I wonder if anyone under the age of 38 still listens to and actively consumes albums from start to finish. I don’t mean a collection of tracks. I mean albums. Something with a narrative in which the sum of the work is greater than the individual “tracks”.
And does anyone aspire to create work like this?
I wish I could bang out random hot tracks but most of the time I always end up with some epic of amassed pieces arranged into a dreaded concept album.
It feels like today’s standard of streaming tracks has attempted to phase out “the album” intentionally or not. It seems replaced by “the playlist”.
I am 48 now. But even my listening behaviour has changed long time ago. I always listened to compilations on tape, minidisc, CD, MP3 etc. . Selfmade compilations. I almost never listened to albums, I never liked ALL the tracks on an album. That’s why.
I think albums are obsolete, especially for those who are/were too lazy to compile the best stuff.
Sure they do. Pop has always been about hits, not albums. Genres that are mostly album oriented aren’t as popular as they once we’re, but there’s lots of music made in the album format
Occasionally I listen to full albums, kind of similarly often how I’d listen to DJ mixes.
Like @DefSteph said, I also rarely like all tracks on an album. I find EPs a nicer format, these tend to be more “all killer no filler”.
I‘m 37, so yes
Everyday. I only listen to albums or EPs.
I never listen to Playlists. I want to deal with one Artist at a time. Learn something about the artist and the overall picture.
I don’t get playlists. I still listen to music like I did when I bought cd‘s, just with the benefit of having access to everything, which can be good or bad.
And I still try to make albums. I rarely „released“ single tracks, I always put them out in the context of ep or album. A collection that doesn’t have a concept necessarily, but that stems from a specific time period of my musical live and that fit together in mood and the overall theme, genre, whatever
I’m under 29 and often listen to full albums, especially upon release, but as an artist I feel like releasing an album is the hardest way to get exposure/revenues.
This is obviously not a goal for everyone but if you want to grow a community it’s 100 times easier to release small chunks of music every 6 weeks than spending 9 months working on an album and doing a 3 weeks roll out with nobody watching. It can be a painful experience too. I might be exaggerating but basically I feel like making an album is a luxury that you can only afford to make if you already made it (or if you’re talented enough I guess). That’s probably one of the reasons why smaller artists without labels will focus on singles. (I definitely want to release a full album at some point thooo)
That‘s very true. Algorithms in social media etc support single chunks of releases. Listeners also won‘t give you album attention if they don’t know you already.
Since my singles don’t get attention either, I decided I can further concentrate on making albums anyway
When working in the study, it’s albums I listen to. These almost always tend to be stuff I’ve bought up from Rough Trade’s excellent “Edits” lists that constantly evolve. I never listen to the physical CD these days - I rip them for backup then stream through Apple Music. I like the physical side of an album but the convenience of streaming.
When out and about exercising, travelling, in the car, or whatever then it is almost always some sort of playlist of “loved” tracks or a personalised radio station through Apple Music.
I do think the art of the album is dying off slowly but having said that, there’s been some right shit concept albums over the years. Here’s looking at you ELP…
It doesn’t really matter. Sure, artists throughout the recording artist period have considered their track order, or maybe having a concept. Most are just 12 tracks picked from the 22 they jammed on. Albums are a by-product of having created a range of material. Most artists have one or two tracks on an album that are great, rarely are all of the same calibre.
It’s easy once u get older to stop listening to youth radio or following what the kids are up to, but they’re still making records. Even if they’re releasing digitally online , analog is in, tape, vinyl, even cd in terms of digital physical.
Truth is, those formats have time limits, so even if the internet or digital files often have infinite time stamps, catering to the wider and in some ways similar range physical formats will often determine curatorial decisions.
What streaming platforms do in presentation has nothing to do with the artistic choices musicians make in the release of their work.
I’ve over the age bracket in OP, but the young’uns I know do definitely still get hyped about album releases, and there are still people with ‘youth appeal’ who work to make a complete-feeling thematic collection of tracks (Dave comes immediately to mind). But also those people can be ruthless when it comes to getting bored and skipping tracks, and I’ve recommended albums to them and found out they’re giving a first listen on shuffle
So I think there’s less of a culture of ‘letting the artist tell us/impose their vision’, but then maybe that’s a good thing - it’s a rare artist whose ‘vision’ can actually extend over the course of a full long-play, and I dread to think of the hours I’ve lost to filler tracks and ego-wank tracks.
Thom Yorke went on a while ago about the album being dead and how it’s an anomaly anyway, in the history of music. The original ‘albums’ were just a way to collect singles. But then he went on to make album after album…
Also, there’s always confirmation bias - how many people, on a grand scale, ever listened to albums? I was brought up by parents who always had an album on the turntable, CD player, or iPod, but even before this ‘Spotify age’, I suspect the great majority of people just put the radio on and maybe bought a CD or two a year of their faves.
