Death of the album
I think the album might be dead.
Or at least it is for me.
I exclusively use my iPod for listening to music. I almost never listen to the radio; I haven’t reprogrammed the channels since April, when I had a car problem and my battery was unhooked.
And I’ve noticed that I listen to songs in playlists, in moods. I rarely listen to an entire album.
And I think that might be sad. Artists sometimes strive for cohesion, want their whole works to be considered.
I have a few albums/artists that I try not to split up. Pink Floyd’s The Wall has to be listened to in full. David Bowie’s Outside. The Cure’s Disintegration.
But there are many other songs orphaned forever from their albums. Either because I don’t listen to the album, or because I only copied a few songs to my computer from CD.
I think artists used to complain about this very thing at the dawn of the digital download age.
But what was to stop someone from making a classic mixtape, either on cassette or CD? Nothing.
We listen in moods. We have a hankering for some 80s music.
I loveeeee Mr. Roboto by Styx. Love love love.
Several months ago, I listened to previews of songs from the rest of the album, deciding whether it was worth the purchase.
Nothing could touch the awesomeness of Mr. Roboto. And the album, Kilroy Was Here, sounded sort of promising in a 1980s cheese way.
And then I was sadly disappointed.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Mata ah-oo hima de
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Himitsu wo shiri tai
Thank you very mucho, Styx, for producing one listenable song out of that entire album. At least I’m not saddled to the rest of the album because I would resent its presence in my life. On a CD or on my iPod.
I wonder who else feels like the album is dead. And whether this will just lead to more pumping out a hit-making money machine with crappy pop singles and less connection to true creativity .
Here’s an idea for Apple’s iTunes: Allow me to tag or sort songs by moods.
Right now, I can manually organize songs I think are sad or mellow into a playlist, but there’s no way for me to easily find songs for my mood. It wouldn’t be any harder than the current star rating system. Subjective, yes. Ever changing, yes. And it would appeal to all those young people on their damned social networks.
I think maybe you made this post just to get me out of my non-commenting cave, just to fire me up - but it will not work.
You should just get some ringtones for your moods and throw away the iPod.
Should I make some analogies to fast food/restaurants or TV/movies?
To be fair, Pink Floyd’s The Wall makes me sleepy. So does Quadrophenia.
Here’s an idea.
Maybe it’s not the death of the album, but the death of the patient music listener.
Bah! Everything’s about you, eh?
I knew it’d piss you off.
I can be a patient listener, but the thing is, I need to have a block of time to do it.
Ringtones for my moods. If you were close enough, I’d kick you.
But I will admit that I just bought a ringtone of Worf saying “Captain, the enemy is hailing us.”
I don’t know why I did it; I was hoping against hope that I’d find a ringtone for Torchwood (HAHHH!) and then stumbled across some Star Trek (and briefly considered David Bowie).
Somehow, having Worf talking in my pants is vaguely unsettling. I may go back to the spacey Hitchhiker’s movie ringtone.
I think the thought of having Worf talking in your pants is more than vaguely unsettling. What if he starts yelling stuff about a warp core breach?
I don’t think the album is entirely dead. There are still some artists whose albums I will buy in full, sight unseen. Bruce Springsteen, for example. Wilco. As far as how I listen to music, I am much like you: playlists all the way. Or else I listen by Artist, so that I play all of the songs on my iPod that are by Wilco regardless of album or any other sequence. Another thing I do is just Shuffle through all the songs on my iPod. I like the randomness of it, and sometimes I hear a song I love but haven’t listened to in a long time.
Mr. Roboto is a great song. Another eighties song that gets in your head is “Turning Japanese” (can’t remember the band atm). I’ve also rediscovered “Putting on the Ritz” by Taco.
Tell you what - Oldest daughter wants me to find some MP3’s of Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana (or Miley Cyrus, whatever the fuck she calls herself) and Jordin Sparks.
I’ll make sure I send copies of those your way.
I would feel sorry for Hannah Montana, the way her talent-less father has pimped her out. But she’s going to be very, very rich when she comes of age. Hard to feel sorry for someone like that.
Yeah let’s just hope she doesn’t go all wacko like Britney did.
Dunno. If she did, she might become interesting.
Matt, I find Turning Japanese disgusting and offensive, I have to say. Putting on the Ritz … well, who knows why?
As to AZB:
Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Arthur-king, you and your silly English K…kaniggets.
Sorry. Just a catchy song from my childhood, to me. What disgusts you about it? It’s not about masturbation, if that’s what you think. See the Song Facts notes on the song.
Matt: I think people sometimes pull so-called song facts out of their asses on that Song Facts site.
I have a hard time believing that turning Japanese while looking at someone’s picture is about going crazy. Even if that interpretation is correct or one of a couple of meanings the band might’ve meant, I still don’t know why you should turn Japanese while going crazy. At the very least, it’s offensive to Japanese people. But I still maintain the masturbation interpretation.
And this sparked a conversation with a work buddy. I’ll be honest, he’d never thought about it as being about masturbation, either. I’m still not sure he agrees. But what I do know is that we BOTH had that stupid song stuck in our heads afterward. So for that, I thank you.
So Matt:
I don’t want to talk to you, no more, you empty-headed animal, food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.