Mark Cuban on the biz

[Johnny]

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/01/17/the-album-is-dead/

[Bob Olhsson]

Mark Cuban isn't old enough to remember the days when most popular music was only released as singles. I do agree that the album has been killed by the combination of file looting and negligence on the part of both labels and artists in the areas of quality control and packaging.

Folks also need a reality check on the price of music. Back when albums cost $5, a candy bar cost five cents, a new car cost $2000 and you could buy a house for $15,000. Those $5 albums rarely had over 45 minutes of music on them and many had only 30-35 minutes. Candy bars, cars and real estate are too expensive too but why has music been singled out?

follow the money...

[dwoz]

Could one make the argument that the Album came into being simply because that was the amount of music that would fit on a vinyl record? Instead of the other way around, having a body of music that was "album sized", and thus creating the vinyl record to hold just that amount of music?

I guess a 'typical' symphony movement is something around 15 or 20 minutes...

So, your position, Bob, is that singles downloading is like listening to the scherzo-allegro third movement of Beethoven's 5th, in isolation?

Has the problem been perhaps caused more, by the way modern musicians actually construct their albums...albums which are, for the most part, discrete, distinct songs that don't necessarily follow a theme, beyond similarity of instrumentation?

Using, for example, Tommy, by The Who. Listening to individual tracks is nice, and enjoyable, but listening to the tracks in the context of the total work gives you a lot more...there's a story and a relationship. Perhaps today's "albums" don't actually provide you with anything "extra" when you listen through from start to end?

If not, then there's really nothing about the "album" that has any value, beyond the fact that it's "all the music that fits"?

dwoz

[clicktrack]

Has the problem been perhaps caused more, by the way modern musicians actually construct their albums...albums which are, for the most part, discrete, distinct songs that don't necessarily follow a theme, beyond similarity of instrumentation?

Using, for example, Tommy, by The Who. Listening to individual tracks is nice, and enjoyable, but listening to the tracks in the context of the total work gives you a lot more...there's a story and a relationship. Perhaps today's "albums" don't actually provide you with anything "extra" when you listen through from start to end?

If not, then there's really nothing about the "album" that has any value, beyond the fact that it's "all the music that fits"?

dwoz

Are you suggesting, then, a bit of a return to the "concept" album? That each song is a piece of a larger puzzle? If people thought they were missing out on some little secret that you HAD to have the album to understand...would they go out and grab it more?

[Bob Olhsson]

The length of a pop song was defined by what could fit on a single and the pop album was a collection of singles that would fit on an LP.

What I think gave an album value was every track being good enough that you wanted to listen to at least five or six songs in a row and a package that was an interesting conversation piece that looked really impressive.

[dwoz]

Are you suggesting, then, a bit of a return to the "concept" album? That each song is a piece of a larger puzzle? If people thought they were missing out on some little secret that you HAD to have the album to understand...would they go out and grab it more?

Well, maybe not going quite that far.

But how about this example? I could assemble all the CAPE 6 songs onto one release. Call it an "album". It's really just a compilation, isn't it? Having all the songs as a whole doesn't really enhance the listening experience over having the songs individually. Except, perhaps, for the "price break" of getting the whole "album" for cheaper than what it costs to get each song individually.

I guess it comes down to asking, is the "album" actually an atomic unit of expression? or is it just an assembly of smaller atomic units...the individual songs themselves?

dwoz

[daleandtheguitar]

My understanding was that albums came about originally to capitalize on the popularity of an artists' most famous song. The single would be released and, if it showed enough promise, an LP would follow, often thrown together with acquired songs, cover tunes, and anything else that could fill time, and be named after the artisit or single.

The idea of musician-as-artist (writing most or all content, aiming to have one solid body of work with the sum being greater than its parts) gained lasting popularity in the early to mid 60's, with the "concept" album stemming from Pet Sounds and Sgt Pepper where the songs are actually made to buttress each other with a unifying, underlying theme. Mind you, I speak only of the pop music genre. I imagine there were thirties bluesmen that did it all first, as always.

So, in this definition, the pop music album in the beginning was like an up-sale.... why pay $2 for one song when $4 bought the one you wanted and 10 others. Is this an accurate idea? I mean... I wasn't there, so this is just a perception from watching Biography...:)


D.

[dwoz]

The length of a pop song was defined by what could fit on a single and the pop album was a collection of singles that would fit on an LP.

