| Author | Message | ||
     Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
After the long threads regarding potential piracy of ebooks, and suggestions that it's similar to the drop in sales the music business has seen in recent years, it's interesting to read this article here about album and singles sales:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16382648 If I'm reading it right, it suggests that the decline in album sales is more due to the huge rise (double in four years) of single tracks, as folk decide to buy just single tracks rather than whole albums, and not so much due to piracy. If piracy was the main reason for the drop in album sales, I'd expect a similar drop to be seen in single track sales, but this isn't the case. As an aside, certain songs do take a while to like so maybe a lot of buyers nowadays are massively restricting their listening by buying simply what takes their fancy at the time. Possibly the same would happen with anthologies and collections - folk may be able to pick out just the stories they want and no others at some point. Mick | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Which means, of course, that the structure and coherence of an album no longer counts for anything because nobody will listen to it all the way through. A striking example of how digital technology corrodes the meaning of experience. We have analogue bodies. We live in analogue time. The attempt to turn ourselves into digital creatures makes us stupid and insane. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Which brings me to the old idea of a "concept album". Some of my favourite old albums of the 70s are those where you simply sit down/lay back and listen to them all the way through, following the story they tell. Are concept albums gone nowadays? (remember, I'm an oldie, so I don't know much about modern music) | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
I'd say it's fairer to say that less people listen all the way through rather than no-one, though. However, it may be more than you or I realise, as many people nowadays listen to the likes of Spotify and lastfm, legal streaming services that allow whole albums to be listened to without necessitating a purchase unless one wants to keep any/all of the tracks. I wasn't clear in my post at all, but partly I was decrying the loss of the "collection", whether music or, potentially, fiction. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
Caroline - concept albums do still exist, but there are not so many as back in the 'seventies, partly, I think, due to the way people listen to their music - often as single tracks on portable players. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 77.98.13.43 |
Concept albums are definitely still happening - I've been listening to a lot of Moby this week (don't judge - it's ideal working music!) and his Destroyed includes a request that people listen to the album at least once from start to finish, preferably late at night (it's a soundtrack for empty cities). I digitised my whole music collection ten or twelve years ago, when I first started working at home. I go back and forth, sometimes listening to my whole collection at random, sometimes (like now) listening mainly to albums in full. Funny thing about playing at random is that you see similarities between unexpected artists - you'd be surprised how often I've mixed up tracks by Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Tricky, for example; or Mogwai, Moby and Broken Social Scene. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.131.175.211 |
Funny thing about playing at random is that you see similarities between unexpected artists - ============= Interesting. I often do that with my real-time book reviews. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I'm not convinced that the listening habits of the masses have really changed. The only thing the single-track download has done is render the singles charts redundant. The mass record buying public isn't interested in cohesive album-length statements (and never have been). They just want to listen to songs they like. As such, their iPod playlist is now - in effect - an enormous and perfectly personalised compilation album. The 'LP' has always been more the preserve of the 'real fan' (for want of a better term). That hasn't changed. There are still bands on there making albums intended to be listened to from start to finish. They won't go away. It's just not quite as popular as it once was. To be honest, if there is a decline in the LP, I blame the advent of the CD rather than digital. A 45 minute LP tended to mean that the tracks chosen were the cream of the crop. Now most bands seem to think they need to fill up every second of a 75 minute CD, and has there ever been a 75 minute long album where you can honestly say that every track was a killer?  | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.22.28.28 |
I got to interview a few bands last year and most of them have completely given up on the idea of albums as a way to make money. Chris Jericho (the wrestler and frontman of Fozzy) basically said that albums are just promotional tools now. He doesn't really care how people get hold them any more, he just hopes they get people coming to the live shows. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 77.98.13.43 |
A challenge, John! I sorted my albums by length in Windows Media Player and although there were lots of excellent ones that pushed eighty minutes, they were nearly all compilations. I found a handful of proper albums that long that I love all the way through, but it's notable that they are principally instrumental: - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, by Mogwai (76 mins) - Snivilisation, by Orbital (75 mins) - Yanqui U.X.O., by Godspeed You Black Emperor (74 mins) - Beaucoup Fish, by Underworld (73 mins) Lots of Smashing Pumpkins albums are about that length, but they're a classic example of CD-era albums that are just a bit too long. Longest album of vocal-led songs I have that I'd say was excellent all the way through is Blur's 13 (71 mins). | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Pink Floyd The wall - a double album, surely pushing 80 minutes. Not a bad note on it. I can listen to it forever. The Music - Welcome to the north - 70 plus minutes of musical ecstasy. in fact I'd go so far as to say that between all three albums made by The Music there's only one weak song in over 3 hours worth. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 217.20.16.186 |
I love this game. Stephen - HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE... Is it really 76 minutes long? I was always under the impression the second disc was a bonus. You've got me on YANQUI U.X.O, mind you... SMASHING PUMPKINS were actually one of the bands I was thinking of in terms of great 45 minute albums padded out with half an hour of filler. Weber - THE WALL's a strange one. I've liked it since I was a teenager, but of late I've found myself wishing Roger Waters had been just a little more focused. I don't think I'd be able to cut it down to 45 minutes, but I do find tracks like VERA/BRING THE BOYS BACK HOME, DON'T LEAVE ME NOW, and some of the other musical segues a bit of a chore to listen to. But I appreciate that they add to the overall texture of the piece. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
I'd agree with most of the stuff mentioned here (especially Stephen's wonderful choices!) but even so, this handful of albums is only, probably, the exception that proves the rule... | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 77.98.13.43 |
Ah - I got Hardcore Will Never Die via Amazon's MP3 store, so I didn't realise it was a 2CD set. Thanks, Mick! |