I am always curious whether an individual musician will see an album as a cohesive collection of songs, or if an album is just a collection of songs that were written in a general period of time. If it is a collection of songs written in a general period of time, the concept of album length is a bit easier. "What have we written these past eighteen months?" seems to be an easier question to answer than "How much do we need to write before we're done?"
That is the question, isn't it? How much is enough for "an album"? The pressures for a musician to fill up the physical media that the music will be released on is enormous. In the past, LPs were best suited for approximately forty minutes of music. I have no idea how much could fit on a cassette tape, but CDs fit about seventy-eight minutes of music. And boy oh boy is there pressure on musicians to fill every second of that time up with music. It's more "economically viable," after all.
That is a disastrous thought process. Media is going to get smaller, and be able to contain more information. Are musicians twenty years from now going to be expected to record twelve hour albums because that's how much will fit on the disc? Where does one draw the line?
The issue of cost versus amount of music on a CD is total garbage. There is no correlation at all. There are more classic albums with a running time of below forty minutes than there are albums with running times over an hour. A musician that does not entirely fill up a CD is not cheating the customer; they are in fact giving the customer greater value by refusing to fill an album up with material they do not feel should be there. I submit that any album of greater length than forty-five minutes can be made into a much stronger album simply by cutting out enough material to bring it below forty-five minutes. Being heavy metal means knowing what you want to deliver, delivering that much and no more, and to hell with anyone who thinks it is not enough.
Albums (meaning 'collection of songs', as opposed to a vinyl 'record', a cassette tape, 8-track, or CD) are not widgets. They are works of art. People who buy albums need to understand the value is determined by the attachment they develop for the music, not some formula of quantity versus price.
It's going to be fascinating to figure out what happens in the future as we move towards online instant purchase by individual song. Will the concept of "the album" disappear? Will "value songs" containing more than one composition be the craze? Will the next generation of grindcore bands be considered cheats and frauds under this system for their iterations of You Suffer? Will the Black Rose Immortals and the Crimsons be priced differently than the more average-length songs? Will the distribution methods and sales outlets of such a market even allow such songs to exist considering the infrastructure is going to be based on selling lots of pop songs?
You are thinking about all of the issues when you complain that the new album you bought is just thirty-five minutes long, aren't you? Or are you simply being a whiny bitch unconcerned with the quality of the music?
As King Fowley said when Relapse complained that Fearless Undead Machines went over budget: "We just gave you a sixty-seven minute album. Literally two albums worth of material in ten days, mixed and sounding good. Stop bitching mother fucker!" (Worm Gear #6)
Real music, let alone heavy metal, can't happen against the backdrop of market concerns and consumer satisfaction. Heavy metal is in part a direct reaction against such things. The more it attempts to conform to market standards (hell, any standards), the less intense, the less sincere, and the less heavy metal it will be. Do you want heavy fucking metal or do you want hard-edged pop?
That is the question, isn't it? How much is enough for "an album"? The pressures for a musician to fill up the physical media that the music will be released on is enormous. In the past, LPs were best suited for approximately forty minutes of music. I have no idea how much could fit on a cassette tape, but CDs fit about seventy-eight minutes of music. And boy oh boy is there pressure on musicians to fill every second of that time up with music. It's more "economically viable," after all.
That is a disastrous thought process. Media is going to get smaller, and be able to contain more information. Are musicians twenty years from now going to be expected to record twelve hour albums because that's how much will fit on the disc? Where does one draw the line?
The issue of cost versus amount of music on a CD is total garbage. There is no correlation at all. There are more classic albums with a running time of below forty minutes than there are albums with running times over an hour. A musician that does not entirely fill up a CD is not cheating the customer; they are in fact giving the customer greater value by refusing to fill an album up with material they do not feel should be there. I submit that any album of greater length than forty-five minutes can be made into a much stronger album simply by cutting out enough material to bring it below forty-five minutes. Being heavy metal means knowing what you want to deliver, delivering that much and no more, and to hell with anyone who thinks it is not enough.
Albums (meaning 'collection of songs', as opposed to a vinyl 'record', a cassette tape, 8-track, or CD) are not widgets. They are works of art. People who buy albums need to understand the value is determined by the attachment they develop for the music, not some formula of quantity versus price.
It's going to be fascinating to figure out what happens in the future as we move towards online instant purchase by individual song. Will the concept of "the album" disappear? Will "value songs" containing more than one composition be the craze? Will the next generation of grindcore bands be considered cheats and frauds under this system for their iterations of You Suffer? Will the Black Rose Immortals and the Crimsons be priced differently than the more average-length songs? Will the distribution methods and sales outlets of such a market even allow such songs to exist considering the infrastructure is going to be based on selling lots of pop songs?
You are thinking about all of the issues when you complain that the new album you bought is just thirty-five minutes long, aren't you? Or are you simply being a whiny bitch unconcerned with the quality of the music?
As King Fowley said when Relapse complained that Fearless Undead Machines went over budget: "We just gave you a sixty-seven minute album. Literally two albums worth of material in ten days, mixed and sounding good. Stop bitching mother fucker!" (Worm Gear #6)
Real music, let alone heavy metal, can't happen against the backdrop of market concerns and consumer satisfaction. Heavy metal is in part a direct reaction against such things. The more it attempts to conform to market standards (hell, any standards), the less intense, the less sincere, and the less heavy metal it will be. Do you want heavy fucking metal or do you want hard-edged pop?
