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Comments:
elgan - 2007-01-20 23:20:47
The album is a dying art. Also, when my son was asked if he wanted any CD in particular for this Christmas past, he cooly informed us that “no one buys music anymore, they just download it.” How sad.
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Smed - 2007-01-21 00:08:16
I agree the album is a dying art. But actually, that may not be SO bad. In the CD age, artists try to fill it up with 70 or so minutes, and released a lot of tracks that were just...meh. When they had the limits of vinyl at 20 to 25 minutes a side, max, they worked to be concise and the result were albums that were much better as a whole piece. Also, a lot of times concept albums were overblown anyway. Actually, I'm writing a prog rock entry soon (week or two, maybe) and this will all fit in, so stay tuned!
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Erin. - 2007-01-21 02:57:35
My favorite concept album is Gainsbourg's Melodie Nelson. Love it love it love it. And I think that The Arcade Fire's Funeral counts as a concept album - at the very least, none of the songs sound quite right on their own. I haven't warmed up to the Decemberists, but maybe that's because I haven't tried listening to an album all the way through. I think I'll give them another try.
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Dr. Geek - 2007-01-21 03:33:41
First off, I do see your point. I am, however, going to argue against
it a bit. You are right that a compilation CD is not meant to be a
fluid mix. I do, however, believe that it has to obey some basic laws
of marketing and at least attempt to appeal to some kind of coherent
core audience. There are some great jazz, blues, and folk tracks on
that CD. Why include a #9 radio hit from 1980 on that list? Who does
that market to? As for the fate of the album, I think record labels
have seriously been trying to have it both ways for about 10 years
now. They want to market 3-4 good singles, but only to sell a 70
minute CD that they can charge $18.99 for to pay Mariah Carey 20
million dollars when they release her from a contract. I tend to see
this development as having more to do with the shift of music labels
out of the hands of music entrepreneurs to multinational corporations.
As Jerry Wexler says, "You used to ask a music executive for a note
and he would say, 'what key?' Now he says 'what rate of interest?'"
If there was an interest in having an artist produce a good whole
album, it was because earlier generations of music executives saw
musical development as good business. Now, artists are just profit
centers. Why bother to waste time and effort perfecting the 8 tracks
on a CD aside from those 3-4 singles? Music labels pay big money to
programming consultants to get those 3-4 singles on the radio and TV
and MTV. That's where the investment is. A music career is only
useful in providing name recognition for the 3-4 singles that will
sell the next album. I also have to think that ignorance also played
a big part in artistic development in former times. There were no
corporate-sponsored focus groups providing market data for Dark Side
of the Moon, or Talking Book, or Music From Big Pink. Bands made
music. Music companies threw a bunch of stuff to the wall to see what
stuck. Companies were willing to accept more risk on artists doing
things like concept albums, because they certainly had no real clue
what they were doing (in much the same way that darts thrown at a NYSE
listing could create a portfolio that beat portfolios created by stock
brokers). Now you don't get a release unless your single has been
researched, test marketed, and given promotional tie-in. It's not
sold like music; it's sold like soap. As for i-Tunes, I credit Steve
Jobs for finally allowing consumers to be able to cut away the dross
that record companies have used to pad their profit margins. He did
us all a favor. Vinyl, well, I think the sides of vinyl albums had
advantages too... That gave a producer the ability to create a mood on
one side of an album, and you could use the flip as a break to create
another mood. Finally, there are people like Wilco, Tori Amos, Rufus
Wainwright, Poe and the Foo Fighters who have produced engaging whole
albums, but a concept album? The last CD I bought that resembles a
concept album was Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age. I
love concept albums from the 1970's, I do. But they can be overrated.
Have you listened to Tales From Topographic Oceans lately?
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Smed - 2007-01-21 08:57:13
Oh, and one other thing - a lot of bands in England were contractually obligated to provide so much music per side of the LP. That's why ELP did "Lucky Man" - they were short of material. Same with "A Quick One" by the Who. The more you know. Oh and Dr. Geek - music has ALWAYS been about the Benjamins!
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