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Albums Are Dead - Ola Englund's Thoughts

#301
GZboat said:
I haven't read the entire thread, so has anyone discussed this subject artistically? It took 60 years from the beginning of commercial music recording until artists were able to to work in a long-form format, the concept album. Generally thought to have started with Frank Sinatra's "In The Wee Small Hours" (1955), the concept ALBUM enabled artists to take up to 45 minutes to tell their listeners a complete story. Without it, our culture would be immeasurably poorer for the lack of "Sgt. Pepper's", "Pet Sounds", "What's Going On", "Days Of Future Passed" (and most of the rest of the Moody Blues work), "Phases and Stages", "Red Headed Stranger", "Mothership Connection", "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" and a host of other remarkable works. Sorry, but you just can't achieve those levels of creative storytelling in a 3 or 5 or 10 minute video. You just can't. If the album is dead because folks today can't pay attention that long, I pity them for what they'll miss.
Greg
P.S. So yes, my opinion of the OP's video is "********!". Really, this forum is censoring the word bullsh*t now? Pathetic!
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qui

Seriously, I agree with you. Perhaps the solution is the progressive rock 22 minute song (one per side) so a single is the same as half the album. Of course, record companies actually insisted on 'edits' of a radio-friendly length.

In my last band (I need to work on my next project) there were individual pieces, but we did a number of arrangements in which they were joined in continuous performances of up to one hour. That I liked very much, although it's challenging live to organise it, link it together, and ensure everyone is in the right place to do the right thing for every part, organise the sound (no rest for the sound engineer) and lighting (ditto lighting engineer). Worth it, though, at least to me.
 
#303
-Asdfgh- said:
Whether a less popular song is fluff depends on the overall breadth and concept of the album. There are some albums that are just the collection of songs available at the time the contract said an album had to appear. Those albums can die. I don't tend to buy albums from those sort of bands.
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I agree, but to some extent, an album's concept might be subjective based on how the artist organized the songs and how the listener hears them. For me, though, it's more about quality. Writing great songs is never easy, nor is being a master of any particular instrument. I need some of both to keep me interested.
 
#305
Albums, other than "greatest hits" compilations, are doing badly because, IMHO, most of the songs are filler and only two or three per album are worthy of release as singles.

But everything old is new again: prior to the Beatles (and to a lesser degree, the Beach Boys and Four Seasons) in the mid-1960ss, most albums were comprised of filler with only one or two really good songs worthy of being put on vinyl. Things changed dramatically in the mid-'60s when songwriters became performers and began crafting songs they were really proud of playing/singing in public. If a new generation of "songs first" performers comes along -- and I believe it will happen, someday -- albums (not necessarily on vinyl) will again become the preferred format for buying music.
 
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#306
Ola's video relates to some things discussed a few months back at an ASCAP event. Listening habits much like TV, movies, news & other media are totally different in the digital age. The #1 change is the ability to click or press a single button to skip or change what you are listening or watching. No need to get up and search physical media and make the change in (tapes, CD's, records, etc.) media in a machine.
so as was mentioned at the event, the value in physical media has depreciated immensely compared to digital. Further, there is little incentive to an album except as a promotional tool for some and another profit item for the Merch Table. Some bands only sell their albums at Merch Tables now.
 
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#307
Ancientangler said:
I agree, but to some extent, an album's concept might be subjective based on how the artist organized the songs and how the listener hears them. For me, though, it's more about quality. Writing great songs is never easy, nor is being a master of any particular instrument. I need some of both to keep me interested.
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I'm more prepared to tolerate a weaker song if the overall sweep and context is good. Obviously I have a limit on terms of how weak a song can be before I skip it even in the most carefully constructed concept album. In the absence of self-control, the 'next' button on modern audio players or software is problematic, though.
 
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#309
after having problems with my laptop lately, and no other way of listening to music at my place (still using a dumb-phone; have cd´s but no player) i finally decided to start a record-collection. (just could buy a cd-player but wanted to get into vinyl for a while now)

luckily i can have a player from a friend ("my" amp and speakers are also his :whistle:), but will be a damn expensive hobby.
good thing that i´m always broke :rollno:
 
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#310
thinking about it, an album used to be about ten four minute songs, of which three would be singles, three the B sides, and four there to make up the space, or 'pay homage' and often those four minute songs would get cut down by 30 seconds to make a more radio friendly single by losing part of the middle eight or something.
 
#311
For some listeners (including me), the value of physical albums is the ability to see who played on each track, assuming there were guest musicians. I'd venture a guess that about a third of my album collection was the result of seeing a particular player on someone else's album. While it may be possible to discover this information online by taking extra steps, I'm not interested in doing that.
 
