Album Format: Outdated?

[DieselDaisy]

But that is what it was like before the mid '60s? We need to let go of the notion that rock music is inherently album orientated. Chuck Berry for example entered the studio to make a 45, i.e. two songs. His albums merely cobble together his last three or four singles and include four or so incidental songs, usually either genre, novelty or instrumental pieces.

I get what you're saying. But why did they record that way? Back then record players weren't even in every home. But radio was. TV wasn't even in every home. It was all about getting your song on the radio. It all revolved around the radio. People sat around their homes all night to hear a song on the radio. That's how the whole music industry worked back then because of the times.

It wasn't because great talents like Chuck Berry or Hank Williams only had one or two good songs in them. The music industry didn't need albums from those guys, they just needed a song to play on the almighty radio. I'm willing to bet if the record company went to Chuck and said, take 6 months if you need to Chuck, make us like 10 or 12 songs and we will put them all out on one big record. He would be all over that.

But you are right because now the record companies don't need albums, they just need a song that will sell a bunch of itunes. The difference is, we are 50 years past the point of everything revolving around the radio and those guys having to record that way.

You are partially correct however people were beginning to buy record players - the 1950s witnessed a consumer boom in America - but it is more to do with the relative pricing of 45s an LPs. LPs were a luxury niche product. Teenagers could afford 45s. And yes, radio was bigger - as was jukeboxes (virtually the symbol of 1950s rock n' roll). But none of this contradicts my point. Artists like Chuck, Elvis, Little Richard created their songs in the technological and consumer milieu they lived in. They could not have done anything else. The vehicle for their music was the two minute single. Look at the benefits of this approach. There is a wonderful magnified focus because they are essentially working on two songs per recording session and therefore are trying to make those two songs as great as possible. They were a lot less prone to masturbation than artists recording 'an album'. You consequentially do not witness many of the dips and filler you see on albums. Each individual song is a masterpiece. Also, you (as a fan) got new material at two-three month intervals.

You may have to accept the fact that our milieu is the mp3, the ipod and the (consumer created) playlist.