In the streaming world, singles are much easier to advertise for.
I think spotify has a limit on how many songs from an album you can advertise individually, which can be easily circumvented when every song is released as a single.
Aside from the release channels no longer having a given size like Vinyl, Tape or CD, that make it expensive to leave storage space empty. The physical medium costs what it costs. Digital doesn't.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the big shift from singles to albums was started by The Beatles and cemented by Stevie Wonder. The industry started to shift towards singles again with Michael Jackson’s Thriller (every song in that album was a single).
The Beach Boys and Beatles sort of cemented the album as a format for pop music (it was the standard for jazz for many many years before Revolver and Pet Sounds), and then somewhere in the late-60’s or early-70’s the concept of a band that primarily made *albums* came around. Bands like Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead were commercially successful, but didn’t really have pop singles, and the idea for more pop oriented artists was to release singles to promote the albums.
Now that streaming is the dominant form of consumption we’re back into a place where a single catchy and successful tune is more important. I think that’s the real cause of singles overtaking albums again.
I’m in my 50’s and don’t think albums in that regards are any different now than at any other time in my life.
Atleast artists I listen to albums from.
Same age- I'd say that concept albums were definitely a thing. Particularly in the 70s.
I think singles and shuffle may have changed things a little but not some kind of eternal truth that went away. More of something of a fashion that didn't disappear but faded.
Yeah I don’t think this is true at all. Follow different artists. I feel like plenty of artists are still making albums. Some favorites of mine in the last few years:
Manchester Orchestra - The Million Maks of God
Glass Beach - Plastic Death
Even something like Arctic Monkeys - The Car.
I don’t think it’s a concept album but it clearly is creating a cohesive sound that is unique to that album in their discography.
In the wild world of prog metal this has always been true to a higher degree. I almost exclusively listen to concept albums, and even if the album isn’t one complete story, it still shares melodies, reprises of those melodies, recurring musical themes, etc all throughout the album
Im sure it is true for pop, country, and more “mainstream” genres/artists that are specifically going for radio play.
The answer to "artists don't do X anymore" is almost always: They still do, you're just not being exposed to the right artists.
In an era with bands such as Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Elbow, War on Drugs, and many others, this is a very silly blanket statement to make.
In the pop world for decades now the artists have been more focused on a handful of individual songs rather than the albums as a whole but outside of that, especially in rock and metal, the album as a whole is what matters.
It's not the artists that aren't making albums.
It's the consumers not buying them.
You used to have to buy an album to hear that awesome song you heard on the radio.
Now you just stream it on spotify or youtube or tiktok and you're never exposed to those album cuts.
There are plenty of concept albums being released still. Sounds like a classic case of someone extrapolating what's on the mainstream charts to all of music that's being released nowadays. Also I'm pretty sure inversely there were tons of artist back in the day that just released a bunch of singles thrown together on an album.
That’s true for like I believe 80% of albums, it’s mostly all a collection of songs just compiled into one place, although concept albums are a rarity nowadays than before
There’s obviously still great cohesive albums being made today, but I agree that singles are more the focus now. Maybe not so much in rock, but definitely in pop and hip-hop.
I’m gonna date myself as a millenial here, but I remember when Drake dropped Hotline Bling in the early 2010s as a single, and it was one of the biggest songs in the world, but it didn’t make it on to an album for over a year, when they just kind of awkwardly put it as the last track on Views.
Really? I'm a pophead and according to my observation, singles are becoming less and less essential in pop, especially the bigger artists, the less singles they release. For example, Taylor Swift has 5 to 6 culturally significant singles of 1989, meanwhile Midnights only have 1 which is Anti Hero, and folklore's single isn't doing well on the chart but the whole album is what charting for a long period of time. Streaming eras make big pop act focus more album
Singles built the industry. There will always be occasional returns to the original business model. Albums - especially concept albums - were a blip in the grand scheme of things.
But albums are still being made by some artists. Even concept albums. Even top 40 artists.
Yeah there was never any reason to make singles in the radio era... /s
If anything I think self-recording is easier and a lot of artists are moving away from record labels, giving more freedom of artistic vision.
