The Album is Dead...Nonsense!

As a reader of most things musical, insofar as music creation and production goes, nothing makes me either smile or roll my eyes like the now frequent declarations that the "album" as a musical construct is dead, done in by the nefarious forces of glassy-eyed internet streaming junkies for whom listening to more than one song by a particular band or performer is like so yesterday.

To this I say: uh-huh, sure.

My apathy is not merely based on my own predilection towards theme based albums, to which my recent releases will attest, but to the overwhelming fact that along with this proclamation of era in finem, are articles of bands and artists discussing their latest releases which invariably are albums! This is not surprising for most artists are thematic, whether rock, Jazz, or Metal.

So what is going on?

Everybody talk about Pop Muzak!

Pop music has always been about singles stretching back to the days of 45's, 78's, and further back if you include that period a hundred plus years ago when sheet music and player pianos were in vogue. Most of us have fond memories of one hit wonders and those bands or groups that were created in our formative years, whatever period that may mean to you-whether it was Bobby Sherman, Kajagoogoo, the Spice Girls, or the latest K-Pop-they were not created for the purposes of thematic music; they were created for mass consumption and as such are best represented by a series of singles, assuming the first gets any traction.

I won't get into the fine art of Pop sensation creation; that in itself would take up an entire column, but will say that, much like the death of Rock-which is somewhat precarious-talk of the death of the album, and certainly the disingenuous posturing that doing one is a waste of time and resources, is total bunk.

Not everyone wants to be the next teen sensation, most musicians and songwriters have stories to tell, loves to extoll or commiserate, and injustices to decry, and even if they are released separately, their songs inevitably build upon a theme; that's how we identify with them; that is their legacy. So just keep truckin' and do your thing.