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#312
basst scho said:
after having problems with my laptop lately, and no other way of listening to music at my place (still using a dumb-phone; have cd´s but no player) i finally decided to start a record-collection. (just could buy a cd-player but wanted to get into vinyl for a while now)

luckily i can have a player from a friend ("my" amp and speakers are also his :whistle:), but will be a damn expensive hobby.
good thing that i´m always broke :rollno:
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Like many markets, the vinyl market is about buying at the right time.
I got much of my classic rock collection for a nickel a title at the time CD was just coming to dominate the marketplace.
Thus used music stores sold the vinyl for a nickel a platter as a loss leader.

All these years later, I'm still spinning a copy of "Exile on Main Street" that was only ten cents (cost two nickels as it was a double album set). When I see a new vinyl copy of Abby Road for $17 at the bookstore it blows my mind, since you could get a BUTCHER COVER for $20 when I was a teenager.
 
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#313
Ancientangler said:
For some listeners (including me), the value of physical albums is the ability to see who played on each track, assuming there were guest musicians. I'd venture a guess that about a third of my album collection was the result of seeing a particular player on someone else's album. While it may be possible to discover this information online by taking extra steps, I'm not interested in doing that.
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There is some data space available in the (colour here) book for CDs, but I am not sure it would be enough to hold all of that and few players bothered to show such information after about 1991 anyway. I did see a few players that did show the extended information early on. I am not sure they even put that information on a CD any more. I have a tendency to even forget track names these days. In some ways that's an advantage of streaming services - track name and information visibilty, and even being able to review what you previously listened too. I am sure if I set up zeitgeist (I use Linux at home) I could review my listening habits.

I need to reconnect my hard drive to get my music collection fully accessible, though. I have my router totally hidden from view behind some custom woodwork but forgot to reattach the hard drive before sealing it up. I have it all backed up on my PC, though, I just haven't started up a server there to share over the network in the past couple of weeks. It would only take five minutes to reattach the drive ;)
 
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#314
-Asdfgh- said:
thinking about it, an album used to be about ten four minute songs, of which three would be singles, three the B sides, and four there to make up the space, or 'pay homage' and often those four minute songs would get cut down by 30 seconds to make a more radio friendly single by losing part of the middle eight or something.
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That generalization would apply more to the US market, I should think, particularly the late sixties and early seventies, where labels often slapped together albums in this fashion behind a hit single or two... In the UK, the bands I've followed like the Fabs and the Pistols were known for having non-album b sides... And the Fabs even left the two strongest songs off of Sgt Pepper because they had already been a single (Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane). In this case, the singles SHOULD have knocked some treacle off of Pepper. "She's Leaving Home?" Dire satire.
 
#315
Son of Wobble said:
That generalization would apply more to the US market, I should think, particularly the late sixties and early seventies, where labels often slapped together albums in this fashion behind a hit single or two... In the UK, the bands I've followed like the Fabs and the Pistols were known for having non-album b sides... And the Fabs even left the two strongest songs off of Sgt Pepper because they had already been a single (Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane). In this case, the singles SHOULD have knocked some treacle off of Pepper. "She's Leaving Home?" Dire satire.
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There were a heck of a lot of pop chart bands in the UK that were just singles and filler. Not bands I followed, but my sister did, so I was aware of the variable quality. I only liked excellent bands. Perfect musical taste.
 
#317
Son of Wobble said:
Like many markets, the vinyl market is about buying at the right time.
I got much of my classic rock collection for a nickel a title at the time CD was just coming to dominate the marketplace.
Thus used music stores sold the vinyl for a nickel a platter as a loss leader.

All these years later, I'm still spinning a copy of "Exile on Main Street" that was only ten cents (cost two nickels as it was a double album set). When I see a new vinyl copy of Abby Road for $17 at the bookstore it blows my mind, since you could get a BUTCHER COVER for $20 when I was a teenager.
Click to expand...

my entry into this is 74€ for 2 albums. :wideyed: (both special-editions in colored vinyl)
but 2 of my favorite albums i can hear again and again, so will be worth it.
 
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#318
basst scho said:
my entry into this is 74€ for 2 albums. :wideyed: (both special-editions in colored vinyl)
but 2 of my favorite albums i can hear again and again, so will be worth it.
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Yikes!

Incidentally, my butcher cover -- believe it or not -- was free! The clerk at the charity shop gave it to my girlfriend for nothing because it had no disc in it. I knew when she brought it home that I could see Ringo's turtle neck through the past over slick!
 
#319
I devalued it by peeling it... Oh well! Some Beatle fans have denounced me for the act,
as if I had bagged a wild rhino...

Photo on 2015-09-22 at 11.08.jpg
 
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#320
Incidentally, back on topic -- this album ^^^^ is typical sixties US record label fare in that it is composed of random
songs, specifically ones left off of other Capitol Beatles releases because US albums at the time only featured 10
tracks at a time the Beatles UK records had 12 or 14 tracks. Thus Capitol would form whole new albums out of left over bits.
 
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