Is the album format sacred?
 

I know a lot of people who hate CDs if only for the reason that they make skipping songs so easy; it seems that there's a certain type of music fan who dismisses the shuffle function as pointless. They also tend to consider compilations not "true" albums, even when said comps include a wealth of non-album tracks.

While I can see where they're coming from, and certainly many albums operate best when listened to in sequence, I really believe that skipping tracks helps one to appreciate a given work. There are plenty albums (or album sides) that I love that I'd never have appreciated had I listened to the entire things all the way through; chalk it up to a faulty attention span or a skewered way of appreciating music, there are usually two or three songs that act as my gateway drug into a given album. No, those songs are, in fact, rarely the singles or the "big" songs.

It might seem foolish to say, but for me at least, this even applies to something like Tommy. I'm not interested in hearing "Tommy, can you hear me" or "see me, feel me" a thousand times each in the course of an hour. Annoying interludes that only function to advance the story and endlessly repeating phrases only distract from the great songs (Sally Simpson, We're Not Gonna Take It, Cousin Kevin) on that album.

This doesn't mean that I never listen to albums all the way through; in fact, the opposite is true. Still, if I'm not in the mood for a certain song, I don't hesitate to skip it.

I guess my position is that I'd rather have twelve great (but unrelated) songs than twelve medicore songs that fit together.

Obviously, there's no "right" or "wrong" here (as with most music related topics), just value judgments. Discuss...

If you're a truly brilliant artist then you should have brilliant albums, one's that i can listen to fully in one go and appreciate not only for their music but other factors such as a message or concept or the artwork, etc. Even some of my favourite albums have tracks i don't like but it doesn't matter because it takes nothing away.

As far as i can see the album format isn't sacred so much as it is necessary. If you take them out of the equation what do you have? Bands continously releasing singles or releasing single songs off of their website? It's impractical and a certain specialness is taken away.

I think this only really applies to 'proper' music fans though. I'm sure loads of people are happy with Limewire and an Ipod.

Obviously an album that has all great songs that stand alone and one that has all ok songs and is a cohesive album are both good albums for different reasons. It's much easier for me to enjoy an album that has no need to skip. I too don't really like segues that bore after the first listen. I think the problem with cds isn't that the listener can skip rather that some artists bank on the fact that the listener has the ability to do so and makes a very poor 20 song album with only half of the album being necessary.

I think that the importance of a cohesive album is overstated, most of the albums I listen to don't benefit that much from being treated as one whole, especially rap albums which seem to put less focus on it than rock.

But, when you do listen to an album that really comes together, and the different songs combine to create an atmosphere that resonates throughout the entire album, then it is incredibly satisfying.

So I always listen to albums all the way through the first couple of times, but after that I'll start skipping songs. Like Waspstar said, there are often 'gateway songs' that draw you in, and your appreciation spreads from there.

Well I'm a fan of listening to whole albums and I definitely appreciate the cohesive flow which goes with many of them. Unfortunately I don't have the time to listen to albums in full nowadays.

I'm an album man, along with Seltzer I'm often pushed for time, but I never skip a track, and I find it incredibly difficult to stop listening to an album once I've started. For me the album format is sacred, it is the best way to distribute and experience music. However I don't hate CD or digital format, becuase I honestly don't care how others listen to their music.

To me, the best album is one where every track sounds like a single. I don't care about flow and cohesion, I want one stand-alone gem after another.

That's why you don't listen to concept albums that put at the forefront some sort of narrative, like The Wall or, as you mentioned, Tommy. There's too much filler.

But there are albums that ARE sacred, with a sequence of songs impossible to skip, like In The Aeroplane Over the Sea or Loveless.

:laughing:

Guess we'll leave those distinctions up to you to decide what's sacred and what's not.

Oh come on now... :P

How is it impractical and lacking a "certain specialness"? Some great artists (especially in the soul/R&B fields) have never made great albums. Chuck Berry, Johnny Ace, etc. Even bands like the Who are best represented by their singles. One could make a case that "old school punk" (i.e., 1975-1979 or thereabouts) owes its reputation to singles, not albums.

After all, the "album" format is a fairly recent innovation. Traditionally, songs had to stand on their own. Now one can chalk up a mediocre song to being part of the bigger picture.


