A week or so ago, after I introduced Yeah Yeah Yeah’s fabulous It’s Blitz! to a fellow blogger, we pondered over the lengthy time it was taking La Roux to get their album out. As we recalled, the way the release of an album used to work was this: one single, then perhaps one or two weeks later, the album arrived.
Of course, La Roux have an excuse: they’re a new band so they actually need to write songs to go onto their debut album. Other bands don’t, but occasionally marketing hype demands one or two singles to be released way in advance of an album. This increases the weight of expectation on that album to perform, which usually doesn’t because the album (not its songs) was the goal in the first place. Ten or so songs packaged up into some concept or sold to illustrate a story or life-changing series of events.
What’s the alternative? Well, as Bob Lefsetz writes “[artists] should focus on single tracks..attractive to the target audience.” For musicians that’s their core fanbase. The album was a necessity born of the logistics and cost of creating, recording and putting music into the hands of people. On a return on investment basis, when everything was physical, albums made perfect sense. However, with the exception of some artists who knew how to work with the scope of that increased time period, it usually led to lower quality songs.
People don’t buy albums today because, aside from two or three singles, they suck. Not necessarily due to the demands of writing (resulting in filler tracks) but because few people have the time and inclination to work with an album. We’ve all short attention spans and distractions (that’s why most of my serious music listening comes when I’m walking, or during the autumn and winter.)
Some bands are already working around this, exactly as Bob suggests, providing fans with songs as and when they’re written. Digital production and distribution makes periodic releases financially and logistically feasible and a talkative fanbase will do most of the marketing work. And not being holed up in a studio for weeks (or months) at a time paradoxically gives them opportunities to be creative in their songwriting and allows time for touring or ad-hoc gigs (where their real income is made). For those artists who sell their songs, it brings in more income per song than an album would. Following these arguments, it’s clear that albums don’t make sense anymore.
Except for one thing: when you’ve 10 songs, or perhaps a years’ worth of songs, why not also release them as an album? All killer, no filler.
