Albums. Just a collection of songs or.....

Am beginning to load up my recently acquired Ipod and it's got me thinking.
Is an album just a bunch of songs packaged together or is an album more cohesive, more than the sum of its parts? To some extent of course it may depend on the album.

Eg. if there's a track or two on an album that don't exactly do it for you, do you simply not include them or load the whole album because "thats how its meant to be listened to". At the moment I'm in the second school of thought.

 

depends for me.Back In Black for example just has to be played in full,whereas i can mix and match Eva Cassidy,i will happily drop tracks.But not from rock classics,but thats just me i think

ps your pm box is full! I have emailed that guy re the Sparks and will ring about the VR1s

 

Oops. Now rectified.

Taa
Jeff

 

I wouldn't have said "to some extent", I'd have said its entirely dependent on the album. A lot of albums "cohere" and as such are more than the sum of their parts, with common themes or a story to tell, in the same way that a novel isn't a book that's just a collection of chapters. The term "Concept Album" is a bit pompous (overtones of mid seventies prog rock excess) and is misleading - to take an obvious example - Sgt Pepper - you would be hard pushed to call it a concept album, but that it is more than the sum of its parts is undoubtedly true.

That said, it has been argued quite convincingly that Ipod mania could see the end of the album as a concept. If people start thinking in terms of tracks only, which is almost inevitable with things like Itunes, the idea of the album becomes to some extent meaningless at which point the idea of making an album which is a coherent whole becomes a bit of an anachronism.

People still make them (have a listen to the new Green Day Album - American Idiot), but I'm noticing increasingly that so many new albums are just a collection with a few singles and a whole lot of filler. I'm guessing this is a reaction to the new ways people are buying and listening. If it doesn't change though, that in itself might kill the album off because they cease to add any value and the album which does form a coherent whole will be an unfortunate casualty.

Personally I think CD started the rot Just because you can fit 70 minutes of music on a CD, doesn't mean you should. In most cases 40 to 45 minutes is just about right before switching to something else. There's a lot of good bands can make a good 40 minute album but only a few great ones can make 70 minutes of music without filler. That's why there are so many duff double vinyl albums. CD has meant that far too many CD albums are effectively duff double albums.

Just my thoughts.

 

THE concept album of course is Dark Side of the Moon. It's definitely much more than just a collection of tracks.

I always rip entire albums to my iPod and usually listen to entire albums without chopping and changing. However, I use iTunes random shuffle quite a bit on the PC and that can give some interesting combinations

Michael.