Why I Hate The Post-Album Era
January 29, 2012 9 Comments
For example, I have the album Icky Thump by the White Stripes, only I don’t, I downloaded that collection of songs to my iTunes, and they went into the shuffle like all my other songs.
As a result, only just now did I hear “Catch Hell Blues”. I’ve been missing out on “Catch Hell Blues” all this time.
That would have never happened in the Album Era. Back in the Album Era, you’d take your paper route money every weekend, hope on your bike to Tower Records, peruse the “tapes” they had there, maybe 5-10 would catch your eye but you’d have to narrow it down to 1-2 (keeping the others in mind for next week), then after buying them from the pale-skinned girl with the The Cure “The Head On The Door” T-shirt, you’d put the yellow-orange bag on your handlebars and pedal back home as fast as you could.
Once home, you’d run up the stairs to your room, struggle with the ridiculously-hermetically-sealed cellophane, shake off the bits that were sticking to your hand due to static electricity, pop the tape in your “dual” “tape deck” (which was handy for “dubbing”), lie on your elbows on your bed, unfold the 7-page cassette sleeve, squint, and read the lyrics and liner notes all the way through, letting the album play all the way from start to finish, including the filler songs.
And then you’d do it a second time. Because it was unfair to judge a whole album after just one listen. Besides, you needed that second listen to truly appreciate the flow of the song order – the closing song on side 1, the change of mood for side 2, etc.
As a result, having an album without also knowing all the songs just would not have happened. You might not like all the songs, or even most of them, but you’d at least know them.
It’s harder to know music nowadays.
You nailed it.
Here’s another problem with the post-album era. The other day I was walking through a store where they sell lots of CD’s. Decent selection (for nowadays, anyway). But, I did not even bother to look at the CD’s, not even to entertain myself.
Why?
Because I can listen to anything I want, any freaking time I want. If I want to listen to Thelonius Monk’s Underground album (to pick out something obscure), for instance, all I have to do is go to iTunes and buy any particular tune I want, and I have it instantly.
Even better, I could go to YouTube, and see if they have it.
And voila, they do. What do you know? They have almost everything.
Another thing. The other night, I’m hanging with this friend of mine who is a record producer. There’s this band I want him to hear called The Rival Sons. I’ve told him about them before, but he hasn’t listened to them.
In the old days, since we were already out, I would have driven by a Tower Records and bought him the Rival Sons CD. And then, he would have listened to it, cuz I would have demonstrated that I care about it enough to have gone out of my way and bought it for him.
But when people burn me CD’s, here’s what I think.”Great, now I have another CD with no song names, no case, no Artwork …. I’ll put it over here…” until one day, it has so much dust on it, I just throw it away.
Music has gotten better, but at the same time, it has become almost valueless, and that is sad.
Yup. I don’t think I’ll ever buy an actual CD again. I actively don’t want them. Which is weird. It feels like calling my younger self stupid.
The other thing I’ll miss doesn’t have a terse name, but it is this: The feeling of anticipation and surprise when you go to the record store and notice that a band you like has a new album out. I used to have to go to the record store and physically look at the collection of albums (head tilted sideways if in the “tape” section) on a band by band basis. And only every once in a while, with no warning, I’d see an unfamiliar color/title/lettering in the section of that band, then do a double take, pull it out, and confirm that it’s a new album!! OMG Brotherhood by New Order!! What is this!!
Later, I figured out that New Releases always come on Tuesdays, so I’d only go then.
Later, I noticed that local free weeklies and whatnot would list upcoming New Releases, so I could know in advance.
Later, once INTERNET came, I discovered places like Allmusic.com and would check there once in a while to see upcoming New Releases. And obviously, with the internet, it’s easy to learn anything like that. Kids today probably wouldn’t even comprehend that one used to sometimes just not know when new records by your favorite bands were coming out, and could be surprised by them.
Nowadays, I’ll know a band I like has a new album b/c it’ll be suggested to me on iTunes. It’s convenient and good but it’s just not the same as going to the record store and being surprised.
Ok, you feel nostalgic for a certain feeling of anticipation, and you never discover that buried track that grows on you after a few listens. Me, too.
On the other hand, I never listen to an album all the way through any more. Indeed, all attempts to do so end in boredom/abandonment of project/fast-forwarding.
The real question is, why do bands still release their material on albums, anyway?
Packaging songs as ‘albums’ is presumably just a convenient marketing efficiency now. So, it’s no longer even a real art form…but it used to be.
You bought prerecorded cassettes? You were ripped off. Everyone knew that the better thing to do was to buy the vinyl album, put it on your stereo, pop a blank cassette (you made sure you bought the good brands like Memorex, not the cheap generic ones) into the cassette part, and then you recorded just that one song you bought the album for.
The, ten years later you find yourself lugging 200 record albums and three boxes of worn-out mix tapes that had baked in the car whose cassette player had stopped working anyway from apartment to apartment until, facing an out-of-state move, you finally chucked the tapes into the apartment complex’s trash bin and gave all the albums to the guy who lived in the apartment below you.
Also don’t forget that it was important whether your blank cassettes were “chrome” or, um, the other kind!
absofuckingloutely (spelling?) but.. I was thinking: isn’t it also that when we were younger music and BANDS were more intense for us and that’s why we were able to put on a record from start to finish, listening very carefully? (speaking of first listens here).
Bands just aren’t as colossal for me these days. And music is great but not as mindblowing and Important as it used to be.
Even now tho, there’s a Psychic TV album I’d heard about but never found back in the day. I downloaded it, played a couple of songs. I love it! (you never know what you’ll get with PTV). And I decided (about a year ago) when a song from that album that isn’t one of the 2-3 I’ve already heard comes up on shuffle I’ll always skip it until I listen to the entire album from start to finish (any day now). So the point I’m making is: when it matters, you won’t just shuffle.
Having said which, the pre-shuffle days lent themselves more easily to knowing the entire album and listening to it all over and over…
Do we not listen because bands are less intense? Or are bands less intense because we don’t listen?
Of course, it’s true that a big part of the reason we don’t do as much listen-all-the-way-throughing is that we, um, grew up. Well, technically.
Many thanks for this brilliant post! Many points have extremely useful. Hopefully you’ll continue sharing your knowledge around