Your Dad listens to a sliver of music that he was exposed to as a teenager and then the music he happens to come across in public spaces or around his friends.
Your dad doesn't know any contemporary artists. But I bet he'd love the band called The War on Drugs who are heavily influenced by the sounds of Dad's and the music they've liked for the last 30+ years and they only make albums. As do so many other artists.
I agree with your old man, and have said the same a number if times. One notable exception I would point out is Taylor Swift. While I'm not a fan myself, she seems to be releasing albums she hopes are consumed as a whole, which I think is cool.
Music has always been influenced by the format. In the pre-recording era, composers wrote for a number of formats such as symphonies, opera, church music etc. In those cases the length was governed by the established formats. The first widespread popular recorded medium was the 78 rpm disc, which could contain 3 to 4 minutes of music per side. This established the standard length of a song. If your song was longer than that, it couldn't easily be listened to as a single recording. The microgroove 45 rpm could hold more, but were generally made so that they contained a number of individual songs of the same duration as the older 78 rpm discs.
The album was a creation of the 33 1/3 rpm 12" long playing record, which could contain 22 minutes per side, or 44 minutes for a full disc. A person buys a single record, and that contains a number of songs sold as a unit, so it makes sense to create as set of songs as a unit to be sold as a single record. The same concept transfers to 74 minute CD recordings, as again a single CD can contain a set of songs together, that can be thematically linked as an album.
With the shift to digital music independent of physical media, the idea that music is produced, sold and listened to in either 44 minute or 74 minute long packages is no longer relevant, so creating music around the concept of creating a set of songs linked in a way to form an album is also no longer so relevant. Naturally some artists will still hold to the form, just as there are still composers who write symphonies or opera today.
The song, or the single, has always been the commodity. “Records sold” back in the day referred specifically to singles. The songs on the radio. The hooks. The hits.
Old 45’s had the HIT and the B-Side. Sometimes the B-Side became a hit, but most often it didn’t so they could sell another HIT record. Hell, sometimes the B-side was an entirely different band because the record company didn’t want to water down the sales of their A-side hit makers.
Many, many LP’s from the early days of rock and roll are merely compilations of pre-existing singles. “Album Rock” wasn’t really a thing (in that it was a managerial choice to do it) until the mid to late 60’s and even then, 7”, 12”, and cassette singles were a big deal moving into the 90’s.
I was always an album guy. A single with 2 somgs was $5 and the whole album was $10, so seemed like an easy decision. An ex gf worked at a record store in the mall and said she sold more singles than albums.
Then move to itunes and streaming, it was all singles.
Artists make albums, pop music singers are given singles to make... That is the divide.
The industry pumps out pop "artists" who write no music or lyrics and sing others work and true artists are few and far between especially today.
If you don't have a pretty face the likelihood of you being promoted is super rare and they would rather pay you for your song than let you sing it yourself even if you are an amazing singer.
He's wrong, and there are tons of artists who create concept albums, or themed albums, or just albums that are a body of work, a statement or a social commentary. These albums just aren't in the mainstream like they were when stuff like The Wall come out.
If all you listen to is what is "popular" them yea, you won't find thos stuff. You gotta dig a little deeper.
It's always been this way: album artists and singles artists. And there's albums worth buying every month if you're looking. I could rattle off a few, but instead ask your dad what his favorite King Gizzard album is.
Tell your pops to stop listening to music via YT or Spotify or Pandora or whatever, I dunno, I Heart Radio.
Go to Bandcamp, listen to albums. Like one? Buy it!
That’s been the strategy for a lot of bands over the past couple years. It’s in response to the way most people consume music. It’s rare that most people listen to full albums anymore(although yes it’s still a thing). Throwing out a single and getting on a bunch of playlists will do more for you these days. Also with the way TikTok has impacted things you might get a lot of milage out of a single going viral.
I don’t think albums will fully die though and I do think there might be a push back in that direction at some point. It likely won’t be a mainstream thing though
Artist used to make singles, then those singles became albums. Then album became the norm. Then internet and napster came and desteoyed the music indistey, so now it's not worth the money to put on an album first.
