And it's no good saying that it's not in your name, because it is in your name

[alexsarll]

Thought, occasioned by listening to the infuriatingly patchy Nelly Furtado album but of wider applicability: in the download age, will it actually be necessary to make albums anymore? Obviously from an artistic standpoint, many acts will still *want* to make albums. But the model which dictated that everyone *had* to make albums in order to make money will surely no longer apply. Meaning that all the pop acts whose singles kick arse but whose albums are a bloody trial will hopefully realise there's no point to recording ten tracks of filler when people are only going to download the singles anyway.

On Sunday my journey took me through Belsize Park, and I realised with some surprise that I'd never been there before. Finchley Road, Hampstead Heath, Chalk Farm, Kentish Town, Primrose Hill, even Gospel Oak - none of them exactly my turf, but I'm in each of them every so often. So how come I'd managed to totally miss the area between them? I'm guessing it's something to do with the way the area appears to have been designed by Hawksmoor's scarier brother. St Stephen's, the Catholic school and another building of uncertain purpose each looked like plausible doubles for Arkham Asylum, looming like they should have their own stormclouds; Hell, the church's windows even look like skulls if you catch them from the right angle. No wonder my wanderings never brought me here, I must have sensed that terribilis est locus iste and only a direct and deliberate route plan was ever going to overrule that.

Am currently nursing a minor obsession with Yves Klein (warning: Wikipedia really doesn't sell him half so well as Rebecca Solnit does); I find most conceptual art a bit clever-dick-ish, but Klein having been something of a Rosicrucian, his take on it seems more like a new school of magic. I think I'd been vaguely aware of him as someone who painted blue canvases, but I'd never realised the intent behind this, the attempt to redefine space which I don't think he meant on a purely perceptual level. Though who can be sure? After all, Magic is the art of taking things literally.

Comments

[billywhizz.livejournal.com]

Downloads / Albums &c: I suspect you're right. With the inverse advantage that people who bother to make albums will hopefully make cogent bodies of work, rather than just enough songs to fill an hour.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm still a big fan of the album as art form (witness being able to find 52 I rated from last year); I just wish people whom it doesn't suit wouldn't kee attempting them!

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's pretty much what I've been told about mine. Though I hope all of them are, anyway, it being a pop album. Apart from maybe the one "experimental" track.

Re: all filler, no killer.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

I agree also. Except mine won't get released anyway. What-ho!

Re: all filler, no killer.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I am now intrigued as to who you're working with, and picturing some terrifying hybrid of Martin Hannett, Phil Spector, Colonel Tom and Stalin.

Re: all filler, no killer.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Which is not to say that every song has to be a potential single, of course -many of my favourite albums are the ones with overtures, epilogues and epics that would never conceivably work as singles, but are of the same (or superior) quality as the tracks which do.

[auxyeuxdargent.livejournal.com]

I prefer Carolee Schneemann myself. She created "Meat Joy" as a feminist response to Klein's Blue Nudes.

I know what you mean about those churches. Often after Stay Beautiful when I have no way of getting home and no transport is forthcoming, I get the bus to Belsize Park and walk home from there which takes around twenty minutes. Passing by those skull-like windows in the darkest of dark hours with only the cloud-covered moon and your own footsteps for company it can be truly terrifying. Other times it can be thrilling and magical. x

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Perhaps in another, stronger mood I'd be intrigued instead, like I don't always mind Highgate being vampire country or the Crouch End thin spot. We shall see.

Shall investigate Schneeman, though tbh the name 'Meat Joy' does not inspire...

[auxyeuxdargent.livejournal.com]

No, I appreciate that, but she very firmly has to be taken in the context of her age. I'm sure the names of other peieces such as "Interior Scroll" won't appeal either... It's a very obvious form of female performance without which there would be no Karen Finlay, Eleanor Antin or Annie Sprinkle (though I know this might not be deemed a bad thing by some people) but taken in context I think she's terribly important. x

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, Interior Scroll I have heard of!

