Is the album format inevitably going to die?
Why would it? And why would you want it to? You want to buy songs individually and have nobody collecting them (and depending on the artist) to create an experience?
And I'm not really sure why people differentiate singles so much from albums too. A single is really just an album with less tracks, as is an EP. And some singles even have more than 2 songs on them.
The LP (or popular for album) was simply a method of distributing music in an economical way, with the limited technology of the time , just like the ep and singles. Perhaps in it will grow outmoded in this time in favor of singles but I doubt it will disappear completely in popular music as it is generally saw as a method to legitimize a popular artist and is still a popular method of buying
>>65172813
You do realize the album format emerged because of vinyl records right?
And now that physical formats are completely obsolete (despite the vinyl trend, in witch is dying) there is no reason for musicians to release albums unless they really just want to or want to appeal to a fringe audience.
Ever since the mp3, album listeners have been a minority.
>>65172737
Yes, soon the only way you can listen to music is through those 1-hour epic playlist videos on YouTube.
>>65172737
no, only idiots who don't like music beyond pop singles don't listen to albums.
>>65172737
the human race inevitably going to die
>>65172930
Like those idiots who listen to classical music?
>>65172905
Well again, do you want to just buy single songs and not have a way to buy a collection of songs? An album can be used for artistic purposes, and is fairly frequently I think in rock and such, but it's also a good way of buying a collection of songs.
And albums very rarely fit inside the time limit of a vinyl record anymore anyway so bringing that up is kind of pointless. You have albums ranging anywhere from 30 minutes to over 2 hours. And even CDs can reach their limit with longer albums and require more than 1.
>>65172966
Me? I still love albums. I just think since the medium that spawned the album format is now antique, there are no longer limitations on how music is distributed. A musician can just dump individual songs that they recently wrote to their audience instead of making a compilation album.
No matter how much I love listening to old records that were thoughtfully put together, I can't deny the means of distributing popular music have changed and are changing.
Yes this was the funeral
:^)
>>65173066
>there are no longer limitations on how music is distributed
Which is why the length of albums varies so much these days. But I think rock and pop (to some extent, as at least top 40 pop is mostly about singles) will always generally be released with albums. It's a proven method, and plus, a lot of musicians have grown up with that being the norm so they'll be hesitant to move away from it too, especially if they do design their albums as experiences.
>>65173107
But is it not weird that all through out history, back when music was passed on orally and through written notation, music was formated as a single song or piece. Albums are a new thing, and it makes sense that it goes back to single thing now that the internet has made releasing popular music less complicated
>>65173218
I'm not saying I'm in favor of it, by the way. I'm just saying I understand it.
>>65173218
I'm just trying to understand what the point of doing that would be though. Popular music isn't traditional music and most classical pieces I'm pretty sure are fairly lengthy, so having them released individually fits better there. Buying a single 3 minute song seems strange to me. Plenty of people do I know, and you can still do that with the song available in an album. For genres that don't do albums generally they just stick with what they're doing and the two coexist.
And plenty of artists these days do design albums as a whole so while there's people out there that do that the format won't die.
>>65173218
>piece
Key word here. Even though a typical popular music album isn't as cohesive as a classical piece, I think musicians who take their albums seriously essentially operate from that (piece) idea, and want to their album to have a unifying theme, mood, etc, even if the individual songs don't blend as well as the movements in symphony.
The album format just gives an artist more versatility, much like the symphony gave more latitude to composers over folk songs (which were the "hit singles" of their time).
As long as artists stay artistically motivated, the album format won't die.
some advantages of albums apart from inertia:
>fit with the "record some music, go on a tour, repeat" idiom
>you can charge more for them (less important in the file sharing age but still matters)
>easier to hype than singles and EPs
>an LP worth of 7/10 tracks is gonna be better received than a 7/10 single
>might be around the length of time that people's attention spans last for a cohesive song collection. notably symphonies were album length before records were invented
Recorded music has been around for less than 100 years yet, and has been popular for barely half of that. There are tons of people alive today that were born before records existed. Shut up about genres and formats being dead, of course they're fucking not
>>65173509
>There are tons of people alive today that were born before records existed.
>The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison.
>In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center.
>>65172737
yeah
everything is
isn't that obvious?
>>65173553
oldest person alive is 126, get fucked
>>65172887
i never actually thought about that, am i a fucboi?