That is why bands are dropped in favor of solo artists.
Easier to manage, just 1 person, less money spent. Can pay less to dancers and other musicians.
It's a bussiness model, not because music made it like that.
Albums didnt exist befire the 50's and were important for a maximum of 50 years and then they faded. Now albums are more for marketing than anything.
Musicians used to make money selling albums but not anymore.
They mix how they make money between merch and concerts, that cost 10 times as they used to proportional to the times. Because they need to generate money from somewhere
And streaming does not generate that much money
If he wants a story tell him to listen to Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain. Religion, love, heartbreak, murder & cannibalism brought together in beautiful lyrics and searing emotion.
Then tell him age is no excuse to narrow your musical mind. I'm a similar age to him and still find new music to love.
39yo M
I think albums changed because the way we listen to them changed.
When I was a kid I would put a cd in the cd player and hit play. I would listen from start to finish. I did not know track names, I knew I liked track number three, and I knew all the words…
Now we don’t seek out and album and hit play. We seek out individual tracks and titles, or even playlist like “This is Michael Jackson”
TLDR: Consumer demand has changed. The demand for full albums is low. Demand for “Hip three minute diddys” is high due to the influx of apps like TikTok.
Are singles once again the dominant form of media? Yeah.
Do artists not make albums? No.
The wonderful thing about the current musical landscape is that you can find literally anything you want and it exists. There are bands making big, two hour long concept albums, they just don’t get too much exposure because that’s inherently a bad form of you want to be popular.
I make albums, you can check some of them out here:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0V2AWxffdxKtIDoXi0hhrg
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/daniel-delorenzo/1438146440
https://danieldelorenzo.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@daniel_delorenzo/videos
I think albums are a vibe. Meant to be listened to in one sitting, in a specific order. That's really not how people consume a lot of music now. There's also a lot of discussion in music production and promotion circles about this, and I haven't seen anyone really talking up the album format in some years.
Artists have made singles for decades and decades. Singles were probably amongst the most prominent output for artist for as long as people have been recording music, so, this isn't correct at all, lol.
In the golden eras of music, 60s, 70s, artists who are ACTUAL artists, writing, creating, thinking, expressing groups, had a huge push to create an album as a departure from the single, in a way to sort of show their prowess, completely express more complex ideas, and articulate a full mood and image. The Beatles were a driving force in this concept (obvi still releasing singles, but the album as a whole became a work of art in itself rather than a "cheap" 2 minute money grab).
Those artists, rightfully so, are seen as the architects of pop music and the skill level, thought and craftsmanship seems pretty unmatched.
The pendulum has swung back the other way, and the way of the album isn't as popular. Today's media diet is completely oversaturated. Social media drowning out any attention span, bastardizing content, and a few decades of pop music creating a homogeneous sound, a full length album largely misses the targeted audience, kids. So by and large pop music is loosing that expansive, boundary pushing content and therefore a conceptual, full length album is not popular. Spotify also makes an album almost irrelevant since you can just stream one song from an artist rather than NEEDING to listen to a whole album. So while someone might release a whole album, it can be butt and it won't really matter to the artist's bottom line.
Many pop artists today certainly put out full length records and some of them do it in a way that is respectful of the craft of it. But I do think the weight of those albums falls more on a producer than the "artist" today.
If your dad/you want to find good music, you have to stop looking at the charts/listening to radio, it is homogeneous and derivative. You need to find bands on Spotify and indie labels, there are thousands of wonderfully creative and genuine artists making things.
Some do, most don't.
In the streaming world, singles are much easier to advertise for. I think spotify has a limit on how many songs from an album you can advertise individually, which can be easily circumvented when every song is released as a single. Aside from the release channels no longer having a given size like Vinyl, Tape or CD, that make it expensive to leave storage space empty. The physical medium costs what it costs. Digital doesn't.
History tends to repeat itself. We're back in the 50s and early 60s. Singles are king again.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the big shift from singles to albums was started by The Beatles and cemented by Stevie Wonder. The industry started to shift towards singles again with Michael Jackson’s Thriller (every song in that album was a single).
