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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: bosk1 on March 03, 2017, 10:40:38 AM
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What I mean is this: For bands that I actively listen to that are putting out albums nowadays, like DT, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Epica, etc., it seems like those bands not only put out LONGER albums, but also have more CONSISTENT albums with less songs that feel like just "filler." It is common to pick up a DT album, for example, and really like well over half, feel like more than a quarter of it is solid, and only feel lukewarm to less than a quarter of it.
"Back in the day," a good album had 10 tracks, of which 2-3 would be really strong, 2-3 would be solid, middle-of-the-road tracks, and the remaining almost half of the album would be weaker "filler" that was just there, in most cases.
There are definitely exceptions to the rule on both sides of my arbitrary dividing line. But it was just an observation from a lot of what I listen to now that it just seems like we more frequently get more bang for our buck with more consistently solid albums nowadays.
The tangent that got me off on this line of thinking, for what it's worth, is when I was scrolling through my music player this morning and got to Lacuna Coil's latest album. And I started thinking to myself, "You know, they are a good 'hits' band. I can go through most of their albums and pick a small handful of songs that I actively want to listen to at any given time, and the rest of the album bores me. THAT'S SUCH AN '80S THING!" So...just thought I'd throw this poll out there for you all to vote in while I'm busy here making my Lacuna Coil mix tape. :lol
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Seems that way to me, too. At least with the kinds of music to which I regularly listen.
Wouldn't shock me if the "filler" approach is still common with more pop bands/acts.
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bands in the 2000's and 2010's can't sell albums on just singles alone because of mp3 downloads, you have to make the entire album pretty good if you want people to buy it or theyll just download the specific song or two they want. And the Internet makes it a lot easier to check out albums before buying so it's easy to tell when an album is loaded with filler
At least, I imagine that's one reason. Some bands also just don't care about being popular and write whatever they wanna write and that more sincere style of writing albums is gonna lead to higher quality overall
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Wouldn't shock me if the "filler" approach is still common with more pop bands/acts.
True. And maybe I should have qualified it to not include that type of music. But that's fine.
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I'm leaning towards a yes. But I can only speak for the music I've listened to and it does seem to be that way. You also see a lot more special editions that have bonus songs and live tracks on release day than you would in the past. Sometimes those bonus/live tracks come out on later releases of the album in the past, but a lot of the time we get them on day 1 now if you want to spend some more money.
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Case by case I guess. Dream Theater are a good example of quantity AND quality, and so Iron Maiden; 92 minutes of The Book of Souls are way better than 45 minutes of No Prayer for the Dying (ok, maybe I picked the easiest choice here, but still...)
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What I mean is this: For bands that I actively listen to that are putting out albums nowadays, like DT, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Epica, etc., it seems like those bands not only put out LONGER albums, but also have more CONSISTENT albums with less songs that feel like just "filler." It is common to pick up a DT album, for example, and really like well over half, feel like more than a quarter of it is solid, and only feel lukewarm to less than a quarter of it.
"Back in the day," a good album had 10 tracks, of which 2-3 would be really strong, 2-3 would be solid, middle-of-the-road tracks, and the remaining almost half of the album would be weaker "filler" that was just there, in most cases.
There are definitely exceptions to the rule on both sides of my arbitrary dividing line. But it was just an observation from a lot of what I listen to now that it just seems like we more frequently get more bang for our buck with more consistently solid albums nowadays.
The tangent that got me off on this line of thinking, for what it's worth, is when I was scrolling through my music player this morning and got to Lacuna Coil's latest album. And I started thinking to myself, "You know, they are a good 'hits' band. I can go through most of their albums and pick a small handful of songs that I actively want to listen to at any given time, and the rest of the album bores me. THAT'S SUCH AN '80S THING!" So...just thought I'd throw this poll out there for you all to vote in while I'm busy here making my Lacuna Coil mix tape. :lol
That's all true, but there is the frequency aspect of this as well. Kiss would put two albums out a year - each around 30, 35 minutes a piece - totaling an hour or so of music each year. Now, albums are what, 70 minutes a piece, every two years?
I also miss the "structure" of albums. The CD has no break. Notwithstanding things like SFAM, you don't have the old "Side one opens with the hit, follows with one that could be a hit, filler, odd ball song, strong song", then "Side two opens with the second single, follows with one that could be a hit, one filler, one odd ball song, epic and/or ballad". I miss that.
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As with any legal question, the answer is -- it depends.
There is a huge uptick in the amount of material bands, in general, are releasing. Both new music, live music, old music demos, merch, the list is endless. Is it all "quality?" It really depends on who you ask and their individual tastes.
For me, while I like the fact bands are producing a bunch of stuff for me to buy, it has also led to me not spending as much time with new releases as I used to, which has sucked. I am now finding myself going back to stuff I bought five, six, seven years ago, and revisiting it, and wondering why I didn't listen to it more. That's concerning for me, as I used to really hone in on the new releases that came out.
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Back in 60s and 70s bands put out at least an album a year but on vinyl that was 45 mins or so.
Some bands put out two albums within a year. making about 90 mins a year
Nowadays some bands can put out 45 mins every two or three years.
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Well at least some of my favorite bands have put out quantity and quality.
Rush - Clockwork Angels
Dream Theater - The Astonishing
Symphony X - Underworld
Iron Maiden - The last five albums are amazing!
The four bands I mentioned have been consistent for a long time and getting better.
Journey's latest albums are really good too, even though not popular.
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Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at.
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I think a couple of reasons are:
There are more influences to draw from than in the 70's and 80's.
Some of those bands have greater experience.
There feels like there's more competition.
Most albums though, like back in the day have 2-3 great songs, a coupe that suck, and the rest middle of the road.
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Depends on the band. If the band is able to make a living doing what they do then albums in this century are fewer and farther between..
If the band can barely survive doing what they do there will be more releases in this century generally speaking.