When will the album format in prog go away? |
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WeepingElf
Forum Senior Member Joined: August 18 2013 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 373 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 10:21 | |
What Gerinski said.
In mainstream pop, albums are just collections of songs, and it makes sense to purchase the songs individually. In prog, such albums exist, too, but more typical is the concept album which is a whole work, and while some of the parts of such albums may be viable as single songs, most are not, and buying them individually makes as much sense as buying a single symphony movement. |
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LearsFool
Prog Reviewer Joined: November 09 2014 Location: New York Status: Offline Points: 8618 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 11:57 | |
Outside of the out-and-out popsphere, albums of all stripes have more than weathered the digital age. There is no danger of losing albums in indie, metal, and hip-hop, let alone any type of prog.
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 16148 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 12:04 | |
Hi,
Weird .... now we can't have Symphonies anymore, because the idiot wants songs, and the symphony has 4 movements ... and you will not bother listening to the 3 movements in the middle of the piece!
Very weird!
No sense whatsoever, about music and its history! And the money and popularity of pop music is what is hurting music definitions and its history! No wonder most folks do not consider progressive or anything having to do with pop muisc, music at all!!!!! Edited by moshkito - January 30 2015 at 12:10 |
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ClemofNazareth
Special Collaborator Prog Folk Researcher Joined: August 17 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 4659 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 12:21 | |
To a certain extent these changes are already happening.
Carla Kihlstedt & Matthias Bossi started Rabbit Rabbit Radio, a subscription service where fans can sign up and get a monthly song & video plus other things like artwork from the duo. Melora Creager (aka Rasputina) releases on her own label and also posts poetry, songs and short films directly to her fans. And a lot of bands like the Decemberists are returning to the 70s model of putting out albums with lots of extras like posters, patches, banners, etc., but focus on touring as a central revenue source. Crowdsourcing and social media mean a declining need for major labels to fund and distribute music, so it's inevitable there will be bands and artists who continue to evolve how music and art are packaged and delivered to prospective fans. |
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SteveG
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 11 2014 Location: Kyiv In Spirit Status: Offline Points: 20497 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 12:33 | |
When pigs fly. (The real ones, not the inflatable PF pig floating over the generator station on the Animals album cover!)
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Angelo
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: May 07 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 13239 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 12:57 | |
It happens already - but in many (prog) cases it culminates in an album after all. A lot of bands that publish their materials through e.g. bandcamp work in that way.
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cstack3
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: July 20 2009 Location: Tucson, AZ USA Status: Offline Points: 6747 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 15:44 | |
Eventually, prog music will be replaced by algorithms and programs, and we will be able to "participate" in the music in many ways, including adding vocals/instrumentals, manipulating time signatures etc. New technologies that track hand and body motion will be incorporated into the listening experience.
A feature of this vision is that the "new" music created by the participant (a term that replaces "listener") could be then recorded and archived/shared. This is already happening to a limited extent, it is just a matter of time before that is what the market will dictate.
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Tapfret
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 12 2007 Location: Bryant, Wa Status: Offline Points: 8571 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 17:11 | |
Hopefully soon! Then we can start working on eliminating the book format of written stories, the movie format of a sequential progression of images, and eventually the centralized food vending format of the supermarket
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presdoug
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 24 2010 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 8080 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 18:12 | |
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TeleStrat
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 27 2014 Location: Norwalk, CA Status: Offline Points: 9319 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 18:25 | |
[/QUOTE] Good post. It is weird, and kind of depressing. With the younger generation wanting everything quicker and quicker, man, that lack of patience is detrimental to the real appreciation of the arts. Come to think of it, I don't know many people that just take an hour or hour and a half, or even two, and just listen to music. I do, and wouldn't give it up for the world. [/QUOTE] Many music listeners (notice I didn't say fans) don't want to listen to fifty or sixty minutes of the same band. They like to pick a category on their little handheld device and hit "shuffle". |
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Progosopher
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 12 2009 Location: Coolwood Status: Offline Points: 6393 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 19:20 | |
This kind of thing is the very reason why ipods and streaming became popular in the first place. People got tired of buying a whole album because of a good song they heard on the radio only to discover that it is the only good song on the album. Thus the biz turned back more towards the format of singles. It is a sad commentary on popular music that most artists really only have a couple of good songs in them. The business model is to hit, hit hard, and milk it for as long as possible. The music itself seems almost the last thing in mind. Prog fans, however, tend to take a more serious approach to their musical listening and thus maintain higher standards than most (there are exceptions of course), and one of the signs of progressive rock is the cohesive album; More than a collection of random songs, they are pieces of music built around certain ideas. They do not have to offer a concept album, only one that is conceived of as a whole. Aristotle's basic model of beginning, middle, and end, is a good plan to work from. It seems that conscious effort has been put into how an album will begin and how it will end, and how the music will move from one to the other in a cohesive way. The best albums give us an experience of something more than a series of songs. When Pink Floyd released The Division Bell, I found I enjoyed the songs better when heard in context of the rest of the album rather than individually on the radio.
