The Death of the Album

There has been a lot talk lately about the "death of the album". Ever since the invention of the iPod, we've been encouraged to enjoy individual tracks instead of complete albums. The creation of the iTunes Music Store provided the first really good way to buy single tracks (cassette and CD singles preceded iTunes, but they usually had the song you wanted and then one or two other songs that weren't good enough to put on the album or an instrumental version of the original song...and then you had to pay a couple dollars for it plus tax). The iPod shuffle takes things one step further and basically deters listeners from experiencing entire albums. Of course, this isn't all Apple's fault. Pitchfork and several other popular music reviewers now write single track reviews. 

But all of this is really just a response to the market itself. The real fault falls on the artists. Most popular artists think of albums as a few hit singles, with seven or so other tracks they need to fill somehow. It has been common practice for years for a major label to hire expensive hit-makers to write and produce 2 or 3 songs for an artist, and then the rest are often written by lesser known (and less expensive) songwriters with some token input from the 'artist' themself. With those 2 or 3 hit songs available for 99¢ on iTunes, there isn't much need for casual consumers to spend an extra $7-$10 on the songs that the label let Britney write herself.

Is this really a bad thing? Very few artists create albums that are rewarding as a complete experience. Albums are still just collections of songs. Every once in a while you'll come across an album that was created as a single vision ('The Downward Spiral' by Nine Inch Nails comes to mind), but 99.9% of all albums are just an assembly of a band's 10-12 most recent songs. A lot of the time those songs are written by different members or a group, or different hired songwriters. What other art form isn't created as a whole, but is expected to be experienced as a whole?

A lot of people also blame the iPod for further diminishing the role of album art. A lot of noise was made about this issue when CDs were taking over, because people had grown used to having nice big 12" vinyl sleeves for an album cover, while CD liner notes are less than half the size. Now don't get me wrong, I love album art. As soon as I started getting into creating artwork as a kid it was my dream to create album art for a living. But isn't it really all about the music? What other art form is so eager to have a separate art form represent it? Films aren't hung up on movie posters (a good movie poster is a nice touch, but a movie usually really speaks for itself), and books aren't reliant on their covers (most books go through 2 or 3 cover changes once they get a paperback version or a second printing). Plus, bands still have plenty of opportunities to offer a visual representation of their music. Personally, I consider a band's website to be the new equivalent of an album cover (which is why it is such a shame that so many of them rely on MySpace to provide a web presence).

Music will always have a unique ability to move people immediately and profoundly, probably more so than any other art form. So lets relax the expectations of how it is presented, and just enjoy it for what it is.