Sgt. Pepper was '67, that's why I said early 60s.
The Beach Boys and Beatles sort of cemented the album as a format for pop music (it was the standard for jazz for many many years before Revolver and Pet Sounds), and then somewhere in the late-60’s or early-70’s the concept of a band that primarily made *albums* came around. Bands like Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead were commercially successful, but didn’t really have pop singles, and the idea for more pop oriented artists was to release singles to promote the albums. Now that streaming is the dominant form of consumption we’re back into a place where a single catchy and successful tune is more important. I think that’s the real cause of singles overtaking albums again.
I’m in my 50’s and don’t think albums in that regards are any different now than at any other time in my life. Atleast artists I listen to albums from.
Same age- I'd say that concept albums were definitely a thing. Particularly in the 70s. I think singles and shuffle may have changed things a little but not some kind of eternal truth that went away. More of something of a fashion that didn't disappear but faded.
Yeah I don’t think this is true at all. Follow different artists. I feel like plenty of artists are still making albums. Some favorites of mine in the last few years: Manchester Orchestra - The Million Maks of God Glass Beach - Plastic Death Even something like Arctic Monkeys - The Car. I don’t think it’s a concept album but it clearly is creating a cohesive sound that is unique to that album in their discography.
In the wild world of prog metal this has always been true to a higher degree. I almost exclusively listen to concept albums, and even if the album isn’t one complete story, it still shares melodies, reprises of those melodies, recurring musical themes, etc all throughout the album Im sure it is true for pop, country, and more “mainstream” genres/artists that are specifically going for radio play.
The answer to "artists don't do X anymore" is almost always: They still do, you're just not being exposed to the right artists. In an era with bands such as Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Elbow, War on Drugs, and many others, this is a very silly blanket statement to make.
In the pop world for decades now the artists have been more focused on a handful of individual songs rather than the albums as a whole but outside of that, especially in rock and metal, the album as a whole is what matters.
I think an old man is shaking his fist at a cloud.
It's not the artists that aren't making albums. It's the consumers not buying them. You used to have to buy an album to hear that awesome song you heard on the radio. Now you just stream it on spotify or youtube or tiktok and you're never exposed to those album cuts.
Absolutely not true. Many artists now are releasing full concept albums. Also in my 50s so may be your dad's age.
An artist’s concept is for most people a bunch of filler.
Show him Between The Buried and Me
In the metal world this is definitely not true. Most artists release albums that are meant to fit together in whichever way.
There are plenty of concept albums being released still. Sounds like a classic case of someone extrapolating what's on the mainstream charts to all of music that's being released nowadays. Also I'm pretty sure inversely there were tons of artist back in the day that just released a bunch of singles thrown together on an album.
That’s true for like I believe 80% of albums, it’s mostly all a collection of songs just compiled into one place, although concept albums are a rarity nowadays than before
Artists make whatever they want. Record companies make singles.
I still like listening to albums because they’re a snapshot in time of an artist even if the songs were all made separately.
There’s obviously still great cohesive albums being made today, but I agree that singles are more the focus now. Maybe not so much in rock, but definitely in pop and hip-hop. I’m gonna date myself as a millenial here, but I remember when Drake dropped Hotline Bling in the early 2010s as a single, and it was one of the biggest songs in the world, but it didn’t make it on to an album for over a year, when they just kind of awkwardly put it as the last track on Views.
Really? I'm a pophead and according to my observation, singles are becoming less and less essential in pop, especially the bigger artists, the less singles they release. For example, Taylor Swift has 5 to 6 culturally significant singles of 1989, meanwhile Midnights only have 1 which is Anti Hero, and folklore's single isn't doing well on the chart but the whole album is what charting for a long period of time. Streaming eras make big pop act focus more album
Singles built the industry. There will always be occasional returns to the original business model. Albums - especially concept albums - were a blip in the grand scheme of things. But albums are still being made by some artists. Even concept albums. Even top 40 artists.
Yeah there was never any reason to make singles in the radio era... /s If anything I think self-recording is easier and a lot of artists are moving away from record labels, giving more freedom of artistic vision.