Oh, definitely! But, for me at least, I only get that orgasmic (sorry!) satisfaction when the songs themselves stand up. Listening to Skylarking all the way through, I feel somewhat cheated at the end. If I skip Mermaid Smiled, well, the final experience is totally different, in a good way.

If I find myself losing interest in an album, sometimes I'll even skip one of my favorites if I'm not in the mood for it. No sense in boring myself and getting irritated with an album just for the sake of continuity.

I hate to be nitpicky, but I personally think that Chuck Berry is best represented by some of his albums, particularly Chuck Berry Is on Top and St. Louis to Liverpool.

I think that the best albums are ones that flow perfectly and have no bad tracks. The Blue Album and Pinkerton by Weezer are perfect examples of this, as is Origin of Symmetry by Muse.

Still, I think I would take a collection of great songs with no flow over a collection of mediocre-great songs with great flow.

It's impractical because as far as i can see modern music works around the album format. It dictates how they tour, how they afford studio time and musically, for some, how they develop as artists (that could be argued against though). I know singles were a bigger format years ago and still with most pop artists but overall for most artists the album is where it's at.

Regarding albums being special, think of all the thousands of albums that are celebrated against the number of best-of's that are celebrated.

I can go either way. I appreciate some bands for their individual songs and some bands for their albums. One thing I think the album bands really have going for them for me though is that I love being able to immerse myself in for an extended length of time like you can with a unified-sounding album. Sometimes a single song just isn't a long enough experience for me.

i've also found these are typically the kind of music fans that believe the only 'pure' music out there adhere to the styles they grew up with.

the only time the album format becomes 'sacred' if you will, is in the case of a concept record where the pieces flow into each other with cohesive intentions and recurring themes, where individual pieces just don't sound right when played randomly. as has been stated earlier in this thread it's a hit or miss prospect. then again i find you need to know more about the artist than just their music to fully grasp and enjoy their concept albums.

i don't want to start an analog vs. digital battle here but another big factor to me is the physical element of the album. it's something that's completely lost on people who've never listened to anything besides cds or mp3s, just the physical act of having to flip over the record to get hear the other side becomes part of the listening experience. it completely changes the flow of the album for the listener.

gotta disagree with this. if anything the 'single' is getting stronger and more significant thanks to digital distribution where listeners pick and choose their songs. the individual songs don't need to be a commercial single but it's still single songs that make the sale now. i think the album format peaked in the 80s when AOR stood atop the mainstream heap.

it's not to say albums aren't significant anymore, but just like vinyl records, it's becoming a niche market.

I totally agree with this. But on the other end of the spectrum I've also wondered if the decline of the album will lead to compositions that break the constraints of the CD and vinyl formats by being much, much longer.

you mean like one shot discographies like you find or most torrent sites? or like that 200 year long piece of music that recently had something like it's 8th note played? hehe

personally i like the physical constraints of an album, especially vinyl over compact disc. the CD is great for compilations but generally speaking a 74 minute album is usually packed with filler. with records you had 44 minutes to say your piece, it's long enough to provide the listener with a rewarding experience but short enough that they don't have to make a substantial time commitment.

While the overall length of an album has certainly grown since the advent of the compact disc, I feel that there is the same amount of filler. The artists are usually pressed for more singles than before (three to four is the norm nowadays) but the proportion of filler to decent material has stayed relatively constant.

However, the structure of an album has certainly changed since vinyls were phased out.

Heh. Well I was thinking more along the lines of the second option but the first option makes sense too.

I just like the option to be able to do whatever. And for the first time we have a popular format where someone could write a two hour song that doesn't need to be split up to fit on two discs or anything. I could see this being really cool for live recordings too.

absolutely. i'm thinking instant live albums are the next step. sell them at the merch table after the show. just a matter of getting an affordable digital recorder and a few laptops.

None of this is objectively true (like that you couldn't tour in a singles-based industry, etc). All you're saying is "Album oriented music is the current form of the industry." While that's true, it doesn't mean it would be impractical for the industry to take a different form, like singles-based (a form it has taken before).

This again is a consequence of an album-oriented industry. If things are organized as albums, singles suffer. In a singles-based industry, singles would be special. In the 1960s, there were tons of singles released and they were the eagerly-anticipated events...the next big single. In the late-60s that changed. Then it changed back in the late-70s and early-80s. Now it's again album-oriented.

