On the radio the other day they were talking about albums of recorded music, and whether the concept of ‘an album’ still makes any sense in an era of singly streamed tracks. Commentators thought that there were certain albums, for example Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’, which still have the reputation of being conceived as a collection of songs charting a journey, and are listened to in their entirety.
It’s often said that the compact disc has fallen out of fashion, even out of use, but the people in this discussion thought that CDs are actually coming back into fashion with certain groups. Gen Z, it seems, see them as an intriguing change from streamed music, and go looking for secondhand CD copies of albums they are interested in. They like to have an artefact that they can keep, own, enjoy the cover art, read the booklet notes, and all the rest of it. And they like the authenticity of an album which the artist designed as a whole.
I was happy to hear this, because in October I have an album coming out on the Hyperion label of piano music by some of the historical women I wrote about in Women and the Piano. I’d been warned that most listeners have switched to streaming single tracks. I felt a bit sad about this, as I’d planned the album as a chronological journey from the mid-18th century onwards, and had spent a lot of time working out which pieces would go together nicely, leading from one to another.
But now I feel some confidence that there are people who will be interested in the whole album, whether on CD or plucked from the ether. I had come to think of the CD audience as being made up of older folk loyal to a ‘legacy medium’, but I’m pleased to learn that it’s more complicated than that.
Great news about your CD coming out in October – I have been hoping you might be doing something like this. I still have a collection of CDs (including most of yours, I think) and enjoy the covers and notes as part of the experience.
Count me in for the CDs! i have a huge collection and love each and every one!
One thing I have learned in my life is that you can never entirely write anything off from a comeback. When CDs took over I almost threw my teenage pop album collection in the bin, but ten years later I sold the lot for £600. It seems that after the vinyl revival we now have a CD revival. For young people so much of their lives has no physical presence, so it is natural they will find it a welcome novelty to own objects as a relief from the nothingness of screens. What the future holds nobody can tell, but one thing that is certain is that it will continue to surprise us…
First discovered you when I was given Loose Elbows which had a cover designed by my brother in law….
So much to discuss in the original post.
I am not generally a fan of pop music and do feel that the concept of listening to a whole album in this oeuvre overlooks the fact that many of these albums are really uneven and there is plenty of material included which would never make it on a similar album by a “serious” artist. There are exceptions but I do wonder how many pop albums are actually consistent throughout their length. Most are just filler to a few tracks which had chart success. I tend to be biased towards those pop artists who offer something interesting such as Sting, Bjork, Prince, etc. Did people ever listen to everything on a pop CD ? There is an awful lot of sub-standard music on pop CDs. You can appreciate the lack of appeal.
Speaking as a jazz fan, the concept of producing a “complete” album is more salient and there is clearly a situation where even less celebrated discs merit a thorough listen. The same is even more relevant wit classical music.
It is an interesting idea, yet the idea of producing a consistent “album” only really stems from the late 1940s when LPS first appeared. The relative cost of n LP / CD in relation to income certainly made buying the music more of an event and this is now largely lost. I would also say that I find streaming to have no appeal because I also appreciate the cover art, want to know about the music from the album sleeve and, more importantly, want to know the names of the musicians on the disc. This is especially the case with jazz.
When you buy a disc, I want to know about the music and at least appreciate who is playing on the record. I do think that technology has democraticise music insofar that you no longer need to be a musician to make a record. You can appreciate why younger listeners no longer have an interest in this and don’t not care what is happening with the music. I fully get why streaming is more convenient yet I do wonder if it also reflects the lack of discernment amongst the younger generation of music listeners. I was quite interested to discuss this with some Belgian jazz fans at a festival in France who felt jazz musicians performing with DJs was totally legit and did not care for the idea of human interaction in music. I think the demise of albums is more demonstrative of an overall decline in creative, popular music.