What I think gave an album value was every track being good enough that you wanted to listen to at least five or six songs in a row and a package that was an interesting conversation piece that looked really impressive.

So, Bob...

given this, and given your rather vocal espousing of the idea that it would be death to abandon the album, over the individual download...

...can we really say that the "album" is actually important? What it seems to come down to, is that "investing" in an album (from the point of view of the consumer) is really "investing" in the ARTIST, and buying a single (download) is really just investing in the "song"....

...and that the ONLY way to maintain some semblance of economic viability in this industry, long term, is to have consumers investing in ARTISTS?

So, the real task here, given the "death" of the album, is to find the way to shift the consumer's "loyalty" away from the song, and back onto the artist. The album is dead, it can no longer help us do that...so the task is to figure out what will perform that function?

dwoz

[daleandtheguitar]

Well, maybe not going quite that far.

But how about this example? I could assemble all the CAPE 6 songs onto one release. Call it an "album". It's really just a compilation, isn't it? Having all the songs as a whole doesn't really enhance the listening experience over having the songs individually. Except, perhaps, for the "price break" of getting the whole "album" for cheaper than what it costs to get each song individually.

I guess it comes down to asking, is the "album" actually an atomic unit of expression? or is it just an assembly of smaller atomic units...the individual songs themselves?

dwoz



I've heard it said that all artists essentially rewrite their "one" song over and over to produce a catalogue... that all songs written by the same artist are unique, but share the same sensibilities (or something...). I'm sure that statement could be ripped apart to an extent, but if there is even a kernal of truth, wouldn't that be the glue that makes a release filled with original work an "album"?

D.

[Bob Olhsson]

The old albums, and we at Motown released plenty of them, were pretty much birthday and Christmas presents and not something most people bought for themselves.

That all changed with Sargent Pepper's to the point that fans began buying albums instead of singles for the first time.

The thing everybody seems to have forgotten is that the fans had greater expectations of an album than just cheap graphics, three singles and a bunch of filler.

I think artists and labels need to share the blame because there's no question about the fact that quality has declined as artist control has increased. That doesn't mean a return to labels being dictators but I think that artists DO need to pay way more attention to the overall quality of their albums.

[eagan]

My main basic response to reading that goes something like "so? why the fuck would I care about what this guy has to say?". For a start, he has nothing new to say there.


When you get to something like this:

In reality thats exactly how I buy my music right now. I dont do it by artist. I go to ITunes and I go through the top 10 lists and listen to samples and thats how I determine what music im going to buy.


....aside from the side thought "so you can't even bother with punctuation and I'm supposed to take your writing seriously?", that says a lot about his basic thinking. Which appears to be just your basic, and hardly new, idea of people lining up at the pop music singles feed trough to gobble down whatever is being slopped out for the herd this week.

Which, to point out the obvious here, is hardly some sort of universal concept of all of music, whether you're considering the people making it and the music made, or listeners.

That's a part of any discussion in this area that's a large topic all by itself, obviously. The kind of mode of thinking and attitude embodied in that quote is just one little segment of the musical world and the music business, one that Bob mentions often here. Individual pop tune singles, rather than larger collections of work, and/or larger pieces of music.

As an incidental side item, if anybody thinks they have a clever new idea about subscriptions to a particular artist and then getting a new song one at a time now and then from them, they should do a little searching on "Todd Rundgren" and "Patronet" and find that their clever new innovative thinking has somebody about a decade ahead of them.


JLE

[Bob Olhsson]

...and that the ONLY way to maintain some semblance of economic viability in this industry, long term, is to have consumers investing in ARTISTS?...Exactly!

I happen to think the album is far from dead and that it's mostly a matter of the bar being much higher. Consider the possibilities of a DVD played from a computer. It's an amazing blank slate that the artist, rather than the consumer electronics industry can totally define. A Flash or Silverlight player could play 96/24 surround sound with pictures or video. It could include MP3s you can burn a CD from. It's time to think outside the box about what an album really is as an extension of the artist.

[shikawkee]

The length of a pop song was defined by what could fit on a single and the pop album was a collection of singles that would fit on an LP.

What I think gave an album value was every track being good enough that you wanted to listen to at least five or six songs in a row and a package that was an interesting conversation piece that looked really impressive.