I think a great pop single has a great deal of specialness.

Oh i totally agree but i'm sure i'm not alone in thinking it's nothing compared to albums.

I guess with the boom of the internet and people downloading single songs more i'll probably be proved wrong but i like to think i'll still be sticking to albums as my main listening experience. A nicely grafted album has a lot more worth to me than a nicely crafted single.

I do like SLTL, but the singles are by far the best tracks (well, I'll give you Liverpool Drive and Our Little Rendezvous). Little Marie and Go Bobby Soxer are pretty generic, and Christmas songs are universally crummy...


But you're talking in a purely business sense; I'm talking from an aesthetic point of view. One could argue that the album format actually encourages filler, because bands with a handful of good tracks will write a bunch of clunkers to fill out the album (this is even worse now, with many CD's clocking in at lengths unheard of in the vinyl era).

Comps aren't celebrated among critics and most fans simply because they have an ugly reputation as "non albums." While most comps are ripoffs, some, particularly those that have a wealth of non-album tracks, are just as valid as the "proper" albums. There are plenty of Smiths fans who will swear that Hatful Of Hollow is better than most of their albums, just as I'll defend Turns Into Stone over either official Stone Roses album.


I'm a child of the cassette/CD medium, but when I'm listening to vinyl-era albums, I like to break down the album into proper sides, at least mentally. It really helped me to appreciate a lot of those albums, especially double ones like Blonde On Blonde and Exile On Main Street.

Same with singles though, loads of artists will release a single just for the sake of it. Sometimes there's going to be crap music out there whatever form it's in.

I haven't got too much of a problem with Hatful of Hollow style compilations (as long as they're the same sort of quality of course, not all bands have those quality b-sides and such) and hell there's a few bands which are best known for their best of's (Buzz****s come to mind) but there's still a reason why most of hardrive is taken up by albums, they just rock that much more.

True, true, but I think the ratio of classics to filler is higher for singles than albums. That's just my opinion though.

Couldn't the reason most of us have more albums than comps be the simple fact that there are more albums than comps out there? And, of course, many (most?) of an artist's best tracks were never released as singles. That doesn't mean that one has to listen to those tracks in a predetermined order.

Good point actually (that said The Smiths have more frickin' best of's than albums). That said, i'm set in my album ways.

Order-wise it all depends, a prog album may suffer more from being out on shuffle than perhaps a punk album would.

Definitely true there; likewise, I don't think it would be wise to put a classical symphony on shuffle. Still, if there's one movement you absolutely despise, or if you're pressed for time and want to hear the final passage...why not skip a few tracks...:)

That would be awesome, as long as it wasnt too overpriced.

Back on topic, I just wanted to ask, how is this an album-oriented time. If any, this is the most single-oriented time that we've had in a long time. There are bands who are talking about going singles-only, and with the advent of iTunes, people are going more towards singles then albums.

In any case, I think that the album format may change soon. I'm thinking shorter albums. More like EP's then anything, priced accordingly. In the singles-based environment, for a lot of bands it would make sense to just put the single-worthy songs on a shorter album rather then making a whole album with a some filler.

I think it would be cool if big clunky box sets went down to flash media.

one of my favorite albums listening in its entirety has always been Melancholy and the infinite sadness

The album
 

Obiously the way we aquire and listen to music has changed drastically in the last few years or so.
There has been some debate over the the album (a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public) and whether it is still relevant to today's music. Downloads of single songs shoot up while CD sales drastically drop. People are aquiring music in different ways, being able to pick and choose what they want more. Mainstream artists praise torrent sites and offer free digital mixtapes.
Undoubtedly, some amazing albums have been released since the rise of the internet and the rise of downloading, but I still wonder if the album is a slowly dying art. I have a theory-most mainstream pop artists will stop releasing albums, but more underground artists will embrace them will full force, releasing surreal concept albums or operas.
What do you guys think?
ALSO: I just took an undisclosed amount of Melatonin so I dunno if this post is the dumbest of the dumb. It kind of reads like a history paper.

I think we've had a few similar threads already, no?

