Go to Pandora and type in the name of an artist or song, and the website returns to you an entire radio station built around your entry’s “musical genome.” Last.fm and iTunes will track your listening habits and offer suggestions for artists and songs you might like to investigate. iTunes and Amazon make it easier than ever to purchase just about any song or album you’ll ever want, immediately. And of course, BitTorrent and other p2p applications make it possible for you to have it for free (or if you’re in the unlucky minority, for a flat settlement of about three grand).
In light of this, the climate is better than it’s ever been for the aspiring band with talent. In this day and age, any band with a little know-how can get their material out there through Myspace, Last.fm, YouTube, and the blogosphere, and if it’s good enough the chances are it'll find an audience. Click below to read the full article.
At face value, all of this is fantastic for the music consumer. The ability for independent artists to get their music noticed means that those of us whose tastes stray from the mainstream are no longer subject to the whim of record labels who’s bottom line is, and always has been financial gain.
Even more important is the fact that our musical purchases are more informed than they’ve ever been. If I’m on the fence about an album, I can open iTunes or Firefox and sample every single song (in their entirety if I so desire).
Today’s tools for music discovery are, in my opinion, invaluable to anyone with an active interest in music. I can say with absolute certainty that my musical tastes have been formed more fully through web or software based tools like iTunes, last.Fm, and Amazon than any other source of input, including radio, word of mouth, popular culture, and traditional media exposure.
Some of my favorite bands to emerge recently, like Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, and Grizzly Bear have garnered enough attention that I’d have heard of them regardless of web based discovery tools. But others artists I love, like The Constellations, The Hush Sound, and The Notwist are just obscure enough that I have very little confidence I’d ever have heard them if not for iTunes and last.Fm.
All of these points are what I consider to be the greatest advantages of music in the digital age, but progress has always been a double-edged sword where the advent of one technology usually means the decline of another. DVD replaced VCR. CD phased out the tape cassette, which had all but replaced vinyl. The cell phone has gradually caused a decreasing reliance on the landline.
Sometimes this progression occurs with virtually no adverse consequence—now that digital video recording (DVR) has become widely available, I cannot think of a single advantage held by VCD/VCR over DVD/DVR.
But when it comes to music, there is at least one cause for concern and regret. In the digital age, even as music continues to thrive and evolve, there is an increasing risk for the decline of the Album as an artistic medium.
I do admit that the album format itself was probably not originally intended to be a means of artistic expression. At the time it was conceived, it was simply the best means to deliver a collection of songs--at that early stage, all the artistry was in the individual songwriting.
However, the most capable artists quickly realized that presenting the songs as a coherent whole, with logical sequence, smooth transition, and a strong central idea, theme, or concept, gives the album an ability to connect with an audience much more strongly than any individual song. The album, when used well, is the embodiment of the Gestalt, where the sum is truly greater than any of its parts. The ability to craft a great album has served, more than any other benchmark, to distinguish the great artists from the good ones over the last sixty or so years.
But since the advent of the digital music revolution, album sales have dropped significantly. Picking up the slack is none other than the digital singles market, especially on iTunes where purchasing an entire album is the exception rather than the rule.
Now, when it comes to certain artists, the reemergence of the "single" as the reigning format is a blessing for both the musician and the consumer. There are many artists, especially in the popular music genre, who's careers would be better served if they simply focused on releasing a gradual but steady stream of killer singles, instead of following the current album release paradigm. This way, the artist maintains a constant public awareness, and the fan doesn't feel compelled to purchase an LP that more likely than not contains three singles and a whole bunch of pulp.
On the other hand though, there are still a lot of musicians out there making *really* good albums. If you don't believe me, listen to what the Fleet Foxes did on their eponymous debut--they're kinda good.
As much as I like Fleet Foxes (and believe me, it's a lot) the real reason I used them as my example is because despite their album being really, really great, the song that many consider to be their best, Mykonos, isn't on it. Nope, Mykonos was released a few months earlier on FF's Sun Giant EP. That's all well and good, this is a band that's talented enough that they can release their songs however they want and I'll listen--the album was still great without Mykonos, and I'm sure Fleet Foxes had good reason for releasing things as they did.
But there's another part of me that thinks, "Hey, Mykonos would have fit really nicely next to Blue Ridge Mountains, or White Winter Hymnal." And it would have, but I digress. The point I want to make is that the album experience is wonderful, but increasingly underappreciated because it's so easy to drop by iTunes and pick up the Mykonos digital copy.
The album format is far from dead, and there are certainly artists out there that know how to use it amazingly well. My concern, and the question that has been on the minds of fans of the format is whether or not the artists themselves still have faith in the LP.
Dave Allen, former member of the British post-punk act, Gang of Four has weighed in on the subject extensively, and has been quoted as saying he believes that the album length piece, "has no place in a digital future."
This may be overly dramatic. I work in a store that deals in media, and I still see people coming in, browsing, and leaving with a big stack of CDs (we also sell an awful lot of iPods...) The thing is, the ones purchasing the CDs almost always seem to be right around my age or older.
What this says to me is that the people that have been used to listening to full length albums all their lives are the ones that are still interested in format; this shouldn't come as any surprise. What really interests me is this.
Right now there is an entire generation of young kids that are beginning to discover their interest in music for the first time--this generation is the first to actually enter the digital music market without any previous experience with CDs and Albums being the chief source of delivery. I am willing to guess that there may be a lot of casual music fans from that generation that have an iPod full of singles, and have never actually heard an album in its entirety.
My conclusion is this. There has been a lot of rabble about whether or not the album is dead or dying. Well as of yet, I believe that it is neither. The current generation of musicians still has the ability and desire to use the format to great effect, and the current generation of fans is still thrilled to listen.
The real question is whether kiddies that are just now discovering music will ever truly embrace the album? My impulse is to say no, they wont, and I want to add that this is nothing against their taste in music. I say no because nothing about the current climate in the marketplace will tell them to give the album a chance, and they simply won't know any better. In the age of the iPod how could they?
Equally important is the question of whether or not the artists that emerge in the next few years will adhere to the standards that have been in place for the last six or so decades. Again, I think the answer is no. The one thing that an artist strives to do above all other things is to express themselves in new and unique ways, and the digital era offers a huge opportunity for artists to push the envelope when it comes to finding new ways to creatively package and distribute their work. The next few years will almost certainly see a crop of artists, both new and established, pushing themselves to come up with new ways to release their music. Maybe a band wants to release a kick-ass concept "album" episodically instead of as a lump package. A song a week for thirteen or fourteen weeks, and all of a sudden you've inserted an element of building tension, hype, and suspense into the music listening experience that hasn't really been present before. Maybe people would love it, maybe they'd hate it, but you'd at least have to appreciate it for being innovative.
Progression is what makes the music industry exciting. I like the album format as much as the next guy, and thankfully I think there are still bands that will continue to see the album as their best creative outlet. However, what's really exciting about the coming years is that now there are a heck of a lot of other options available, and budding artists will undoubtedly use them as best they can.
Only time will tell whether the next decade will see the album sink or float, but I can assure you regardless of the outcome, there will be some really interesting things happening as the digital music revolution comes to a head and a new generation takes the reigns.
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And the Imminent Decline of the Album'
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