Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

(Weekly Column)

The beginning of each college semester at the University of Florida was always exciting. It brought fresh faces from new places and renewed hope for the possibility of young love. Inevitably, there would be one guy in class that instantaneously caused my eyes to pop out and my head to swivel like a bobble head doll.

What I always found interesting, however, was that the person who initially turned my head, often turned me off by the end of the year. Meanwhile, there would be guys who were merely cute on the first day, but grew more attractive as the semester wore on. By summer, the early stud often became a dud and the pinch-hitter became a hit.

The same principle can be applied to music albums, where you spend your cash for the song with flash, but your band loyalty comes from the B-side song with longevity. Like guys, certain songs just wear well and reveal their layered mystery and majesty over time.

Unfortunately, in these times of warp speed and immediate need, the album may soon disappear altogether. In its place are bands that produce only one or two "hits" that we can digitally download into our ipods.

"I think the album is going to die," Aram Sinnreich, managing partner at Radar Research, told The New York Times. "Consumers are listening to play lists," or mixes of single songs from an assortment of different artists. "Consumers who have had iPods since they were in the single digits are going to increasingly gravitate toward artists who embrace that."

Jeff Kempler, chief operating officer of EMI's Capitol Music Group, also told the Times that, "For some genres and some artists, having an album-centric plan will be a thing of the past." While the traditional album provides value to fans, he said, "perpetuating a business model that fixates on a particular packaged product configuration is inimical to what the Internet enables, and it's inimical to what many consumers have clearly voted for."

Granted, there are too many CD's that rip-off the consumer by providing one hit, while larding the rest of the album with useless, un-listenable garbage. However, the industry's answer should be to demand better songs from their bands, not limit or inhibit their growth and stunting their artistic development. Sadly, this latest move towards the single seems the final triumph of marketing over music.

The disappearance of the album will surely lower music to the lowest common denominator. It will do to the music industry what strip malls did to the landscape, namely creating a confusing atmosphere with neither inspiration nor continuity. It will trap artists in a narrow, confining genre or prefabricated, test-marketed sound and offer them little room to grow.

We can expect to be awash in insipid songs that are predictably snappy and marketed to the cheerleading set that is chronically happy. Bubble gum tunes by airhead cartoons and a cacophony of forgettable one-hit wonders and harmony blunders. The singular goal of future artists might be peppy songs that crossover as popular ring tones for Cingular Wireless.

As the world turns ever faster, we may want to take a breather from our quintuple latte and "Crackberry" to ask if the way we live is truly progress? Or, maybe we have just been commercialized and hypnotized into thinking we are moving forward, when we actually have a deteriorating standard of living wrapped up in a Styrofoam box. The entire world, it seems, is built around speed and our national motto is "More and Faster." It has now reached a crisis point where we must pick our songs out of an electronic cardboard container as if they were McNuggets.

In the 1970's, the proliferation of fast food joints and the mindless building of soulless office parks caused an explosion of poor health and turned our highways into parking lots. But what good are fast cars in traffic and eating fatty food that can be fatal? "More and Faster" does not necessarily translate into better.

Isn't the goal of technology to enrich our lives, rather than limit our choices and turn slick marketers rich? If we don't even have the time or patience to read a book or listen to an entire album, maybe we should reevaluate the direction of the cyber age and consider a reboot.

Sure, this is depressing and makes me want to play an old, melancholy Smiths CD before albums vanish altogether and former lead singer Morrissey is reduced to crooning jingles for Prozac ads.

22 Comments:

I'll admit that the advent of iTunes has made it easier for me to find songs I like without having to buy albums I loathe. However, when I find an artist I like or a song that truly catches me, I will buy the full album in physical form if at all possible. Three weeks ago, I waited 15 minutes for a Borders employee to search their inventory room for a copy of the new Combichrist CD, even though I could have purchased it easier (and cheaper) online. Why do I do this? Because buying a CD is an act of support and act of love for an artist. Talking heads can go on and on about how "the consumer" does this, or "the consumer" does that, but I refuse to be labeled a mere consumer. I am a passionate music fan, and as long as others like me exist, no teen idol two-song wonder if going to kill the album.

