Will the album survive

This was debated a lot around 7 years ago and streaming has since shown many times through huge artists that a lot of people still love a good album. Not even worth worrying about anymore.

It may well be an age thing.

I’m not sure the average age of DiS-ers but get the impression it’s perhaps over mid-30s.

Many of us have grown up with the album. When a single is released by an artist I’m a fan of I almost always don’t listen to it and prefer to hear it as part of an album. Track listings, their order and the feel of the song before it often has a bearing on the single in question.

I’ll be interested in how younger users here view albums. I’m an oldie who’s 45 and I probably will agree with many views here but the teens and early 20s will have their own valid viewpoints too.

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I was about to claim to be of the younger set, but in fact - no - I am 30. The existential crisis of realising ones age

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I would be surprised if any regular posters are young enough that their age of first being properly into music was via streaming rather than CDs. I mean I’d expect for that to be the case you’d have to be well under 25.

I work with ‘zoomers’ who are into music and they’re as much into albums as me

Yes.

Next.

Yes. People who make music will always want to express themselves in more detail than 4 minutes allows. Whether or not they remain a marketable quantity is moot as the vast majority of artists make little to no money from music anyway.

Probably but I don’t think it’d be such a bad thing if it didn’t.

No, it’ll all be TikToks in five years

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How longs yer average symphony? Tend to be about album length don’t they. Maybe there’s something sort of intrinsically suitable about ~40 (very approximately) mins as a length of time for a piece of art in the medium of music

Burial never releases albums does he?

Yeah, loads of dance producers mostly do EPs and singles. Definitely a genre thing.

I just pretend Spotify doesn’t exist. Pretty hard to be convinced the album is dead when you buy several a week.

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Yes.
Even when I use streaming it is to check out San album I have heard about.

The ‘album’ as a product will remain. I think if artists released a song every month it might get lost in the noise and forgotten about quickly. At least having an album lets you build up suspense and excitement with the fan base, creates a “narrative” in the media for attention and exposure, and lets you focus all the add-ons (merch/tour) onto that particular product.

I would say the ‘album’ as an artistic statement may be over for big artists. Drake for example just feels like he collects around 20 tracks together every few years now and throws enough at the algorithm to see what sticks.

The album’s never gonna survive
unless
it gets a little crazy

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