So yes, such things have already happened. Another business model gets in the way of what the OP says, in that downloading sites will not allow for individual songs over ten minutes, which excludes a lot of the proggers' favorite tracks. Me, I am an album person. Almost anybody can write a good listenable tune, but it takes more skill and musicianship to write or even compose an entire album. I like to adhere to that higher standard as much as I can. And yes, sometimes I end up with a whole album where I only like one or two songs but that is a risk I am willing to take since I have developed a good sense for albums that will be satisfying the whole way through.
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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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Meltdowner
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: June 25 2013 Location: Portugal Status: Offline Points: 10215 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 19:57 | |
I pratically only listen to full albums and I enjoy listening to some music at night, since I don't watch TV The only time I shuffle is on my way to work, because it's not far enough to listen to an album |
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Metalmarsh89
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 15 2013 Location: Oregon, USA Status: Offline Points: 2673 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 20:08 | |
I disagree with every point made in the OP. But that's a personal opinion.
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*frinspar*
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 27 2008 Location: Arizona Status: Offline Points: 463 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 20:30 | |
Wow. You'd think guys who listen to progressive music wouldn't be so afraid of change.
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29625 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 21:16 | |
The album format will never go away, vinyl, CD, DVD, and digital file are the currently used formats by most of us...
Edited by Slartibartfast - January 30 2015 at 21:18 |
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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The Sloth
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 05 2013 Status: Offline Points: 115 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 21:30 | |
Someone has to do the work of realizing that not every change is just right.
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Dellinger
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: June 18 2009 Location: Mexico Status: Offline Points: 12608 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 22:32 | |
I don't think the album format will disapear completley for a while yet... or perhaps never, who knows. However, the new format gives more liberty to the artists. If they only have one song and want to release it, why bother to make a whole album? If they have a whole album worth of music, then they may release it so. I guess for the time being, the album format will continue to be influenced by the CD limitations, thus making the albums single albums or double albums or whatever, but there might come the time when the artist chooses to release his music only through internet and make an album with 90 or 100 minutes, and not call it a double album (why bother?). Also, I think there could be some interesting things to be done. I remember reading once about how the Foundation series from Isaac Asimov was released, and he released a chapter every certain time on the news... and it had the readers crazy for the next chapter to come out. Perhaps a very good and powerful concept album could be released this way through internet, and then have the lyrics, and perhaps some extra writing to tight up the concept, and some visual art added in a file, and release one song with the bunch of goodies every month. Perhaps they could even create an interactive site for the project (I could imagine Rhapsody of Fire having released their albums in a way similar to this). Of course, it would be best if said band actually got a really good writer of stories to suport such a thing.
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Catcher10
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: December 23 2009 Location: Emerald City Status: Online Points: 17496 |
Posted: January 30 2015 at 23:09 | |
I hope this happens actually......Will make everyone leave my used record stores alone.....More vinyl for me!!
Actually this will probably never happen from a business plan view....The cost of making, producing and releasing 1 song would require the sell price to be more than an album.
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FragileKings
Prog Reviewer Joined: April 10 2012 Location: Japan Status: Offline Points: 92 |
Posted: January 31 2015 at 03:46 | |
It's 2015 and already I have seen a few reviews of new albums. Though people have been saying that the album format has been dying for years it certainly hasn't become extinct. Not at all.
In the fifties and early sixties the music industry was heavily driven by singles. Bands like Episode Six ran a career of several years without ever releasing a proper album. These days, the single is making a come back, thanks to iTunes and other download means. But albums don't seem to be going away just yet. For prog and metal, albums are still very important largely because many of those bands create concept albums. Even albums which are not concept narratives often still are based on a concept, like "Power Windows" by Rush. Prog and metal both emerged during the days when albums were an art, not just a collection of latest songs. I think bands may wish to release new individual songs as singles downloads. However, the draw to actually make an album of new material, a collection of songs that are somehow related by a story or set of experiences will still be a natural way of thinking for some time to come. It doesn't matter if you buy the album on disc or vinyl or download it. Prog and metal still revel in making an album with cool artwork. I think the resurrection of vinyl and the digipak CD are going to keep the album alive for some time to come.
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I used to be a fan of particular bands like Rush, Yes, and Deep Purple. Now I travel the Proglands, exploring a little bit of everything. I have become a Prog Voyager.
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Mascodagama
Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 30 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 5111 |
Posted: January 31 2015 at 04:57 | |
I don't buy that the album format will ever really go away, because for a lot of artists and a lot of listeners it's a format that just works. Given the artist is no longer constrained to operate within limitations imposed by the recording medium, that just means there are other options.
I mean there's nothing constraining artists in the literary field to write novels and release them as such, rather than shorter or serialised forms. But people still write novels because the format works for a lot of stories, and because there's an audience for stories presented in that form. I see it working the same with albums.
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