Is the album format sacred?

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 threaRAB were merged. My bad.
 
i can see where you are coming from, but i do make exceptions. the smashing pumpkins' studio work is so layered and intricate that it becomes near impossible to reproduce live short of hiring a boatload of extra musicians (which i have respect for them not doing). it is a huge debate about whether someone can be considered a musician if all they are good at is studio work...like...can they really play? i think the musical vision is what counts, the studio has just made it easier for everyone to get their vision across.
 
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 banRAB 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 ripoRAB, 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, loaRAB 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 banRAB have those quality b-sides and such) and hell there's a few banRAB 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.
 
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 corabine 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 spreaRAB from there.
 
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 cRAB 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 recorRAB, it's becoming a niche market.
 
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 Deceraberists. 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 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.
 
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 builRAB 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 senRAB 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.
 
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 recorRAB 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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Sorry if I'm playing devil's advocate here, but why?

What makes a finished piece of art so special that could not otherwise be improved by an added word, a new song, or an appended verse? It's one thing to associate notions of romanticism to completed works of art, it's another thing entirely to place them on some unreachable pedestal.
 
A musician is an artist, and music I think is an art that should be appreciated in a live setting - don't get me wrong, music can definitely be appreciated when it is recorded as well, but playing music live I think is more 'sacred' than the album format.
 
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.
 
I see live music and recorded music as essentially two different forms of art, kind of like theater and film. I don't know if either is "sacred" per se, but they're apples and oranges to me.
 
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.
 
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 depenRAB, a prog album may suffer more from being out on shuffle than perhaps a punk album would.
 
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