Having grown up late 90s into the 2000s I went from buying cds to lime wire to spotify.
In the last 6 months I have found such a greater appreciation for just putting on a whole album and listening to it front to back.
I feel there is a huge loss when going from one artist to another to another all random.
Today I am listening to Refused, The Shape Of Punk To Come
Yeah unfortunately I disagree. There are plenty of albums where I like literally one song and don’t much care for anything else on it.
I’m a novice musician, producer, and sometimes rapper because I can’t sing for shit but I agree.
An album is like a film to me, songs are scenes and they fit because it’s a piece of a bigger story. My favorite hip hop albums are The Cool by Lupe Fiasco and APOS by Cunninlynguists (it flips to their newer two sometimes) but I love those so much because they tell stories (they’re technically concept albums) and feel great by themselves too. So on the opposite side, it’s hard to make an album that is cohesive together and amazing individually. Not all artists are that impressive.
I hate the shortening of songs and even I have fallen to it but I feel good musicians try to make good albums and not just singles. Doesn’t even have to be a concept album. I really like Kendrick’s last two albums, prior more than latter as the beef will age the latter but flow is also important.
I can talk forever on this but it may just be a sign of the times changing art for the worst.
No, not at all. There are usually only a few pieces i like.
That’s because you grew up in an era where the Album wasn’t an art form any more. Today it’s just a collection of random songs.
In the 60s, the Beatles made the album an art form of its own, and other bands embraced the model. The cover(s), the inner sleeves, even the labels on the records, all became part of the artistic conception.
The music was carefully programmed, with a compelling opening, and a closing song at the end of side one. Then the flip, and side two has to open with a bang, and end with a big finish. The songs between were expected to carry the vibe of the album forward, and many albums were even built around a story, called Concept Albums.
When it was finished, that LP album was a fully contained artwork by a true musical artist, the way a book, or painting is the final representation of those artists artistic concepts.
It started to fall apart during the CD era of the 90s, when every package was essentially the same, and the artwork was too small to make a strong impact. Them things went fully digital, and people could just cherry pick their favorite tracks, and the concept of an album as art collapsed.
How do you cherry pick Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, or The Wall? Or The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper, Abby Road, Revolver, Rubber Soul? Led Zeppelin IV? The Who’s Who’s Next? The Cars debut album?
Today, artists generally don’t think in terms of full albums, just individual songs. It’s the equivalent of a corporation only being concerned about the current quarter’s results, and not considering the long term ramifications of that sort of thinking.
This is my bearing. The stuff I love most, and want to listen to most, also tends to be stuff that is so good, the entire album is good.
Totally agree - some artists dependig on the genre, eg Katatonia (their Dead End Kings is 👌) have very nicely crafted albums.
I think it depends on the artist and the time. Im a big jethro tull fan and they crafted their albums very specifically. You could sorta see it in particular in this period as they always ended with these short songs that were kinda a goodbye. Its kinda hard to describe but when you listen to their stuff form the 60-80 its pretty clear. What gets me is streaming. The thing with streaming is if I call up an album it will default to remastered one which pretty much adds back things from the cuttting room floor appened to the end. Which completely ruins the experience. Drives me nuts.
You don’t listen to “Thick as a brick” on shuffle?
While I agree that there definitely are albums where listening to them in their entirety enhances the experience (Metropolis 2, Octavarium), I generally prefer picking out the best songs of an album and listening to those instead.
Not all albums are made of bangers and have songs I’d never listen to a second time.unless its pop
What about Michael Jackson, Thriller Album?
Yeah i don’t know any pop albums made as a single piece of art
I don’t know what you would consider Cornelius’s Fantasma, I think in some regard it can be considered pop. Do yourself a favour and check that album, and do it from start to finish in one go.
I generally agree. However, especially nowadays (and back in the early 60s before Pet Sounds and Rubber Soul), not all albums are written to be listened to as a whole. We’ve gone back to (many, not all) albums just being a collection of singles.
For better or worse (worse imo).
You have to seek out albums these days, you can find some good ones still from skilled artists
Oh, hey, I just had this thought while listening to Rammstein yesterday
Ah nice, what album
I believe that this was the reason Tool took so long to go on streaming platforms.
Eh, dont agree. Yeah, I think listening to a whole album is important on occasion and can give a cool perspective. But I’ve found that the range of things I enjoy increases with shuffle. There’s so much stuff that I love… in unexpected short spurts. Im not talking hits, but just random decent stuff. I think there’s something lost when an album has to be good enough that you intentionally pull it off the shelf and listen to it for an hour. Hordes of cool things won’t meet that level.
Listening to album is a way to listen to a full story. While I listen to some Bollywood movie album, it feels like watching the movie again and going through that story
Any movie album you would recommend?
‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ and the sequel both have banging songs. Idk if the full soundtracks are available anywhere, though.
Of western films, try ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas’, ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, Nino Rota’s soundtrack for ‘Amarcord’, Kenji Kawai’s ‘Ghost In The Shell’, and David Lynch’s films: ‘Twin Peaks’, ‘Lost Highway’, ‘Blue Velvet’. Joe Hisaishi made great music for both Takeshi Kitano and Ghibli. Philip Glass’ ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ is famously the only sound in the film; and his ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’ is also very cool. ‘Chinatown’ is pretty much a definitive album of dark jazz. John Lurie made music for ‘Down By Law’ in which he also acted.
Gangs of wasseypur’s song are bangers, I’ll be sure to watch the movies. Thanks!
Depending on the album.
Some albums are made like that, as a cohesive work.
Others are just a bunch of songs put together by approximately release date.
Absolutely this.
Now, when I was in High School, I realized that I had owned “The Wall” for 3 months and still never had 90 minutes of consecutive available listening time to listen to it all the way through… parent enforced bedtime was a big part of that, but still… life can be too hectic sometimes.
I’d say most albums are a collection of the songs the band picked out to make it and then arranged in a way that fit the medium back in the day and feels like it makes sense.
OP and others here in the comments are reading way too much into that they have become accustomed to how one song follows another. It’s not like most bands play concerts in the album order either.
Personally I liked making mix tapes for myself from vinyl to listen to individual songs in new orders and I really liked when CDs were introduced and you could play shuffle and bring attention to every song as it was a little surprise every time.
That said, I’m glad you’ve found attentive listening to music, OP. Keep listening to full albums if this helps you do it.
Most, yes. Then you get to producers like Alan Parsons (Abbey Road, Dark Side of the Moon, all of his own stuff…) He’s rare in the industry, but many have followed his style of album arrangement since then.
Absolutely not, most albums have a bunch of skippable junk between the interesting stuff, and exist best as a few tracks on a mixtape. There are a small number of albums that are best experienced as a single piece - e.g Pink Flag, In The Court Of The Crimson King, Woof. - but they’re exceptions rather than the norm.
Mixtapes predate cds by a bit there, kid.
They do not, however, predate albums. CDs were not the inception of the album.