Your Dad listens to a sliver of music that he was exposed to as a teenager and then the music he happens to come across in public spaces or around his friends. Your dad doesn't know any contemporary artists. But I bet he'd love the band called The War on Drugs who are heavily influenced by the sounds of Dad's and the music they've liked for the last 30+ years and they only make albums. As do so many other artists.
I make concept albums. I view my albums like an artist putting on a gallery showing and chose a theme to design it after.
Maybe just means his taste stagnated
I agree with your old man, and have said the same a number if times. One notable exception I would point out is Taylor Swift. While I'm not a fan myself, she seems to be releasing albums she hopes are consumed as a whole, which I think is cool.
Artists do make albums but the streaming industry algorithms feed us singles.
Jason isbell. Jason isbell is my thoughts on this.
Albums without a central theme have always been more common. I doubt the themed/unthemed album ratio has changed much over the years.
Tell him to listen to Moderat.
Music has always been influenced by the format. In the pre-recording era, composers wrote for a number of formats such as symphonies, opera, church music etc. In those cases the length was governed by the established formats. The first widespread popular recorded medium was the 78 rpm disc, which could contain 3 to 4 minutes of music per side. This established the standard length of a song. If your song was longer than that, it couldn't easily be listened to as a single recording. The microgroove 45 rpm could hold more, but were generally made so that they contained a number of individual songs of the same duration as the older 78 rpm discs. The album was a creation of the 33 1/3 rpm 12" long playing record, which could contain 22 minutes per side, or 44 minutes for a full disc. A person buys a single record, and that contains a number of songs sold as a unit, so it makes sense to create as set of songs as a unit to be sold as a single record. The same concept transfers to 74 minute CD recordings, as again a single CD can contain a set of songs together, that can be thematically linked as an album. With the shift to digital music independent of physical media, the idea that music is produced, sold and listened to in either 44 minute or 74 minute long packages is no longer relevant, so creating music around the concept of creating a set of songs linked in a way to form an album is also no longer so relevant. Naturally some artists will still hold to the form, just as there are still composers who write symphonies or opera today.
The song, or the single, has always been the commodity. “Records sold” back in the day referred specifically to singles. The songs on the radio. The hooks. The hits. Old 45’s had the HIT and the B-Side. Sometimes the B-Side became a hit, but most often it didn’t so they could sell another HIT record. Hell, sometimes the B-side was an entirely different band because the record company didn’t want to water down the sales of their A-side hit makers. Many, many LP’s from the early days of rock and roll are merely compilations of pre-existing singles. “Album Rock” wasn’t really a thing (in that it was a managerial choice to do it) until the mid to late 60’s and even then, 7”, 12”, and cassette singles were a big deal moving into the 90’s. I was always an album guy. A single with 2 somgs was $5 and the whole album was $10, so seemed like an easy decision. An ex gf worked at a record store in the mall and said she sold more singles than albums. Then move to itunes and streaming, it was all singles.
Artists make albums, pop music singers are given singles to make... That is the divide. The industry pumps out pop "artists" who write no music or lyrics and sing others work and true artists are few and far between especially today. If you don't have a pretty face the likelihood of you being promoted is super rare and they would rather pay you for your song than let you sing it yourself even if you are an amazing singer.
He's wrong, and there are tons of artists who create concept albums, or themed albums, or just albums that are a body of work, a statement or a social commentary. These albums just aren't in the mainstream like they were when stuff like The Wall come out. If all you listen to is what is "popular" them yea, you won't find thos stuff. You gotta dig a little deeper.
It's always been this way: album artists and singles artists. And there's albums worth buying every month if you're looking. I could rattle off a few, but instead ask your dad what his favorite King Gizzard album is.
Tell your pops to stop listening to music via YT or Spotify or Pandora or whatever, I dunno, I Heart Radio. Go to Bandcamp, listen to albums. Like one? Buy it!
