[atlantaprog] Re: Fwd: [ARTNEWS] death of the album?

I have one word for this: regression. Yep, it's getting to be like the sixties never happened and that's not just a shame, but a dirty damned rotten shame.

Yes, that regression is happening (largely because people like us have taken it lying down for the last twenty years and we're finding it hard to make up the lost time), but the death of the album doesn't *have* to be part of it.

The important thing is the desire and ability to Make A Big Statement, not the album format itself. There's no reason at all that the death of the album has to mean the death of the big musical statement. In fact, the phenomenon of music downloading actually *removes* the limitations of the physical disk. Imagine being able to listen to a classic opera *without ever having to do a thing while the music is playing*. The *single piece of music* might be the new emphasis, but once again, there's no physical limitation on the length of that piece; the only limitation has to do with the politics of the industry, namely the relationship to radio. Besides, albums can still exist in spirit, as collections of pieces intended as a cycle.

As for "like the Sixties never happened", I'll never get tired of pointing out that that's the common goal of both modern Reaganite conservatism *and* "postmodern" alt-culture, and I wish the part of alt-culture that imagines itself "progressive" would finally get wise to how they're being double-crossed.

Other related posts: