I seem to remember maybe 15-20 years ago during the peak of Napster, Spotify and other streaming platforms that there were predictions that music albums as we knew them (8-12 songs released together under a single title) would soon be a thing of the past, replaced by, well, I don’t quite remember. Lots of ad hoc online singles, video game soundtracks and whatnot?
Has this happened yet? It feels to me that it hasn’t. Granted, even the ‘new’ acts that I listen to are almost 20 years old, and my all-time favorite band was formed in 1968 (and is still active). But they are still recording and releasing albums. And the truly new artists that my kids like (e.g. Billie Eilish, and Olivia Rodrigo), they also are releasing albums.
My kid is into some much less popular bands/singers and they are releasing albums as well. She buys the albums (electronically of course) and listens to songs in album order on long drives. She says there’s some development/narrative to the songs that way. I don’t get it.
My anecdata point: my almost 16 year old listens to music strictly on Spotify, as best as I can tell.
ETA: I listen to new music, but haven’t bought an album in ~20 years. The last few times I bought albums of new stuff, the songs that hadn’t gotten airplay didn’t strike me as worth paying for.
That’s basically my approach. I’ll listen to computer generated stations or actual stations like BBC 6 Music when I’m in a “casual” mood, and then full albums when I’m in a “long form” or “long period of time on my hands” mood. It’s like the difference between wanting to watch short Youtube videos vs a feature film or even a series episode. The last album I actually bought (as opposed to streamed) was Lorde’s Melodrama and the album sets a mood and is best enjoyed as a whole, as a good album does, though its single “Green Light” is delightful on its own. Same with Taylor Swift’s Midnights – I find much of her work much more interesting listened to as a whole.
So the album medium is not dead. I think there are enough artists around who still desire to create larger collections of their work vs churning out single after single. But the importance of the album as a work will vary from genre to genre.
I’m still buying albums. Lizzo put out a new album last year and is now on tour supporting it. When a new album is announced you can usually pre-order it in CD, vinyl and digital download form (usually the CD and album come with a digital download link).
I think as long as there’s studios and Grammy Awards there will be albums.
It’s not a coincidence that albums are about the same length as a live set. Those other songs need to be developed and rehearsed anyway, so they may as well be recorded and released with the “hits”. 10 songs created during the same recording sessions have a cohesive thread running through them even if there isn’t an intended concept.
I do both. I buy singles if it’s a song I like but I’m not sure of the artist; I buy albums if it’s an artist I know and I’m pretty sure I’ll like some of the songs that I haven’t heard yet.
Artists are still releasing albums (and for the bigger acts, the releases are getting longer with more tracks, in fact, in order to game album sales charts), but I think it’s fairly obvious most people don’t listen to (or purchase) their music as albums.
There was a survey by Deezer a few years ago that said less than 10% of listeners preferred streaming entire albums.
I can’t remember which album it was, but a couple of years ago I think Rolling Stone did a piece that said whatever the biggest selling album of that year was, only 3 out of like 20ish songs on the album made up the vast majority of streams from the album.
But whatever the album situation is, it’s working for the recording industry because they have finally pulled out of the post Napster/iTunes nosedive and are back to bringing in record revenue.
In the Olden Days, one or two or, at best, a handful of the songs on an album typically got listened too by way more people than the rest of the songs on that album, because they were the ones that got played on the radio. So I’m not sure things are all that different today.
At least, if you’re going to compare, I think you need to distinguish between people who listen to music and people who purchase music.
No, I don’t think they are, either. Using that one data point (always a good idea to base your conclusions on just a single data point), it backs up the old lament of having to buy the whole CD just for the 2-3 songs you want. So few people are actually streaming whole albums.
You mean between people who stream and people who make actual purchases? I’m not sure I understand why that is an important distinction. FWIW, the revenue numbers for people who make actual purchases, digital or physical, are going way down. But that’s excepting LP sales, which are definitely trending up. I think we need more time to see how that segment shakes out.
I’ll go on iTunes* to buy a song I like, and they hook me, since they let you sample the whole album and give you a big price break if you buy the album (“Hey, 17 songs for 10 bucks, I can’t afford not to!”).
*What can I say? I like to own my music (and movies/shows), you never know when something will no longer be available.
Oh, and just the other day, I was reading here about Ambrosia’s song Drink of Water.
Ended up buying the album.
I buy albums, as I’ve always done (I have a couple of EP’s, I guess). Albums are (or used to be) carefully thought out entities, which individual songs miss, but most importantly: countless times I’ve found out gems I would never have if I hadn’t bought whole albums and listened to all of the songs for a good while. At the same time, the hit song(s) may lose flavor pretty quick.
thanks everyone. It seems that the album is mostly alive and well.
Actually, I was asking about whether bands are still making albums. Many people responded about their own buying behavior, which is different. It seems that some people still value the album concept (and the concept album!) while others prefer to purchase or stream individual songs. I guess the latter group might pose a long-term threat to the existence of the album, but as someone upthread pointed out, people have always been doing that. (remember 45 singles anyone?)
All the currently-active artists that I care about work in album format, and I listen to them pretty much exclusively through Spotify subscription. When going through my algorithmically-assembled Spotify recommendations, the first thing I do when I enjoy a song is go to the album and see if I like it “in context.”
There have always been people who listen to music on the radio (or some similar, more modern media), but who never purchase music. For those people, albums have always been pretty much irrelevant.
It may be mostly nostalgia, but doesn’t the practice of bands performing complete albums live – with all the songs in the original order – refute the idea that the album format is passe?
I think it will continue to be relevant, because a collection of roughly 8-15 songs in roughly 35-60 minutes (in whatever medium) just makes a convenient package for marketing and fan conversation. When we talk about an evolving artist’s career – whether it’s Bob Dylan or Beyonce – albums are a natural way to chunk out different eras.