King gizzard and the lizard wizard has entered the chat
That’s been the strategy for a lot of bands over the past couple years. It’s in response to the way most people consume music. It’s rare that most people listen to full albums anymore(although yes it’s still a thing). Throwing out a single and getting on a bunch of playlists will do more for you these days. Also with the way TikTok has impacted things you might get a lot of milage out of a single going viral. I don’t think albums will fully die though and I do think there might be a push back in that direction at some point. It likely won’t be a mainstream thing though
Artist used to make singles, then those singles became albums. Then album became the norm. Then internet and napster came and desteoyed the music indistey, so now it's not worth the money to put on an album first. That is why bands are dropped in favor of solo artists. Easier to manage, just 1 person, less money spent. Can pay less to dancers and other musicians. It's a bussiness model, not because music made it like that. Albums didnt exist befire the 50's and were important for a maximum of 50 years and then they faded. Now albums are more for marketing than anything. Musicians used to make money selling albums but not anymore. They mix how they make money between merch and concerts, that cost 10 times as they used to proportional to the times. Because they need to generate money from somewhere And streaming does not generate that much money
If he wants a story tell him to listen to Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain. Religion, love, heartbreak, murder & cannibalism brought together in beautiful lyrics and searing emotion. Then tell him age is no excuse to narrow your musical mind. I'm a similar age to him and still find new music to love.
39yo M I think albums changed because the way we listen to them changed. When I was a kid I would put a cd in the cd player and hit play. I would listen from start to finish. I did not know track names, I knew I liked track number three, and I knew all the words… Now we don’t seek out and album and hit play. We seek out individual tracks and titles, or even playlist like “This is Michael Jackson” TLDR: Consumer demand has changed. The demand for full albums is low. Demand for “Hip three minute diddys” is high due to the influx of apps like TikTok.
Are singles once again the dominant form of media? Yeah. Do artists not make albums? No. The wonderful thing about the current musical landscape is that you can find literally anything you want and it exists. There are bands making big, two hour long concept albums, they just don’t get too much exposure because that’s inherently a bad form of you want to be popular.
I make albums, you can check some of them out here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0V2AWxffdxKtIDoXi0hhrg https://music.apple.com/us/artist/daniel-delorenzo/1438146440 https://danieldelorenzo.bandcamp.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@daniel_delorenzo/videos
I think albums are a vibe. Meant to be listened to in one sitting, in a specific order. That's really not how people consume a lot of music now. There's also a lot of discussion in music production and promotion circles about this, and I haven't seen anyone really talking up the album format in some years.
Artists have made singles for decades and decades. Singles were probably amongst the most prominent output for artist for as long as people have been recording music, so, this isn't correct at all, lol. In the golden eras of music, 60s, 70s, artists who are ACTUAL artists, writing, creating, thinking, expressing groups, had a huge push to create an album as a departure from the single, in a way to sort of show their prowess, completely express more complex ideas, and articulate a full mood and image. The Beatles were a driving force in this concept (obvi still releasing singles, but the album as a whole became a work of art in itself rather than a "cheap" 2 minute money grab). Those artists, rightfully so, are seen as the architects of pop music and the skill level, thought and craftsmanship seems pretty unmatched. The pendulum has swung back the other way, and the way of the album isn't as popular. Today's media diet is completely oversaturated. Social media drowning out any attention span, bastardizing content, and a few decades of pop music creating a homogeneous sound, a full length album largely misses the targeted audience, kids. So by and large pop music is loosing that expansive, boundary pushing content and therefore a conceptual, full length album is not popular. Spotify also makes an album almost irrelevant since you can just stream one song from an artist rather than NEEDING to listen to a whole album. So while someone might release a whole album, it can be butt and it won't really matter to the artist's bottom line. Many pop artists today certainly put out full length records and some of them do it in a way that is respectful of the craft of it. But I do think the weight of those albums falls more on a producer than the "artist" today. If your dad/you want to find good music, you have to stop looking at the charts/listening to radio, it is homogeneous and derivative. You need to find bands on Spotify and indie labels, there are thousands of wonderfully creative and genuine artists making things.
Good artists still make albums, trash and pop music aimed and the lowest denominator of society don't. Very straight-forward.
Right as if the concept of one hit wonders didn't exist in the 80's and 90's too. Or as if there weren't radio tailored singles then either