Take Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, for example. That album is honestly one song. The ebb and flow of the musical tone and tempo are carefully crafted in such a way as to take the listener through the very depths of madness itself. To remove any song, or even change the order, would completely change the album. Blasphemy in my opinion. I suppose my point is that one can achieve a greater intensity and emotional expression by being able to tie in multiple songs together. It allows the artist room to develop the message they're trying to achieve, and the listener time to experience it.
Monday, January 25, 2010
21st Century Music Man
I don't know how I feel about music these days. While I am an avid user of MP3s and services like Pandora and last.fm, I feel that they are changing the industry in ways that I'm not exactly comfortable with. Not that my personal feelings are that important in the grand scheme of things, but hey this is my blog. Primarily I'm concerned about the death of the album. File downloading has led to the proliferation of singles, rather than the development of full albums. This concerns me because I for one love listening to an album that has been carefully constructed and crafted as cohesive whole. While one can undeniably enjoy songs on their own, it is an entirely different matter to listen to an album and experience it as the artist takes you through a creative journey.
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I can totally see where you're coming from and I can pick parts I agree with and don't necessarily agree with. New technology is changing the way people experience music but I don't know whether it's a good or bad thing. depending on the person and their individual concerns, it can be negative or positive.
ReplyDeletei also am a little bit perturbed by the fact that the worth of albums is diminishing in this age. i try to go out of my way and get the whole album rather than just some singles from the album to fight the man.
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