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Dark side of the tunes: Is digital killing the full album experience?
Cliff
July 28, 2009 5:11 PM ET in Tech
These haven't been pulled out in years
Today Ars Technica is reporting that Apple may be working alongside the music industry in an attempt to revive interest in complete albums vs. single tunes.
It is no secret to any digital music fan that the convenience of being able to download a small portion of new music on a whim is instantly gratifying. The days of going to the local Sam Goody to thumb through a rack full of albums are over. The new model is to go to your favorite digital music download site (which, for the vast majority, is iTunes), proceed to download the latest single for $0.99-$1.29, sync to portable player, and listen to your personal mix of singles.
To illustrate how far this trend has progressed, let’s examine a direct quote from Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan from a December 2008 Chicago Tribune interview. “We’re done with that (making full albums). There is no point. People don’t even listen to it all. They put it on their iPod, they drag over the two singles, and skip over the rest. The listening patterns have changed, so why are we killing ourselves to do albums, to create balance, and do the arty track to set up the single? It’s done.”
Think about this for a moment. Billy Corgan is the same artist that, just fourteen years ago, gave us the sprawling conceptual double disk titled Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, by far his biggest success to date. Corgan, a man obviously inspired by the great full length conceptual rock masterpieces of the 70’s, has given up. His plan? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Corgan says Pumpkins releases henceforth will be singles only to cater to the shortened attention span of the iTunes generation.
Lets call some attention to a recent blog post from our fellow Icrontian, Fatcat. Fatcat is part of the last generation to truly appreciate albums in full form. The albums he lists are all pre-iTunes era, and without a doubt deserving of a full listen from cover to cover. Notice Fatcat’s favorite selections from Throwing Copper and you will not notice the popular rock radio singles Selling the Drama, I Alone, and Lightning Crashes, instead you find a less popular single and two tracks without any significant radio airplay.
Just as it is sad to think that an artist like Billy Corgan can not be motivated to produce a cohesive album in the current market, it is equally disturbing to think that today’s music audience will head straight to the radio hit for a quick single download without ever considering the album as a whole, as it was intended by the artists that created it. Fatcat also remembers when listening to an album was a more open and communal experience, when music was about sharing in the discovery.
The iTunes generation does not engage in this journey, they download the popular radio single of the moment and consume it in isolation. Ask yourself, when was the last time you enjoyed kicking back with a friend or loved one for at least an hour discovering a new album together? When was the last time you had an exchange with a friend taking turns listening to each others favorite albums from cover to cover, sharing ideas on what makes the music more than mere entertainment, but what makes it something truly special to you?
Engaging in a discussion with friend of mine recently, he revealed a new-found desire to collect CDs, in small part fueled by a sense of urgency because a great number of bands that he enjoys are less popular, and it’s getting harder to find their material in its full intended format each and every day. We went on to talk about how certain rock radio tunes just don’t work for us outside of the full album experience. The discussion very naturally drifted towards Pink Floyd and how their singles have been played to death on rock radio, and how listening to Another Brick in the Wall Part II, or Money just did not feel right outside of The Wall, or Dark Side of the Moon. Its obvious when the band set out, they were making a full length album, not some sorted collection of singles, and we honestly owe it to them and ourselves to consume it as it was intended, front to back. Money, by itself, is a decent rock single, but Money jammed between The Great Gig in the Sky and Us and Them; for many, it transcends mere entertainment, it’s something spiritual, something enlightening, something beautiful that should not undervalued.
Full length albums are dying a fast death, and we are all to blame. Blame the music industry for failing to make content that is compelling for more than four minutes at a time. Blame iTunes for making singles purchases so damn convenient. Most of all, let’s blame ourselves for lowering the standard by driving the new model forward with our shortened attention spans, and exuberant consumption of quick hits. Upon reading the Ars Technica piece, one has to wonder if Apple and the music industry have the right idea to incentivize music fans to consume the full experience again. Can offering extras like liner notes and exclusive album-only content drive people back to discovering new music the old fashioned way? Will Apple have much motivation to do so, seeing that the current model has worked very nicely for them?
I hope a new strategy to incentivize the audience to consume full albums will work and ultimately inspire artists to produce better albums, but I am not optimistic. Things have changed, and future generations are not likely to sit down and discover new music together. Still, I will do my part. I remember my mother spinning Police, Cindi Lauper, and U2 LPs front-to-back when I was a boy. I will be sure to expose my little girl to some of my favorites as her attention span grows longer and her taste in music takes shape. If you are from the last of the full album generation, do a younger friend a favor, share your favorite full length album with them today, and not on bittorrent; share it in person, together, with actual speakers that play so everyone in the room can take the journey together.
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