X-rated Bob wrote:
IceCreamMan wrote:
The myth of the "whole album" concept jumps to the fore...again...
unless its albums like the wall or quadrophenia etc ..albums were very rarely produced as an entity...
Well, not thematically, but that doesn't mean that consideration wasn't given to the album as an entity with the songs being sequenced for effect - though I'd think it was mid 60s before musicians started taking that idea seriously. I'd think the tilting point was round about
Rubber Soul /
Pet Sounds. Remember too that albums gave you more leeway - you had more time. Dylan could never have recorded "Desolation Row" if the only release mechanism was singles. By 1971 Yes had recorded an album where one track took up one side of an album.
history is filled with artists creating filler tracks to ensure the album got to 30 minutes or so.....so could be sold without being red faced kind of thing.
not a new concept recording one or 2 songs off an album....been happening since Edison's days ?
Sure. There's always been bands that operate in that way - a couple of singles and a whole bunch of filler. Even in the era that I'm talking about many acts, big-selling ones, worked in that way. I think though at some point the idea took hold that
serious musicians dealt in albums while pop stars dealt in singles.
What's new now is that you can pick just the songs you want from the album. Indeed I can see a future where albums won't be necessary. Which is kind of full circle. Back in '67 or so the Beatles released two of their best ever tracks -
Penny Lane and
Strawberry Fields Forever - as two sides of a single with no thought of putting them on a long player (the sort of quaint language that was used back then).
My listening preferneces are to download whole albums and then over time whittle out the fodder ..so typically be left with the nuggets only...saves time skipping and also when my ipod is on shuffle I don't have to listen to crud aalong the way.
Well, it's not a given that every album, even by "serious" musicians is free of padding. It can happen, and has happened often enough even if the songs are not linked by some overarching "concept".
I think the CD has changed things. For a start there was a lot more space to fill up. A vinyl "long player" could give you maybe 50 minutes tops for a band, but you'd have to compromise on the mastering a bit to get that sort of length. So if you couldn't fill a more usual 40-ish minutes then what were you going to do with 70-ish on a CD? I think that's why cycles started getting longer - you had to have more good material so as to fill the medium.
But yes, there's always been the two approaches - or just plain failures to deliver in the songwriting department.
But lack of a concept, as in
Tommy or
The Wall doesn't, as Squonk rightly says, mean that the album was not considered as a whole and designed to work as a whole. See my earlier example of
Sgt Pepper's, an album where the sequencing and the way one track led into another was certainly an important consideration.
Think about
Led Zeppelin II and remember that it's a product of the vinyl age: Clearly sequenced so that side one finishes nicely with a mellow track before you have a cup of tea and flip the disc. Then they build to a false climax before ending up with a song that starts slow, quiet and a little menacing before jumping all over you again for a final knock out blow.
It is the case that you need to have an album's worth of at least decent material - something not everybody could manage.
