In the not-too-distant rock ’n’ roll past, artists spent months and sometimes years piecing together 10 or 12 like-minded tracks underneath the umbrella of a full-length album.
The album was thematically coherent and methodically thought out. It represented a carefully sequenced idea or character or philosophy.
The album was an art form. Think Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Buffalo Springfield’s self-titled classic, and the Beatles’ sprawling yet hugged-together “white album.”
But those albums, classics indeed, are relics in a contemporary music business obsessed with the almighty single.
Albums barely register these days. Can anyone name more than three tracks off Beyonce’s latest record? Does anyone even know the album’s title?
Critically speaking, no one expects much from Beyonce, whose I Am … Sasha Fierce was released late last year. But even the recording industry’s old-timers — Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello and Eric Clapton included — are pushing products that sound hurried, rushed, incomplete.
Few artists are giving the full-length album the thought it deserves these days, adding even more confusion to a flailing music industry that was worth just US$10 billion in 2008 — down from US$14 billion in 2000.
But then again, who can blame them?
Release an intelligent album, and they get insider praise, maybe a complimentary media write-up. They’ll find a small group of fans who actually pick up the entire release and listen to it the way it was meant to be listened to — from front to back while thumbing through the liner notes.
The more likely situation: Fans will sample songs on blogs and share Web sites like Limewire without spending a dime. Artists might see royalties on a couple of tracks listeners decide to download. They might not.
In 2008, 57 million full albums were downloaded, while just more than 1 billion singles were sold, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
The time and money that go into a full-length release make it difficult to replicate the process more than once every couple of years. Just ask Denver indie pop band Cowboy Curse, which released a five-song EP in 2003, a three-song maxi-single in 2004 and a well-received full-length album, Nod Up and Down (To the Simulcast Singing), in 2006.
As the trio was supporting the full-length release a couple of years ago, they made the decision not to make another album — ever.
“From here on out, we’re going to digitally release two tracks at a time, an A-side and a B-side,” said bass player Tyler Campo.
“We haven’t put out a full-length for almost three years, but this way we can produce something for fans more often, putting something out every two months instead of every two years.”
The strategy of releasing only singles — two-track downloads — will save Cowboy Curse pressing costs and artwork headaches. But most important, the constant flow of new material will keep the band current in its fans’ minds.
“I like the idea of listening to records myself,” Campo said, “but I don’t think it’s a great way for us to go as a band.”
Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur respects the album as an art form. His 2008 full-length release, Temporary People, was a stunning collection of 12 vibrant songs. But fans will remember that it was released by Arthur and his band the Lonely Astronauts the same year they put out an impressive four EPs — shorter CDs that are four to eight songs in length.
Arthur is indeed a prolific writer. But oftentimes it doesn’t feel right to compile a certain set of songs on a full-length record, he said.
For Arthur, the songs dictate the method of release. Right now he’s writing a full-length album. He knows this because the songs are pouring out of him, and they seem to fit together. But that’s not to say that something might be left over from the process — a song or three or five.
“At that point, the EP becomes a great solution,” he said.
When you look at it from an artist’s perspective, it’s easy to understand the decline of the cohesive full-length. But that doesn’t soften the blow.
True music aficionados revel in the experience of fully realizing a record, learning its quirks, its lulls, its heartbreaking moments. The proper full-length record rewards listeners for paying attention. Listen closely to the Decemberists’ March release, The Hazards of Love, and you will be treated to recurring characters and intermingling stories and references to figures and stories from records past.
Kentucky-based singer-songwriter-cellist Ben Sollee’s debut full-length, Learning to Bend was celebrated for its cohesive subtlety, and he can’t wait to write another album.
“I still love albums,” he said. “They allow you to work the continuum of musical styles that you’re dealing with. It’s not a sonnet, it’s a whole play.”
Sollee also gets that writing and recording another full-length is going to take time — and that it’s a good idea to release new product and keep his face in front of fans. “It has to do with supply and demand,” Sollee said. “It doesn’t really make sense to put all your eggs in one basket and then not release anything for a couple years.”
On Oct. 1, 2008, Sollee went on a songwriting tear and dished out two tracks tied to the national psyche one month before US President Barack Obama was elected. He could have waited for his next full-length to release the tracks, but instead he pushed them forward— and used digital distribution.
The songs were on MP3 players before the election on Nov. 4.
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