I can certainly appreciate the historical significance of that whole strand, but Annie Sprinkle's probably the only one I actually *like* per se.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Unless download outlets make it worthwhile to buy albums (eg 14 tracks x 79p > 1 album @ £9.99, 10 tracks x 79p > 1 album @ £6.99) then no-one will bother. Apart from mix cds, where people just want to stick something on in the background and not worry about individual tracks, just the overall ambience.

However albums give the listener opportunity for otherwise neglected songs to 'grow on' them. It will be interesting to see how it will all pan out...

[johnnybrolly.livejournal.com]

My favourite format is the Extended Play. I particularly liked the between album E.P. phase some bands from the mid-90s adopted. 2 massive peaks from SFA's supreme body of work are The Man Don't Give a F*ck and the Ice Hockey Hair E.P. I don't suppose there is scope for the E.P. in the digital age.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There's quite a lot of scope I'd have thought - especially as bands can stream 4 tracks on their MySpace - a "buy them all for X" offer would work easily.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Or alternately we'll all have scanned our brains into MP8s via USB syringes, and then sold the originals on eBay.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Concur. I've noticed that a lot of digital-only singles still come with 'b-sides', so the old 7" single model isn't dead - which one might easily have expected given how few mainstream bands put any effort into b-sides anymore when they can just whack a pointless instrumental on instead. So it seems likely that the EP, with its added scope for showcasing a band's diversity and the happy coincidence with Myspace's capabilities, would regain the role it had before chart restrictions started screwing them over - a staging post, a place to try a new direction or salvage something from a direction that wasn't quite going to sustain an album.

[alexdecampi.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I think a lot of bands, especially unsigned, will continue to do EPs because they are meatier than demos, yet still affordable in terms of studio/producer time.

Charlie is about 10 days away from heading into the studio to begin Evil Genius' debut EP, and in a weird your blog/my life synchronicity, we were arguing this morning whether an EP HAD to have 4 songs or it could have only 3. My argument boiled down to "blah blah vinyl origins, 2 songs per side, blah blah THAT'S HOW THE BETA BAND DID IT SO IT HAS TO BE RIGHT" and his boiled down to "blah blah nobody remembers vinyl blah the Betas never made a dime". Ah, one of those mornings where you feel that LCD Soundsystem songs are, in fact, an accurate summation of your recent conversations.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

An EP is DEFINITELY four tracks - well, unless one of them is really long. In fact, didn't the Betas do that once?

[alexdecampi.livejournal.com]

Nope, even the fairly weak Betas EP (The Patty Patty Sound) had four songs, including "Monolith", that INTERMINABLE one.

You are preaching to the choir about the 4-song EP. And Evil Genius are unlikely to ever do a song over 3 minutes, because one particular band member's attention span is only 2.45 long. Still, it worked for The Minutemen.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, on this matter you definitely know best. At least 'Monolith' was an incredibly appropriate name for an interminable song.

I know none of the Evil Genius songs are epics, but were they really all that short? I would have guessed at some being around the four minute mark, but I may just have that in my head as 'general average length for sleaze-rock tracks'.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

What freakytigger said, basically. And four tracks is certainly meaty enough to be worth eg touring to promote. But now that the distribution issues and physical production of disc costs are factored out, bands will no longer need to let themselves slip into putting out an album of sub-par material padding out what would otherwise have been a splendid EP. And let's face it, I'm sure we've all heard a few of those in our time.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There are definitely artists from whom I'd always buy a whole album, but certainly the risk exists that eg I would just have got 'Rehab', because I felt Back to Black was a bit of a gamble. And then I would have missed out on an absolutely great album.

Wasn't there a bit of a fuss with the last Madonna album, where she didn't want people downloading individual tracks? I forget the details, though.

Fairly early on in my getting-back-into-music phase I used to only tape the tracks I liked from albums, before making a total change and almost invariably recording the whole thing. And I can't remember exactly who was responsible for that change, but I had realised, as you say, that I was robbing tracks of the chance to grow on me, and thus missing out.