Death of the Album?

Back before I was alive music was delivered to the masses on things called records or 45's. As I've been told, they had a song on each side - the B-side was usually a throw-away song to fill the back side of a single they though would sell. I'm not sure when LP's came into the mix. That's when the record got larger and more songs were put onto each side - hence an album. Then came 8-tracks then cassettes, then CD's. Each of these formats had the ability to record approximately the same amount of music on them - hence the length of an album a band put out stayed fairly constant.

I'm sure there are still people who purchase their music on some form of physical medium such as CD, SCAD or some other audiophile snob format that I'm unaware of, but most people I know download their music strait to their computer via iTunes, file-sharing or my personal favorite Amazon. (I need to do a blog on DRM, bit rates, and all of that stuff soon.) Bands are no longer limited by or obligated to provide an offering of a traditional length when putting out new music. So why do they still do it? Would the public buy music that "trickled" in from an artist one song at a time? or do we still want our music in chunks? I suppose the artists is limited by the size of a CD as long as they are still issuing music on that format. Perhaps the economics of getting the band together in a studio for a reasonable amount of time automatically generates enough music to fill a traditional album. Not too sure. Perhaps it's just giving people what they want/expect.

I don't like the term "album" when referring to a traditional band offering - sounds synonymous with vinyl. I like the term "record", but that suffers from the same problem. I feel a little silly using the term "CD" when the music I'm referring to never saw the surface of a CD. What is the generic term for a group of songs by a particular artist or group of artist designed for simultaneous release? Thoughts?

Auto Industry Bailout

I live in the DFW Metroplex. The economic woes have not hit us nearly has hard as they have other parts of the country. I know that Michigan is taking quite a beating right now not in small part due to the problems the big three automakers are facing. Here's how I see those problems in a nut shell. The big three automakers, for the most part (that last little clause give me the ability to say anything without any facts, for the most part), put out an inferior product, for an inflated price. It certainly is their right to do that, but they should have to deal with the reality they've created and not just get a government bail out because they employ a ton of people. This shouldn't be a "What costs the most" question for the government. They shouldn't consider the fact that they may have to pay out more money in welfare benefits, loss in tax revenue, etc. than a bail out would cost. The question should be "Does it make sense to bail out an industry that has not put itself in a position to compete effectively?" How is $25 Billion going to save an industry that is losing so much money? It's like pumping water in a leaky bucket.

Aside:
I listen to NPR quite a bit. "This American Life" was one of the shows that really cemented my appreciation for public radio. A few weeks ago, before the $700 Billion bailout "This American Life" did a special on the economic turmoil. They tried (and succeeded I believe) to explain the major contributing factors to the market down turn as well as explain how the bailout would or could work. It was fascinating. I've listened to it twice. You should listen to it too. http://thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263.

This morning I was listening to "Morning Addition" with Steve InskeeP (I love how he over annuciates the P). He conducted a phone interview with Barney Frank who is a congressman from MA and the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. In the interview Congressman Frank was promoting the use of $25 Billion of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) to bail out the big three domestic auto makers. It was his belief that the big three have spent a lot of money re-tooling the factories to make a more fuel-efficent breed of cars and that if given enough of a boost they could rebound and all would be well but without a boost they would run out of money and shut down. At least one of the big three (GM I think) wouldn't last til the end of the year. The money the government would contribute would be in the form of loans. In March of next year the government would see if the auto makers have made the necessary changes to stay solvent. If they haven't then the government turns off the money faucet and demands repayment of the loans, but if they have shown signs of improvement the government would write another big check. Any guesses how this would go? I'm sure that the auto makers would put on a good enough show that they could convince the govenment they have done well enough and don't need to be spanked. It doesn't seem reasonable/likely to me that the auto industry could turn it around that quickly. Would the government say that the domestic auto industry is too important to let fail in November 2008 and then in March 2009 actually let them go under? Doesn't make sense to me. I guess the whole "too big to fail" concept doesn't make sense to me. The government can't prop up every industry forever. The house of cards will fall eventually. And the longer you artificially prop up companies and indusries the bigger the crash will be when we can't prop them up any longer. Things fail, it happens.

Another point Congressman Frank made was that the next President would be spending less money on the war. I would assume that some of that savings would go to this cause. It's as if once that amount of money has been budgeted for something we must continue to spend it. Why don't we not spend it on anything and instead reduce the budget deficit? A reduction of spending on one front doesn't necessarily justify an increase of spending on another. If spending this money is worth it, its worth it independent of other budget items. .

Congressman Frank is also reluctant to renegotiate labor deals because the unions worked hard to get what they have today. Sounds like to me if something isn't done soon they won't have much to give up. I've heard plenty of talk about how it's the unions that have driven the price of a car up. I've heard that something like $2100 of each car sold goes to pay pensions for people who are no longer working for the company. That's good for the retiree collecting, not so good for the consumer or current employee. I wish I could see the union side of the issue.

That's enough for now.

Old School Sounding British Chick Singers

I don't claim to be a trend setter. Like anybody else, I love discovering new things. Like things that may have been around for a while, but slipped under my radar. It's like someone my age discovering the Beatles for the first time, there's tons of their material out there just waiting to be consumed. Over the past couple of weeks I've made a discovery. Maybe the initial contact was longer ago than that, but recently it has been kicked up into another gear.

When I first heard Amy Winehouse I was very interested. It sounded like the sixties with a slightly new twist, the way she delayed her lyrics reminds me of modern rap artists, I've even heard Sing do it on Sacred Love. The instrumentation is classic. It sounds like something that was lost in a tape vault for 40 years. The drums are incredible.

I listened to an interview with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings on NPR and got that same feeling. They had that "old" sound too and Sharon Jones could really belt the vocals. It was in that interview that I learned that the Dap Kings were Winehouse's band on Back to Black... Makes sense. I bought one of their tracks and that was that until I saw the Duffy and Adelle appearances on Saturday Night Live.

I thought it was really odd that there were so many British White Chicks doing this style - I suppose that success breeds copycats. I'm not sure who started it and it's not that important to me. After the Adelle performance I created a Pandora Station seeded with the artists above to see what would It would throw at me.

Aside:
For those of you who don't know, you can create (for free) a station on Pandora that is suited to your tastest and desires. It will play songs based on your feed back (thumbs up or down) of the songs it has already played. It will give you reason it decided to play each song like "strong melody" or "synchopated rythm" or some other nonsense. You can skip up to 6 songs an hour. It takes a while for your station to truly take shape and if you are being really picky it will throw a lot of the same tunes at you again and again.

Right now I've got my "Addelle" station so it plays almost nothing but British solo female tracks... But that's what I'm onto right now.

Through this station I have discovered many artists that were totally new to me including several that fit the description of the old school R&B I described earlier. It's like finding lost treasure. Artists like Alice Smith, Feist, Regina Spektor, Madeline Peyroux that I would have almost definitely not come into contact with in the normal course of things are delivered straight to my phone. I was a big fan of Yahoo Launchcast for the same reasons. I can't remember how many artists I was introduced to by listening to Launchcast. These types of music services are really good tools for finding new music that you have overlooked for whatever reason.

I'm done writing now.