Originally Posted by atsonicpark

I think 80 minute albums are dead. They need to start putting music on DVD's. THat way you can fill hundreds of minutes. That way drone bands can really have lots of fun. "Man, minute 636 is when it stars gettin' GOOD!"

Originally Posted by pbradley

You mean concept albums?

If the concept album is dying, I'll fucking rejoice in the streets. Concept albums are mostly wank.

And I still don't see evidence of the end of the concept album beyond peevish message board rants from people who listen to too much Frank Zappa and Primus (which, for the record, is any).

Originally Posted by alyasa

Wow, that's a great idea... What about blu rays? Then they can have live links where you can click on individual band members, and bring up detailed histories or analyses of their musical perspectives....

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

The problem isn't the format itself but the fact that before you press the record button you had enough time to make the previous 6 minutes or so of your masterpiece a relevant part of the piece of music you thought was fit for release. I believe it comes with understanding old fashioned concepts like restraint and quality control, as well as vision and desire to catch the listener's imagination.

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

"Man, minute 636 is when it stars gettin' GOOD!"

Originally Posted by noisereductions

Mixtapes are killing albums...

Originally Posted by alyasa

Why? I bet a lot of artists who went on to make great albums started out doing mixtapes in their parents' basement or something... Do you mean people aren't buying albums coz they're too busy making mixtapes? That's like saying books will die out, coz people can make collages... :)

Originally Posted by krischanski

It's all about technics and machines. Today you don't need expensive studio equipment and engineers who know to run it, only to record some songs, so you don't need to spend time for it. Play around with some beeping programs and burn it on cd-r, and also the manufacturing of real cds or vinyls is cheapier as ever. Everybody can do it, it's not a professional's key. The much more work for a good Album leads to products which look like nearly the same, so why spend so much more time and money for the minimal difference?

Originally Posted by Derek

And this liberation leads to the underground scene we have today where bands release a new set of jams every few weeks, often sounding the exact same as what they've did before. I think it would benefit these type of bands if they just tried to sum everything up in a few albums. Of course this wouldn't apply to a band like Sun City Girls where it's certainly not possible to sum them up with only a couple of records.

Originally Posted by Glice

The thing with this is that there's a greater impetus for complete, quality product (and we are talking product) from WB and the like. You say it's been years since you found a whole album of great tunes - if you buy primarily in the indie sector, there's far less necessity for that level of quality. I know you, and most people here, don't care for the huge end of commercial pop, but WB and the like have been upping the ante on 'quality product' for years. Again, I know most of you won't like it, but Breakout by Miley Cyrus is a simply astonishingly great record (if you happen to like that sort of thing), and there's been some very consistent whole records from the likes of Britney, Christina, Avril and so on since the 'death' of the industry.

No-one's obliged to think like that sort of thing - that's personal taste - but in the context of pop music, quality has very seriously increased in the last 10 years. I think the indie sector has a different set of problems - I'd maintain that they should let people branch out a bit, and include a couple of duff songs as experiments. The problem now, I suppose, is that someone like Kate Bush, who did some preposterous things in the name of commercial pop, simply wouldn't be given that chance. I remember reading that, all that time ago, Slipknot had to remove a couple of bitchin' solos from their second record because it just didn't fit with their general ethos. If they were on MFN or Earache (unlikely, I know) they'd be given the room to include that sort of thing in their sound.

But yeah, in essence, it doesn't surprise me at all that WB put out a consistent record; what surprises me is that the market it was aimed at wasn't the pop consumer that I'm talking about, but the pop consumer that crosses over with the blackened husk of the independent underground.

Originally Posted by infinitemusic

Do you ever talk about anything BUT shitty pop music? We get it, you're SO individual that you hang out on a Sonic Youth forum and listen to nothing but Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne AND have endless knowledge about music that's even more weird than what we listen to so it's our tastes that are pedestrian. Plus it's not like you appreciate Taylor Swift because you're an internally homophobic faggot who never emotionally matured out of Jr. High, it's because you appreciate it for it's amazingly innovative production (that autotune sure won't sound dated in five years) and absolutely breathtaking quality. Awesome. Now give it a fucking rest douchebag.

Although I do agree with what you said about Kate Bush...

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

Yeah, it is. Box of Chameleons sums them up completely. Of course, it's a 3 CD, 128 (!) song set.

Originally Posted by Lurker

He's Italian isn't he? Or did you know that?

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I really think the album is one of those unwittingly perfect formats, a bit like the novel or the feature film or the magazine, that will endure (as the novel and feature film and magazine have) long after technology has rendered them archaic.