AND....I still really dig the album as an artistic statement and I still look forward to new albums for that reason. When they suck I'm tremendously disappointed. This period will pass, hopefully very quickly, and we can get back to making exciting, fun, memorable art. In the meantime I'm taking on patrons :lol: .

[Johnny]

I kind of liked Cuban's idea about subscribing to an artist's weekly or biweekly release. I think an album or even concept album could still work that way. Say I'm releasing an album with a story to it, one song per week. It's like subscribing to a TV season. You might actually generate some excitement as the season progresses if it's good. Then at the end you release a special edition CD with special features, blah blah blah. I dunno...kinda sounds interesting just to see if it would work. Someone with an established following would have to be the guinea pig.

[shikawkee]

I kind of liked Cuban's idea about subscribing to an artist's weekly or biweekly release. I think an album or even concept album could still work that way. Say I'm releasing an album with a story to it, one song per week. It's like subscribing to a TV season. You might actually generate some excitement as the season progresses if it's good. Then at the end you release a special edition CD with special features, blah blah blah. I dunno...kinda sounds interesting just to see if it would work. Someone with an established following would have to be the guinea pig.

It's already being done.
Freedy Johnston just told me he signed up
with a new label that releases a song every
month and the subscriber gets a CD at the end too.
I think it has something to do with Kristin Hersh's
husband (he might run it).

[nobby]

But how about this example? I could assemble all the CAPE 6 songs onto one release. Call it an "album". It's really just a compilation, isn't it? Having all the songs as a whole doesn't really enhance the listening experience over having the songs individually. Except, perhaps, for the "price break" of getting the whole "album" for cheaper than what it costs to get each song individually.


That would be a compilation album. Not a new concept. Then you sell it on paid programming tv at 4:00 AM to insomniacs :Wink:

I guess it comes down to asking, is the "album" actually an atomic unit of expression?

No I think you're thinking of neutrons, electrons, and protons.

or is it just an assembly of smaller atomic units..

Gluons, quarks, neutrinos? (all good punk rock band names)

[nobby]

It's already being done.
Freedy Johnston just told me he signed up
with a new label that releases a song every
month and the subscriber gets a CD at the end too.
I think it has something to do with Kristin Hersh's
husband (he might run it).

That's more like it. One a month.

The best albums were made (IMO) when a band/artist released one album a year (not counting live albums) and the limits of vinyl dictated that depending on the length of the song (tossing out early punk rock 1 minute songs and late '60s indulgent drum solos) you'd wind up with say 7 to 10 or so songs on a 35-40 minute record.

A lot of substandard material would be thrown away, and a lot of time and effort could be concentrated on this handful of songs.

The cohesiveness of the album as a unit was dictated by the fact that all the songs would be performed/ recorded by the same group of musicians who'd developed a "sound" or style of playing which would be a common thread that ran through the album and might be enhanced by their interaction and shared experiences during the period during which the album was conceived.

The term "concept album" was conceived by the print media to discribe the Sgt. Pepper album, which wasn't a concept album. It was about a fictional old fashioned quasi military band, a meter maid, a circus poster, a car accident, the suburbs, home improvements :grin:

But, I digress. The main thing is, with the CD, you now had a 70 minute medium, and whomever called the shots felt that now you should have twice the amount of material, even though you'd usually still usually get a handful of good songs if the band was really good, or, more commonly, one good song.

So when you're talking about releasing 26, or 52 songs a year, you're releasing a load of crap. You're better off releasing only outstanding material, otherwise you're the "boy who cried wolf".

I think there may be something to releasing songs one at a time -- that may be a good strategy. But not one every week.

I agree with Bob that raising the bar is the way to make an album, but it's also the way to make a single. Put out a lot of dreck and people will turn their attentions elsewhere.

[Bob Olhsson]

FWIW very few albums that I'm aware of were ever actually conceived as being a "concept album" until it became necessary to come up with some concept for an album cover and title.

[daleandtheguitar]

The term "concept album" was conceived by the print media to discribe the Sgt. Pepper album, which wasn't a concept album. It was about a fictional old fashioned quasi military band, a meter maid, a circus poster, a car accident, the suburbs, home improvements :grin: .