>>65173554
was just about to post this
also it'll happen in the next two centuries, technological advances we can't even conceive of will just make the entire way we currently consume media obsolete
>>65173423
And what do you say about the many musicians who's albums are not really suppose to be one big thing? Most musicians, even those in the indeh music scene, just release a bulk of songs they've newly recorded in any particular order. Kid A for example is not meant to be listened to in any particular way, order or fashion.
Sure a fringe element of musicians rear their albums so that the songs compliment one another. But a lot of times that is not the case.
>>65173596
I don't think most musicians say one way or the other if their albums are meant to be something in and of themselves. People just assume they're doing whichever fits better with their worldview.
But in any case they can do whatever they want. Nobody's forcing them to release their songs on albums. But the album format is pretty ingrained in the genres it's a part of and I don't see it dying anytime soon.
>>65173564
>tons of people
>>65173564
No, they were born in 1899
>>65172905
>And now that physical formats are completely obsolete
I still buy CDs. Feels good to be able to encode my music to whatever filetype and quality I want.
>>65173946
>quality
spooky
>>65173961
>quality is a spook
the memes have gone too far this time
>>65172905
>vinyl trend, in witch is dying
lol vinyl is not dying at all, they are selling more than ever. if you don't believe me, do a quick google search.
>>65173218
classical pieces are often very long, some of them can be two, three, even more than four hours. if that kind of format was able to survive alongside traditional music, I don't see why the album can't survive alongside pop music.
>>65173423
>As long as artists stay artistically motivated, the album format won't die.
THIS
>>65173596
>Kid A for example is not meant to be listened to in any particular way, order or fashion.
is this b8? Kid A is DEFINITELY made to be listened to from start to finish. All of Radiohead's albums are.
>>65174799
>empirical evidence is a spook
>>65175591
how is bitrate not empirical evidence
>>65175861
Oh right, I forgot music was about mathematical definitions of fidelity, and not human perception of sound.
>>65172771
/thread
>>65175920
except it's been shown that we can perceive differences in bitrate ya dingus
maybe not between flac and a 320kbps mp3, but between a 256kbps and 320kbps mp3 definitely
>>65176135
>not between flac and a 320kbps mp3
the person I was responding to was talking about flac
>>65176197
ok no, it was CD, but same shit
>>65176197
you do realize that they could still have legitimate usage for physical backups of archival quality recordings right?
>>65176239
such as? and if CDs are physical, what are harddrives? metaphysical? supernatural?
>>65176197
No they weren't, you shmippy pippy.
They only wanted to have the original audio information, so that they could transfer the files however they please and at any time.
>>65176337
>sampling
>use when driving
there, both answered
>>65176337
CD's are gaurunteed to have %100 legitimate, loss-free sound quality. And unlike a hard drive 1 CD = 1 album of music, making them easy to access, protect, and store. You can know what's on a CD using your eyes, whereas a hard drive without a computer is just a brick.
>>65176338
I already corrected myself (>>65176215) so do fuck off.
>>65176359
>>sampling
kek
>>use when driving
They explicitly gave a different reasons and none of what I said was about using CDs for that.
>there, both answered
>both
no
>>65176442
>%100 legitimate, loss-free sound quality
The spooks, will they ever stop haunting me?
>1 CD = 1 album of music
>making them easy to access, protect, and store
Once again, not what they or I was talking about. Also that's a non sequitur.
>a hard drive without a computer is just a brick
How is this relevant to what I said?
Right about here>>65176338, a perfectly good discussion got derailed. Thanks lads.
>>65172954
Many Pieces of Classical music fit really well into the album format, Symhonys for example often have a lenght so that they fit on either one or both sides of an LP.
>>65172737
i don't think so
>>65172737
Everything dies, why would this be any different?
>>65172737
It would have already if it was going to
If you mean vynil it will continue to exist as a sort of "collectors edition" format since it sounds so much better
CDs are death though
If you mean the practice of selling songs as part of an album, it's just too ingrained in music culture now to get rid of entirely.
>>65172737
They can survive a magnet
So no
>>65177739
>since it sounds so much better
>>65177818
It does
Smoother and more real
Maybe some day but not any time soon
>>65177851
Thank you. I've had a bad day and I needed a laugh.
>>65177851
What is placebo effect
>>65177807
>what is ssd
Yes, Kanye killed it, finally.
