Is the Album Dying? If You Ask Me, Yes

A Journal of Musical Things ^ | January 12, 2015 | Alan Cross

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

The notes and the lyrics are great. But all of that stuff is online.

[ClearCase_guy]

everyone wanted to be a diva

My standard joke for years was -- "If you want to be a famous singer, take A LOT of dance lessons." The whole Madonna, Paula Abdul, Britney Spears thing ... music became very visual and focused on one person. The bands were invisible.

[relictele]

Who plays bass for Kelly Clarkson?

Nobody's ever seen him. Or the drummer. Or the drum riser, for that matter.

Our Kel's a big gal.

[SamAdams76]

For better or worse, the iPod killed the album. As soon as I had the ability to load my entire music collection onto the device, I just hit the Shuffle button and slowly weeded out the filler tracks until I was left with just the hits (and some personal favorites).

I haven't listed to an "album" from beginning to end for about 10 years now.

Now I stream music into my home stereo from either my personal music library or from a personalized station on Pandora.

[Jeff Chandler]

Hey! You kids stay offa my lawn!!!!

[Noumenon]

You also lose glorious analog warmth.

[henkster]

Most of those are on my favorite list as well. Add

The Who, Quadrophenia
ELP, Brain Salad Surgery
Allman Brothers, Live at the Fillmore East
Pink Floyd, Animals
Steely Dan, Aja (although I am also partial to The Royal Scam)
Moody Blues, Days of Future Past
Supertramp, Crime of the Century
The Cars
Yes, Fragile

[left that other site]

My love of album art caused me to choose graphic design as my College major! I loved the 12 x 12 format, and liked it even better when you could unfold a double album for a beautiful panorama.

The only good thing about cd’s is the fact that I can make my own in my little 16 track studio.

I still design the covers, but they are so small!

[henkster]

Put them in frames and hang them on the wall.

[left that other site]

I am so sorry you lost those beauties to a flood! (Sigh)

[dfwgator]

One thing you will lose when you lose the album: Great album art.

And a tool for rolling joints.....or so I've heard.

[Noumenon]

Give them to me

[dfwgator]

Before making it big on SNL, the late Phil Hartmann designed album covers.

Here is some of his work...

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/doigman/covers_designed_by_phil_hartmann/

[left that other site]

Oh indeed...those are terrific as well.(especially AJA!)

I also liked Pink Floyd’s Album that had “Welcome to the machine” on it...I don’t remember the name of the album but the cover art was sublime!

[cyn]

YES. It keeps me hanging on.

[dfwgator]

Ok, who built the ELO Spaceship that came with “Out of the Blue”?

[left that other site]

Wow..i never knew.

I recognized quite a few of those.

[henkster]

The really good bands did concept albums. You listened to them to hear a story. That’s not done anymore because too few people have the sufficient attention span to listen to tehm and divas don’t hire songwriters with that depth of intellect.

[left that other site]

One album I have not been able to find online is Bruce Cockburn’s “Humans”.

Some of his songs are available on iTunes, and there are a few YouTubes of him singing, but the Album seems to be nowhere to be found. I suspect it was never made into a cd, and so is not available online.

Very strange, as nearly everry album i have ever owned is available either as a cd or online.

[Alex Murphy]

Ah, the old Technics turntable - looks like a SL-D2!