifetimes, but the album as a statement of who and where a musician is at the time of recording will not. Musicians tend to make more than one track; people tend to want to hear more than one track if they enjoy that musician. By recording and releasing their musical development at a somewhat constrained point in time (say, within a couple years as a max), a musician is already creating a cohesive document reflecting the facets of themselves at the time of recording. Even in a mixtape/playlist-centric culture, there's always those people who want the deep cuts and to get to the deep cuts you need the album. The single may be the dominant format of the mainstream (hasn't it literally always been?) but, though the mainstream represents the majority of music sales, the mainstream is the minority of musical output.

CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

I don't believe the album is going anywhere as an art form. Producing and releasing an album is easier and less expensive than ever before. And it costs very little on the consumer's part. Consequentially, there are more albums made nowadays than in decades past. However, not every musician is talented enough to be making whole albums imo. More albums doesn't necessarily mean more good albums. At the same time, the collective atmosphere of albums is shrinking. Personally, I get a lot of satisfaction as a music fan when I meet other people with shared tastes. But when it comes to new music, I rarely have any good conversations with people. 95% of the replies are either 'I rarely listen to new albums anymore' or 'I listen to new albums, but from artists you've never heard of.' In that sense, the current and future decades for albums are looking grim.
_________________
on such a winter's day

Luigii

Gender: Male
Age: 28

StreetSpirit wrote:

I don't believe the album is going anywhere as an art form. Producing and releasing an album is easier and less expensive than ever before. And it costs very little on the consumer's part. Consequentially, there are more albums made nowadays than in decades past. However, not every musician is talented enough to be making whole albums imo. More albums doesn't necessarily mean more good albums. At the same time, the collective atmosphere of albums is shrinking. Personally, I get a lot of satisfaction as a music fan when I meet other people with shared tastes. But when it comes to new music, I rarely have any good conversations with people. 95% of the replies are either 'I rarely listen to new albums anymore' or 'I listen to new albums, but from artists you've never heard of.' In that sense, the current and future decades for albums are looking grim.

I'm curious. What did they offer as new albums from unknown artist?

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

I think the only bad decade is the decade not yet truly discovered, at least that's what I'm coming to understand. I used to think the 70s suck, but then I look at my 70s chart and love it as much as I do as almost any other decade... I mean we played the decade and year game a few times and clearly 90s and 60s dominate for me, but sometimes only a little. Good music almost is always around.

Some don't like the 2010s... likely cause they haven't discovered much from it. (For me the 2010s doesn't have an identity I can put in a box, so that's still confusing, but great music, absolutely... from new artists and old geezers who won't stop till they drop).

Some don't like the 1950s for similar reasons, but the 50s was the climax for both classical and jazz music, as well as an amazing melting pot for new genre's/innovations, etc. It was a fantastic decade. I like these albums from it: Top 100 Music Albums of the 1950s by sethmadsen

Heck, I think every era in music has something to offer, you just have to look for it... and since we still live in the album era, the music pre-album era has been put nicely together in albums for your enjoyment. Whether that be music from the 40s, 30s, 20s, etc... heck I'm just wrapping up music from Antiquity to 1600. Sure the original format wasn't an album... it was a symphony or motet or something purely improv that changes, yet the "album" captured it in that moment. I suppose all I'm getting at is album is kind of a loose term. Is a jazz album the same as a Katy Perry album in format? Are they both considered albums? (those obviously are rhetorical).

This might be bogus, but the length of a CD has it's history with Beethoven. I've heard the same "myth/fact" on LP's.

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-musi...4-minutes/

Luigii

Gender: Male
Age: 28

"Some don't like the 2010s... likely cause they haven't discovered much from it. (For me the 2010s doesn't have an identity I can put in a box, so that's still confusing, but great music, absolutely... from new artists and old geezers who won't stop till they drop)."

Could you say that for the 2000's or the 1990's due to how even though there are big heavy hitters, the style was really varied? Or am I missing something.

Last edited by Luigii on 10/07/2018 01:36; edited 1 time in total

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

Concerning the '40s and echoing purple, I don't think I've ever really searched out or even heard of an album from that decade, and the only thing I ever seem to really come across in record stores are 10" 78s (though I know 12" 33 1/3s were available before the '40s). Though it's not an important album decade, I wouldn't be surprised if someone believed it was the most important decade for modern music. WWII really kicked off the globalization of music, with troops from multiple nations introducing popular and folk music to communities they were occupying as well as returning home having heard musics from those communities. Maybe not necessarily "fun" to listen to anymore, but the decade definitely presented a paradigm shift for access to new music and new musical influences.

