Just added to the archives is an essay entitled In Praise of Albums, which discusses the value of full-length albums. For a few years, there has been discussion over whether the album is dead, suggesting that today’s consumers only care about songs. It’s hard to say if this trend is definite or even if it’s good.
If you look at the history of recorded music, there was a time when technical limitations presented real problems. You could only record a few minutes, which means that jazz improvisation had to be trimmed down. Then, when you could record about 30 minutes worth of material, you could do more mature songs or record songs that worked together thematically. In the compact disc age, you could go up to 70 minutes in length, which actually turned out to be a problem. Who had 70 minutes of strong material? You end up with one good album’s worth of songs and a bunch of filler (i.e., weak songs or hip-hop skits).
But look at Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois. There’s a good case for the album. Maybe some people should just focus on singles, but I’d hate to think that albums would ever disappear. The Sixties provide evidence for the value of both singles-oriented artists and album-oriented ones. Maybe we need to settle for a healthy balance.
Please let me know what your favorite albums are.
UPDATE: I posted this last night and this morning there is a relevant article on the front page of The Washington Post: “Downloads Make Singles a Hit Again,” by J. Freedom du Lac. Here are the important parts:
Though sales of full-length albums were down 7.2 percent last year, the digital singles market grew by 150 percent, with 352.7 million individual songs sold online, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was by far the highest figure for singles sales in any format since 1973, the first year for which Recording Industry Association of America shipment data are available for singles. In late December 2005, weekly singles sales topped CD sales for the first time, as American consumers — many of them flush with holiday gift cards and loading new MP3 players — purchased 19.9 million digital tracks but just 16.8 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Lifehouse, a Southern California rock band, has sold 887,000 digital copies of its hit single “You and Me” — and just 770,000 copies of the album that includes the single… That may be what’s happening with D4L, whose album “Down for Life” has sold 304,000 copies — a paltry number compared with the strong sales of “Laffy Taffy” [the single which has sold more than 700,000 units through online music outlets].
But this part smells a little of pungent baloney to me:
Says artist manager Jim Guerinot, whose clients include pop singer Gwen Stefani and the rock bands Nine Inch Nails and Hot Hot Heat: “While somebody might view a scene from a play as being really well done, well performed and well written, most artists would prefer to have you watch the entire play. Musicians put their music out in a long-form format, complete with artwork, and their preference would be for you to experience their work that way.”
Bad metaphor. That’s not how albums are written or consumed. As I said above, I don’t think everyone has an album’s worth of material in them. Guerinot goes on to say what the real problem is:
Artists typically receive between 14 and 24 cents on the dollar (or, rather, the 99 cents) for the sale of a digital single, whereas they earn closer to $2 on the sale of a full-length album.
“I’d rather sell a pack of gum than a stick of gum,” he says. “I mean, you don’t see Marlboro wheeling out single cigarettes in racks. They’d rather sell you the carton.”
3 Responses
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girish Says:
This is an almost impossible question for me to answer because (excepting jazz), I’m an extremely album-oriented listener. Singles for me are the exceptions.
So, off the top of my head:
1950’s–”Songs For Swinging Lovers” (Frank) & “Kind Of Blue” (Miles)
1960’s–”Nashville Skyline” (Bob Dylan) & “The Beatles”
1970’s–”Marquee Moon” (Television) & “Rumours” (Fleetwood Mac)
1980’s–”Marshall Crenshaw” & “Let It Be” (Replacements)
1990’s–”69 Love Songs” (Magnetic Fields) & “Mama Said Knock You Out” (LL Cool J)
The 00’s are still young, but if I had to pick one, it’d be “Liz Phair”. -
The Pop View Says:
Wait, do you mean Liz Phair’s controversial self-titled album from 2003?
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girish Says:
Yup, that’s the one.
I know I’m in the minority.
Though I’ve discovered, not perhaps completely alone.
The ultimate index of all music rests in your ears, and this is (since 1999’s “69 Love Songs”) my most-played album.
And what’s amazing: the damn thing’s virtually inexhaustible.
Which gives me an idea for a possible post…