In the 1980s we made playlists (aka mixtapes) by waiting until the song we wanted was played on the radio and hitting record on the cassette, hopefully timing it right to not include the DJ talking or too much from the previous song.
Listening to specific songs (as opposed to the entire album) got a lot easier after the invention of the CD. But you still had to buy the whole album. Sometimes that worked out and you'd find a favorite song that didn't get much airplay as a single.
Good article. I'm always amazed at the number of people here on Substack that write about the many new albums they liked in the previous month. I still don't know how they find the time to listen to a complete album enough times to truly evaluate it. I gravitate toward individual tracks and, if I like them enough, begin exploring other songs on an album. So, I'd be sad if albums became obsolete. Then again, Billboard isn't helping much by crafting a Top 200 album ranking each week that somehow thinks best of collections by the likes of Sade, Hall & Oates, and many other legacy artists are outperforming more recent releases, such as the latest from Madonna, Carly Simon, Brandon Flowers, and others. I'm curious as to your take on this. If one or two tracks represent the greatest share of an album's streaming then how do these chart positions make sense? Is it that many people are streaming the same Sade song? Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is another example. Is it Dreams? Don't Stop? The Chain? I'm planning to write an article about this so I'd love your input!
I've just completed compiling my favourite top 12 albums for each year from 1960 to the present. Listening to chart music for each year as well, I have really appreciated the depth and variety of albums which the singles charts can miss. I know it has been devalued and lost popularity, but I hope that albums continue to be made
"If you were to show this pattern to someone in the 1960s, they would probably be dumbfounded."
I disagree with this, with a significant caveat.
The album didn't become a standard format for pop pickers until The Beatles came along. Until then - and for several years into the Fabs' career - the 45rpm single was the format of choice for most listeners, and it wasn't really close.
The caveat: by the late 1960s, this had begun to change, accelerated by the arrival of 'Sgt Pepper's LHCB' in June 1967. And while I don't know when the album superseded the 45 as the dominant format, 45s were still being consumed in vast quantities well into the 1970s.
One thing to notice from artists perspective is that making an album is much easier than making tracks one-by-one. When album project is going on one can give each track time to develop into existence. When you focus on one track the pressure starts to build towards this only one. That is why from albums some tracks just naturally raise to the top because those are made carefree. (This dynamic plays out also when artists first album is hit - there was no expectation. Second one starts be quite hard when everybody is expecting you to make another hit. )
A really thought provoking piece - I feel like the angle that’s not explored as much as a reason for the album’s continued existence is consumer incentives vs. artist incentives. Yes, releasing more songs means it’s more likely for something to break through. But also, artists (generally) have to make a lot of songs to occasionally strike gold with something they think will be a hit single. Releasing these lesser tracks as singles, they’d almost never be listened to, but on an album with 2-3 excellent tracks as bait, artists get more overall streams (and money) on those deep cuts they were already making anyway. (That’s the cynical read, I think most artists just actually like making full bodies of work)
The risk diversification point is a good one mI remember Ash announcing years ago that they were moving to singles only, no more albums, and it didn't work. There's something about a run of songs that gives an artist somewhere to put the strange stuff, the "Rocky Raccoon" (Revolution 9?!) of the record, that a steady drip of singles doesn't really allow for.
Also can't help thinking about Dark Side of the Moon as a hypothetical singles campaign. Some albums are simply not songs, they're one continuous idea, and the format exists for exactly that reason as much as for any commercial logic.
In the 1980s we made playlists (aka mixtapes) by waiting until the song we wanted was played on the radio and hitting record on the cassette, hopefully timing it right to not include the DJ talking or too much from the previous song.
Listening to specific songs (as opposed to the entire album) got a lot easier after the invention of the CD. But you still had to buy the whole album. Sometimes that worked out and you'd find a favorite song that didn't get much airplay as a single.
Good article. I'm always amazed at the number of people here on Substack that write about the many new albums they liked in the previous month. I still don't know how they find the time to listen to a complete album enough times to truly evaluate it. I gravitate toward individual tracks and, if I like them enough, begin exploring other songs on an album. So, I'd be sad if albums became obsolete. Then again, Billboard isn't helping much by crafting a Top 200 album ranking each week that somehow thinks best of collections by the likes of Sade, Hall & Oates, and many other legacy artists are outperforming more recent releases, such as the latest from Madonna, Carly Simon, Brandon Flowers, and others. I'm curious as to your take on this. If one or two tracks represent the greatest share of an album's streaming then how do these chart positions make sense? Is it that many people are streaming the same Sade song? Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is another example. Is it Dreams? Don't Stop? The Chain? I'm planning to write an article about this so I'd love your input!
I've just completed compiling my favourite top 12 albums for each year from 1960 to the present. Listening to chart music for each year as well, I have really appreciated the depth and variety of albums which the singles charts can miss. I know it has been devalued and lost popularity, but I hope that albums continue to be made
"If you were to show this pattern to someone in the 1960s, they would probably be dumbfounded."
I disagree with this, with a significant caveat.
The album didn't become a standard format for pop pickers until The Beatles came along. Until then - and for several years into the Fabs' career - the 45rpm single was the format of choice for most listeners, and it wasn't really close.
The caveat: by the late 1960s, this had begun to change, accelerated by the arrival of 'Sgt Pepper's LHCB' in June 1967. And while I don't know when the album superseded the 45 as the dominant format, 45s were still being consumed in vast quantities well into the 1970s.
One thing to notice from artists perspective is that making an album is much easier than making tracks one-by-one. When album project is going on one can give each track time to develop into existence. When you focus on one track the pressure starts to build towards this only one. That is why from albums some tracks just naturally raise to the top because those are made carefree. (This dynamic plays out also when artists first album is hit - there was no expectation. Second one starts be quite hard when everybody is expecting you to make another hit. )
A really thought provoking piece - I feel like the angle that’s not explored as much as a reason for the album’s continued existence is consumer incentives vs. artist incentives. Yes, releasing more songs means it’s more likely for something to break through. But also, artists (generally) have to make a lot of songs to occasionally strike gold with something they think will be a hit single. Releasing these lesser tracks as singles, they’d almost never be listened to, but on an album with 2-3 excellent tracks as bait, artists get more overall streams (and money) on those deep cuts they were already making anyway. (That’s the cynical read, I think most artists just actually like making full bodies of work)
The risk diversification point is a good one mI remember Ash announcing years ago that they were moving to singles only, no more albums, and it didn't work. There's something about a run of songs that gives an artist somewhere to put the strange stuff, the "Rocky Raccoon" (Revolution 9?!) of the record, that a steady drip of singles doesn't really allow for.
Also can't help thinking about Dark Side of the Moon as a hypothetical singles campaign. Some albums are simply not songs, they're one continuous idea, and the format exists for exactly that reason as much as for any commercial logic.