Edit - This is the one I was thinking of: http://www.musicbanter.com/general-m...at-sacred.html

Yeah this is pretty much where I stand also. I can enjoy a single but I prefer having the experience of a good album because it lasts longer and a lot of the time is also a little richer... depending on the single anyway. There are some really great singles when it comes to Reggae, Soul, Funk etc.

I can also see what people were saying about an album full of singles. I have some pretty sick compilations that are like that and they just seem like great albums to me.

That is this thread. =/
Edit: Oh, I see, the threads were merged. My bad.

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. Although there are some good albums that fit into that definition, I think that a great album flows from one song to the next. It's a sign of not only a good musician, but a true lover of music as a whole to be able to take 10-15 tracks, and make you want to listen to the whole thing, in order from start to finish.

An example for me would have to be The Crane Wife by the Decemberists. That album just flows so well that it's hard to skip a track, even if the one that I really want to hear is two songs away. The album is constructed so that the two songs before it are the perfect build up, and by the time you get to it it's an orgasmic experience.

Just my $0.02, anyway.

I want both. Albums are works of art, and yes, an album should have some loose sense of cohesion, think about London Calling or Rubber Soul, they aren't bound together by concepts, but by tone, and a build up of ENERGY. London Calling has a snowball effect of energy being built up so by the end, it's at a fever pitch. Funeral by Arcade Fire has grandiose tone shifts that release cathartic energy and builds it up again.

I hate to posit my theories and my hippy-like concept of musical energy, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is what makes us like music: the emotional energy being transferred sonically to an individual, burrowing into their brain, which then sends out electrical signals, making people either want to move their body, makes people escape and forget their troubles, or use the music as some sort of catharsis and emotional therapy, like a shoulder to lean on.

If an album can achieve this than conceptual cohesion is not necessary, only tonal and emotional cohesion.

I'd like to believe that the album will be around forever, but the reality of the matter is that it's only been relevant for the past fifty years or so. The LP didn't even exist until 1948, predating that were other mediums but nothing of the length that grew to be the 45-52 minutes typically associated to be "the album." Since then the album has grown in size considerably and changed in media several times, but decreasing demand for it projects a rapidly approaching date in which the album will be neither desired nor relevant.

So would I consider the album format sacred? No. It's a wonderful expression of an artist's worth but one only in lieu of a live setting. Nothing can truly replace the emotional intensity of a live concert, and that is where some of the greatest acts of our era excel.

The purposeful arrangement of music to create an overarching piece of work is nothing new. Think of symphonies. Mozart's Requiem is meant to be played and listened to as a whole, and the whole is better than the sum of it's parts.

LPs are essentially that concept but veiled behind the relative newness of the technology itself.

However I do agree with you that live music is the way music is meant to be heard and played. Nothing beats it, because there is much more of a connection between the artist and the listener, and the listener to all the other people in the crowd.

I think symphonies are a good analog to the album from an artist's perspective, but I was more commenting on the physical existence of the album within our society as a whole. Prior to the invention of the gramophone, symphonies were some of the only preserved music, something that certainly doesn't correlate to their minuscule existence at the time. There was plenty of other music out there besides classical, and hardly any of it preserved for posterity.

Another thing to consider is the emerging disconnect today between how an artist sounds on record and how they sound live -- a product of the album's inherent focus on "making a band sound good" rather than "making a band sound real". I'm not suggesting that modern production hasn't resulted in some enormous works, but this disparity between how an artist records and how he performs is expanding. And in some situations (like, say, 100% of pop music), the album becomes a much greater work of the producer and engineers than the actual performer.

So no, I still don't consider the album sacred.

the album is my favorite way to listen to music. if i have one song by an artist, i will have the whole album that it is in. i can't stand having one song here and there at ALL. in fact, i know if i am going to really connect with a person musically (and subsequently, personally since music is such a big part of my life) if i scan their ipod and they have either whole albums or just radio hits.

one of my favorite albums of all time...de-loused in the comatorium by the mars volta...an album where i truly can't listen to it unless i start it from the beginning and go all the way to the end.

but yes...i feel like the album is really dieing. the interest is just not there...and even for me, since i can now have my entire music collection in one place it is easy for me to decide to switch albums after a song or two. in high school, i would bring a couple albums to school everyday and those would remain in my cd player for a while, and i would really really absorb those albums since that is all i could listen to for that day.

i kinda miss my cd player...