When will the album format in prog go away?

What happens if your only one track is also the whole album like Djam Karet's The Trip or Mike Oldfield's Amarok? Basically trying to restrict an artists vision is just a really bad idea. I don't see any rules in place that need to be adhered to anyway as far as releasing music. Also how do you decide what a good song is before people have heard it? I guess we could have something like the film industry. Preview copy is sent out to the fans . The majority decide the end to the song is just too negative and makes them feel bad so it goes back to the band to cheer it up a bit. Yep that would great! Roger please change the end of The Wall as its just not the upbeat happy ending I want. Thanks Mate.

Came along to the thread late, but !! Just to of course mention that my last album had a 36 minute track on it. Loads of things are possible, artists aren't constrained by track or album length anymore. 

I understand exactly what a lot of you are saying but if push comes to shove, the industry is not going to listen to people like us. We are collectors who do not want to give up the format that we believe is the only way to enjoy music.

Given the choice, I listen to both single songs and full albums, depending on my mood. Why should I listen to a full album if I have somewhere to go or something else to do? But if I have the time, I do usually like listening to full albums.

The whole point of PROG ROCK, folks, is that it P R O G R E S S E D past the staid and stale three minute formula songs of the day. 

TeleStrat wrote: I understand exactly what a lot of you are saying but if push comes to shove, the industry is not going to listen to people like us. We are collectors who do not want to give up the format that we believe is the only way to enjoy music. But the fact is that we are in the minority, not the majority of music buyers. In this world, industry does not produce what they want, they produce what the consumer wants. Right now the majority of consumers want as many songs as they can cram into their hand held device. Ipod capacity is not in the hundreds of songs, it's in the thousands of songs. And where does the average listener get all those songs? They get them off the internet and usually for free. If the trend continues this way, and it probably will, the music producing industry won't give a rat's rear end about concept albums or fifty-five minutes of music that were meant to be one complete body of work.

I don't understand. The industry produces what the consumer wants, but the consumer gets it for free? What kind of business model is that? The industry would give a rats ear about album-length material because fans such as us spend money on it. The problem is that there isn't much of an "industry" in the sense of a music industry anymore. What goes under the guise of the industry are programmers and website designers, and a particular computer manufacturer that has decided not to include built in CD drives. The problem on the consumer side is that young people increasingly don't care to own things. They network to get rides instead of even wanting to own a car. They're fine with putting their own intellectual property up on the cloud. They don't buy DVD movies anymore. And they don't buy albums.

Edited by HackettFan - January 31 2015 at 10:23

I have mentioned in another thread the frustration of hearing the shortened version of Light My Fire on am radio. There was a time when 2:45 was the industry standard  length of a song and going over 3:00 was unheard of.

The point, Angelo, is that there are some here arguing for shorter prog songs.... and some arguing for longer ones. The idea is that song length is somehow good or bad.

Good morning HackettFan

I am the producer of my own music. And I decide what I release independent of money. :-)

Edited by Davesax1965 - January 31 2015 at 11:01