As glynspsa noted, collections of tracks (and tracks themselves) have continued to grow in length corresponding to the growing possible length of commercially available media. 3-5 minutes on a 10" 78 or 7" 45; 40ish minutes on a 12" 33 1/3; 70-80 minutes on a CD; and now seemingly limitless via digital media (Autechre's elseq 1-5 and NTS Sessions 1-4 come to mind; not just several "albums worth" of material but discrete, intended collections of tracks, some of which are 30+ minutes, that could not fit on physical media cohesively). Interestingly, most listeners, including those on this site, still view tracks longer than about 7 minutes as "long" and albums longer than about 50 minutes as "long," so it seems that most people have not adapted beyond the capabilities of the LP. I don't really have a preference towards tracks, but I personally think 30-80 minutes is an easily digestible length for an album too. I don't know why, but I have a hunch that it relates to how long a live set usually is; some mutual relationship between how long a musician can play without tiring or retreading ground too much and how long a listener can remain attentive without tiring or feeling like ground is retread too much.

I believe economic viability is a non-issue. You can rent an engineer and a recording space for a few hundred bucks. I've witnessed impoverished musicians utilize kickstarter or just make an album in a free space (like their home, a church, a live venue, or a tunnel) on their own recording devices. If someone has access to an instrument, wants to express themselves through music, and has the live chops, they can record and distribute very cheaply. I believe money is only an issue if the musician is trying to capture something very specific in engineering or wants to diddle around with "studio trickery."

I believe that collections of tracks recorded during a similar period (the album) will never die. The rock-opera concept album might die in our lifetimes, but the album as a statement of who and where a musician is at the time of recording will not. Musicians tend to make more than one track; people tend to want to hear more than one track if they enjoy that musician. By recording and releasing their musical development at a somewhat constrained point in time (say, within a couple years as a max), a musician is already creating a cohesive document reflecting the facets of themselves at the time of recording. Even in a mixtape/playlist-centric culture, there's always those people who want the deep cuts and to get to the deep cuts you need the album. The single may be the dominant format of the mainstream (hasn't it literally always been?) but, though the mainstream represents the majority of music sales, the mainstream is the minority of musical output.

I strongly agree, especially with the last paragraph.

I do think some people have always been song people. They might own 10 albums and then mostly listen to the radio or whatever - and that's been the case since the 50s. I think there was an additional twist when apple released songs at 99 cents. But it's been like 20 years and artists are still releasing albums. Some have played around with that definition or how it's released, etc., but show me an artist who has been releasing music for 5 years and has strictly released singles cause that might be hard pressed to find to be honest.

The album is not dead. The album is life.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

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?

Can't there just be an upvote button for this comment Smile

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

StreetSpirit wrote:

I don't believe the album is going anywhere as an art form. Producing and releasing an album is easier and less expensive than ever before. And it costs very little on the consumer's part. Consequentially, there are more albums made nowadays than in decades past. However, not every musician is talented enough to be making whole albums imo. More albums doesn't necessarily mean more good albums. At the same time, the collective atmosphere of albums is shrinking. Personally, I get a lot of satisfaction as a music fan when I meet other people with shared tastes. But when it comes to new music, I rarely have any good conversations with people. 95% of the replies are either 'I rarely listen to new albums anymore' or 'I listen to new albums, but from artists you've never heard of.' In that sense, the current and future decades for albums are looking grim.

I thought this once or twice (ok for like 5 years straight...hehe). Do you think that could be because of our age?

I finally did what a good chunk of BEA users do all the time, and listened to like 200 or so albums from 2017. It took that many listens to find like 80 I liked, but still I found 80 good albums and probably 20 or more great albums. Best ever, probably not, but great, sure.

I've listened to like 5 albums from 2018, but I might do the same someday. I'm stuck in the past for now.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

baystateoftheart wrote:

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.

Wow, that's impressive. I won't discount other comments that BEA likely exploded with the want to find new music, etc., more than any other time before, as well as "amateur" artists having access to post their own albums on Spotify/SoundCloud, etc. Still very impressive and exciting.

And I agree, the album very likely will outlive us all.

CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

StreetSpirit wrote:

I don't believe the album is going anywhere as an art form. Producing and releasing an album is easier and less expensive than ever before. And it costs very little on the consumer's part. Consequentially, there are more albums made nowadays than in decades past. However, not every musician is talented enough to be making whole albums imo. More albums doesn't necessarily mean more good albums. At the same time, the collective atmosphere of albums is shrinking. Personally, I get a lot of satisfaction as a music fan when I meet other people with shared tastes. But when it comes to new music, I rarely have any good conversations with people. 95% of the replies are either 'I rarely listen to new albums anymore' or 'I listen to new albums, but from artists you've never heard of.' In that sense, the current and future decades for albums are looking grim.

Luigii wrote:

I'm curious. What did they offer as new albums from unknown artist?

I can't remember.

sethmadsen wrote:

I thought this once or twice (ok for like 5 years straight...hehe). Do you think that could be because of our age?

I have no doubt age has a lot to do with it for a number of reasons. Less free time for starters.