Not to split hairs, but judging from what I've heard P.M. say about the subject, it WAS intended to be a cohesive album with the underlying theme that it wouldn't be the Beatles on the album... it would be the Beatles pretending to be a different band, giving them the freedom to abandon the last of their "Yeah-yeah-yeah" image and put out something that didn't have to sound like the Beatles. That being said, I don't know how much of the "concept" was concieved before the press made it seem like a good idea to go along with the publicity. I mean, it could very well have been one of those high-as-a-Mr-Kite moments - a "Yeah, man... that would be AWESOME"-kinda thing - that snowballed. It is the Beatles and everything about them snowballed. I'm sure it was mostly a Paul thing, though. (John's sentiment seemed to be "I was relaxing at home and Paul says says "Let's record, I got some good songs." So I had to go write some goddam songs for a new album, too.")


So when you're talking about releasing 26, or 52 songs a year, you're releasing a load of crap. You're better off releasing only outstanding material, otherwise you're the "boy who cried wolf".

I think there may be something to releasing songs one at a time -- that may be a good strategy. But not one every week.

I agree with Bob that raising the bar is the way to make an album, but it's also the way to make a single. Put out a lot of dreck and people will turn their attentions elsewhere.



How long does it take for you to get a little tired of a good song? Subtract two weeks from that and you've got how frequently you should put out a new one. And - old or new - the idea does have merrit. I love real albums, I miss them very much, and I worry about there non-existance in the pop charts. Seems a person has to dig thru a lot of coal to find their diamonds these days...:Cry:

[shikawkee]

BTW:I never said anything about "concept" albums.
They can be good and bad. I was referring to albums
as art on the inside and outside. Artistic statements
both graphicly and sonicly.

[nobby]

Not to split hairs, but judging from what I've heard P.M. say about the subject, it WAS intended to be a cohesive album with the underlying theme that it wouldn't be the Beatles on the album... it would be the Beatles pretending to be a different band


They didn't fool me :Wink:

JL disagreed vehemently with PM as to whether it was a concept album.

But, we're getting sidetracked.

A great album is great because of consistently high quality throughout the album regardless of whether it's considered a concept album, a 'Rock Opera' or whatever. Most great albums were a collection of great songs. Most abums fall far short of great, regardless of the label used to describe them.

How long does it take for you to get a little tired of a good song?

That depends on how good it is. My mother has been listening to the Blue Danube since she was a kid.

Anyway, whatsisname's idea of subscribing to an artist is DOA. People tend not to want to pay for songs they've never even heard part of.

Is this idea so great Im going to start a music label ? No chance. I wouldnt get in the music industry if you paid me.

No kidding.

Hey, any idea is worth checking out. I jsut don't think that releasing an album piecemeal is necessarily the way to go.

M.C.:
I think people will pay 99c to get a single rather than steal it. I think people would rather steal a full album rather than pay 10 dollars or more for it.


That doesn't make sense to me since you no longer have to buy tracks you don't want. Someone will have to explain that.

[Pancho Ballard]

Irish rock band Ash have given up on the album altogether and will only release singles from now on. The more cynical of my friends say this is because theeir albums are pretty poor and they only do 2 or 3 good songs out of 12-14.

As the only Ash album I own is their singles compilation I wouldn't be surprised if this theory is true as it's a brilliant compilation and to keep that standard up throughout a whole album would be true genius territory.

Then again, what's wrong with only releasing singles and not bothering about albums anymore? In one respect, yeah it would be sad to see albums decline but on the other hand, so what?

[nobby]

If you don't have enough good material for an album you can release a EP, or just a single.

I think if songs are going to be "leaked" if the album has already been recorded, if you try the serial release bit and someone unscupulous has access to the recordings, it won't work.

Last March, I went to download the original Santana album from itunes.

Ironically, though it was one of the most cohesive albums of all time with the songs segueying in seemingly perfect order, since at the time there were just the 9 songs from the original album, they wouldn't sell it as an album (can't charge $9.99 for 9 songs and $9.99 is their default price for major label albums) so I had to download it as 9 separate singles.

Typically, the way to sell an album on itunes is to add a couple of tracks that would not otherwise be available.

But if only a few songs on your album sell well as singles and few people buy the album, you're still better off than if you try to sell just the album.

RHCP made a big speech about how they wouldn't sell singles on itunes. About how the album blah blah, artistic expression, album as cohesive unit, yada yada.

I really don't think a lot of their stuff is that good, but I wanted "Under the Bridge" which is head and shoulders above all the other material I've heard from them.

I'm listening to it now, and that's a sale they otherwise wouldn't have made.