--Johnny in Minneapolis
posted by Anonymous, at 3/29/2007 4:29 PM

I also, miss the album. I miss bands who loved music trying to do quality work for what, 16 tracks? When I was a teen, my friends and I loved the deep tracks on an album. We digged the songs they weren't playing on the radio. Now, I feel that the songs they aren't playing on the radio shouldn't be played on the radio; or anywhere else for that matter. I have a collection of over 2000 albums ranging from the Partridge Family, (yes my first crush was david cassidy) to Iron Maiden. I have ditched most of my cassettes, but I can't get rid of my albums.

I fear that the music isn't as important as it was then. Most kids getting into the business are looking to make a million from their first single and not have to worry about anything.

When groups and soloists were creating albums, every note meant something to them. With the advent of new technology, integrity gets lost.
posted by jekelhyde, at 4/01/2007 12:38 AM

We use to joke that Morrisy should title an album
MUSIC TO COMMIT SUICIDE BY.

He is certainly an aquired taste.

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posted by Jack E. Jett, at 4/02/2007 4:22 PM

Don't gratify Morrissey by buying his album. He was such a sour-faced git on Johnathan Ross's chat show last year, and Ross tried so hard.

The iPod/mp3 phenomenon is interesting. It could be argued that it fosters musical eclecticism, as people are willing to download tracks of this and that and try different stuff. In the 1970s when I was a teenager, vinyl 12" albums were expensive and precious, and and you couldn't afford to do much more than stick to what you knew. Nowadays I find that students have an interesting mix of tracks on their iPods. One had Harry Connick Junior next to heavy metal.

Another interesting aspect is that iPods and other such players have all but wiped out Hi-Fi. In my teens it was a big thing when you saved up for, and got, your first Hi-Fi. You got the best you could afford, and positioned the two speakers carefully for optimum stereo. Hi-Fi doesn't seem such a priority now, except perhaps via a docking station for mp3 player in home and car.

Another interesting phenomenon is earphone-sharing. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen two teenagers walking along the corridor where I work, each with one earpiece in, sharing a song from the same player.

C.D.s are struggling somewhat at the moment. Go into any of the big music/book stores and you will see that so much space has been clawed back from CDs and given to DVDs, which currently are much hotter sellers. The Big Four (SonyBMG, Universal, EMI and Warner) who own some 80% of recorded music, have been puzzled to know what to do about the newer technology - file downloads, mp3 etc.

When you think about it, the Beatles entire output - all the albums they ever produced - would easily fit onto one disc of mp3, which you could play on any modern DVD player. But could the music companies sell it at a price that would make a big enough profit for themselves? Selling individual tracks as mp3 file downloads at a Dollar each (79 pence in the UK) adds up to around the same price as a CD, for say ten to twelve songs.
posted by Phil, at 4/03/2007 5:41 AM

Interesting article in The Times of London, England, today, about Apple charging different prices for iTunes downloads in different regions. Possible huge fine because of it. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1605136.ece
posted by Phil, at 4/03/2007 10:53 AM

but when I was a kid (70's and 80's) I would buy an album and I loved most every song on that album. THere were perhaps one or two that I didn't like. Now, in the age of the "IPOD single" I don't have the option of putting on a record of say, "The moody Blues" and letting it go. My record player even turned the damned record over so I could listen to all the tracks in one sitting. The same artist; all the great tunes.

I must be getting old.
posted by jekelhyde, at 4/03/2007 11:07 PM

I wouldn't worry about albums going away. We were crazy about making compelation tapes in the eighties and that didn't kill the album at all. Rather, I think it helped them because people were interested in putting obscure songs on the tape. Plus, I like the idea that I can put my entire cd on my Itunes for use on my player.

What's great to me is that I now have easy access to some really great old music that used to be hard to come by. Legal downloading must be a financial windfall for some of these older artists.
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