The end of album-centric music?

[Jettbacca]

Oh, well sorry then. Thanks Daniel. I do think it is pretty well the end of Album-centric music since nowadays since everyone just goes on ITunes and just presses a button instead of actually getting of their butt and going to Good Vibrations. Album sales have plummeted in the past few years because of illegal downloading and as far as I know, the artists don't get payed a cent when their songs are downloaded. It must tick them off a lot.

[onions]

the truth of the matter is record sales are down cause the music 'industry' is pumping out tons of CRAP.

[SkwerlJones]

Agreed, for the most part. There is still good music coming out today, it is just being overshadowed by the annoying and meaningless bubble gum pop that everyone loves to sing and get stuck in my head. Please excuse me if I sound like a biased jerk, but most kids would rather hear catchy beats and lyrics that make no sense instead of good music that actually has meaning to it. Again, this probably applies to no one here.

And yes, illegal downloading has made artists lose a lot of money. You have to think, why would they make a whole new album when people can steal the music online. They might have a better chance of releasing a single hit, and because of the lower price, people would be less persuaded to steal that one song.

[Jettbacca]

onions, I completely agree with you.

[Zekk]

There is still good music coming out today, it is just being overshadowed by the annoying and meaningless bubble gum pop that everyone loves to sing and get stuck in my head. Please excuse me if I sound like a biased jerk, but most kids would rather hear catchy beats and lyrics that make no sense instead of good music that actually has meaning to it.

You pretty much nailed it on the head. It seems like there are one or two songs from most albums nowadays that kids know all the lyrics to and sing all the time and hit the iTunes top ten, etc, etc. when with older music (Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Who, Boston, Fleetwood Mac, etc), a whole album became immensely popular. I love finding old records for cheap prices or digging through old records at my house and putting one on the record player and just letting the whole thing play.

[MrCRskater]

I agree with Don and Daniel that this paradigm shift is largely due to the diminution of the listener's attention span. We live in a society that is increasingly concerned with having "it" now - whatever "it" is. "Instant gratification" is the word. Nobody is willing to invest themselves in an artistic statement (of any kind, be it music, literature, whatever) in a meaningful way. Like Daniel said, it is a beautiful thing to sit down with an album or a piece of music and not just hear it, but actively listen to it and absorb and consider everything that is going on sonically. If folks like him are in the minority, then the only way for pop artists and record companies to make money is to cater to the majority by espousing volumes of short, trite tunes of mass appeal but little substance.

For what it's worth, there is a new organization out there called ArtistShare. They're single-handedly trying to reshape the recording industry, and the arts industry as a whole (they also have contracts with an author and a filmmaker) to avoid the very thing we're discussing, and trying to encourage artists to express themselves artistically rather than commercially. You should check them out at www.ArtistShare.com. Even if you're not interested in any of the music they're offering right now, just see what they're about. Maybe as the word gets out, we as consumers can steer some of our favorite artists in that direction.