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?
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1 comment:
I think of "album" as a particular collection of songs. Record to me sounds specific to vinyl, and CD obviously specific to CD. That's just me though, and of course they're all used interchangeably.
I kind of think that albums continue to come out because if bands just released one song at a time, I don't know. That'd look kind of sad. Like they didn't have enough material. And they'd all have to be singles, none of the sort of more experimental or less instantly accessible stuff that you ignore the first few times through an album and then find out you love. That and would they then have to promote each song individually when it's released? That seems cumbersome.
I personally still buy full albums, always, and I usually physically buy the disc, too. So I can play them in my car, actually. There are still a few of us in the stone age (ie: w/o iPod adapters everywhere we go).
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