Death of the Album?

May 5th, 2011

Posted in: None — Tags: None — Admin @ 11:41 pm

Bob Lefsetz, US advice guru for the music industry, announced the death of the music album in the April 27 “Lefsetz Letter” publication (see previous "Lefsetz" blog herein).  Not the CD; it’s long gone, but very grouping of songs known as the album.  No-one has time to listen to albums, he contends, and most these days are but one decent song and nine tracks of garbage, so why bother?  Albums are for devoted fans only; single tracks are the only way to attract new listeners. Do you agree?  His entire article can be found here: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/04/28/albums-4/

 I do agree with the cold fact of it, the reality that iPods are filled with far more individual song files than the albums they may have come from.  But I sense something is being lost culturally in the scope of how good music can be made, if the album is truly dying. Sgt Pepper, anyone?

So I wrote Mr Lefsetz a “letter” of my own.  It doesn’t disagree with his pronouncement, but laments what’s been lost, where the new trend could lead, and the possibility that albums might one day return.  Here it is:

Mr Lefsetz:

As a classic-rock practitioner in Canada, my fifteen minutes in the late '70s - early '80s in rock band Prism with producer Bruce Fairbairn & manager Bruce Allen, I believe I'm qualified to comment on your reality check that singles have replaced albums as the unit of currency.  But the discussion misses key points.  Yes, there is too much music being served up by too many with too little talent.  But ever-shrinking attention spans of a trigger-clicking listening public is equally the culprit.  A culture of gaming over music and cherry-picking iTunes singles aside, something has been lost in the cultural ethos, if music still matters at all. 

 "Albums" of one good song with nine tracks of filler have existed since the earliest days of Phil Spector, but the bar was raised when Sinatra first demontrated the LP was a medium to create a unified mood, furthered by concept albums Pet Sounds, Sgt Peppers, Tommy, The Wall and onward.  A period followed when the assumption was any worthy artist gave good album.  When your friends said, "Have you heard the new one by..." (insert name: Led Zep, Meatloaf, Springsteen, et al) the unit was the album, not a song-plus-crap.  The music became larger, better.  I argue the art of the album may yet re-emerge.

 But if the equivalent of Sgt Peppers was released today, no-one has the patience to recognize it.  That's a loss.  The catchiest song might go viral and the rest ignored.  Forget the joy of listening to something six times, being rewarded by hearing nuances, instruments and lyrics not perceived previously.  Nobody does that now.

Your implication is "artists" on the current landscape are incapable of album-scale music.  Human creativity doesn't change; unsung heroes are laboring in obscurity as Leonard Bernstein's five percent still extant, worth seeking but harder to find in the din of iTunes wannabees.

As to those classic rock acts too dumb to quit creating, it's not as though their honed skills at making albums collectively disappeared.  The fact nobody cares says more about the power of nostalgia than of music, allowing for a moment the new stuff might be good.  Audiences of heritage bands care more for memories of their youth than new music, singles included.  

Two years ago I released a full new album "Big Black Sky" under the Prism name, mortgaging my house to do it in major studios.  Huge mistake; it nearly ruined me.  Bruce Allen and others advised I'd have been far better off putting it out under my own monicker to avoid the baggage of an old name, but it was too late.  A few critics and fans did recognize a cohesive album.  Then ironically last March Space Shuttle Discovery used our 1977 single "Spaceship Superstar" as official crew music; that exercise in nostalgia did more for the band's gigging profile than any new recordings.  So now I play my forty Prism dates per year in hockey rinks, festivals and clubs - just the old hits, new music removed from the set.  I'll now release singles only, under a new identity.  I get it, Bob.

But if the three-minute single is the max for attention spans, where next?  Follow the dumbing-down to a one-minute single, with the 30-second edit not far behind.  Perhaps only then will some, starved by the music-byte as sound-byte, demand better, discover a good album and take a sixty-minute audio vacation.  Maybe then music will actually come back into fashion, with quality and scale important.   I'm not holding my breath.  

- Al Harlow

Vancouver, BC Canada