You don't abolish albums, you just make them better.

WOW, That is horrible, I couldnt stand just listening to 5 songs, I think what needs to happen is take the sex appeal out of music and start getting good musicians out there again. There just insnt enough good bands out there. Most bands can come up with one really good song then make 13 crappy songs and the label releases it. Maybe if the labels started scouting out better bands, and get out of what teenage girls are gonna like (Cute Boys) and start making MUSIC again, maybe then we wouldnt have this problem.

You can't take away the album because that is one of the only places that an artist can fully show himself artisticly. Now, they dont make albums like they used to, but its still kind of the same concept. Albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is a great example of this. That album is structured track by track the way that it flows the best and displays the feeling of the record the best. Plus, certain songs flow into on another (ie. ANother Brick int he wall part 1-Happyist days of our lives-ANother brick in the wall part II). The songs that are on these albums are not meant to be pop hits. They are menat to be album tracks and are supposed to be listened to as a whole. This is where AOR radio came from. Bands like Floyd and ELP and King Crimson and Frank Zappa etc did not make songs to go up the pop charts. Imagine is they did. Imagine if someone told Roger Waters and David Gilmore to write a single. The wouldnt have done it. They think in albums, not in singles, and thats what makes them better musicians. ANyone could write a pop song with a catchy hook and a TRL sound, not many could write an entire album that grabs you in and keeps you there are you listen and feel the experiences and emotions of the music, anticipating the climax, where it all comes together and you can see how this has been a remarkable experience. The absence of albums would kill the lat remaining artistic output that any artist has.
Further, on alot of albums (Usually the none conceptual ones), there tracks that are not released that are better than the radio-friendly over-produced selections. These are the tracks where the artist writes what he wants and not what the record company wants, or what the mass-buying public wants. If artists just made EP's of radio friendly stuff, then these tracks would be lost as well, and there would be nothing truely worth while in todays music anymore. Any record exec or critic or artist that says that we should do away with albums is an idiot. These are the people that have sold out and are only looking to make money and are not there for the love and art of music. I'll get off my soapbox now.

Here's my take: Keep the albums printing and bring back the old .45 discs and charge no more than 2 bucks a record. It'll bring back choice in music. Some consumers don't want to waste $11.99 or more on an CD of an LP or an EP with 3 or more bad songs on it. Others like the albums to decide the quality of an artist's range of music. I like my Real Player or Windows Media because I can choose the songs I like from an album and resell a bad album or donate it to a library or Goodwill store. I think that more companies should manufacture more of the CD singes.

Or...just an idea...how about the best of both worlds? If a band makes enough singles; they can choose to put a "concept" behind the singles / or meant to be heard as a collection. So if a band manages to squeeze oout 10 singles to the public, they could be "ordered" on someone's media player, and have meaning. (An order that I suppose must be stated by the artist somewhere.) But, on the other hand, in order to get the songs out to the public they need to have pop appeal..."Fillers" or "non-pop" songs have their function in the context of a whole album/piece. By the way, Billy Florio, I think you were referring to the Pink Floyd album; "The Wall", which is a great example of a album as a whole. I believe that the album is meant to be listened to as if it was one huge song. I'm pretty sure, but not positive, that the album starts off in a certain key, and then resolves in that same key ("E"?)...just as an individual song resolves.

I totally agree, with billy. I mean Im going to use my favorite band for example. Creed, has many songs that are not exacltly pop singles. But alot of their songs like the most recent "Who's Got My Back Now?" Is just epic. They are one band who pops out great albums. I know that probally alot of people dont like them here, but trust me they make great albums. Staind does this as well. I know that Im a modern music kind of guy. But Doing away with albums would take away the last pure thing in music, and that is the songs that are not written to be singles, but are written for the exact purpose that all songs should be writtenfor, and that is to be meaningful and simply be Music.

I think that the real issue here is the quality of the music being made now. I never buy an album without hearing it first. If its good, I'm willing to go out and throw down the $16.99 to hear the music again. Other albums, though, are just filled with so much crap, and have maybe 3 good songs, and they still expect me to go out and pay the same price for an album with 15 good songs. The only way for the whole problem to be solved is for the music industry to re-evaluate what they're doing and quit it with their half-assed attempts to make the quick buck.

zvoidx, I think I made a mistake, but not in quoting the wrong album...I forgot to mention The Wall (I know that when I was writing it, I was saying both DSOTM and The Wall in my head...)...I must have forgot that I didnt say that and just mentioned that medley of songs without thinking.....thank you for pointing that out....

If there were no albums, the most you could do in concept is string a few singles together. Lesley Gore followed "It's My Party (and I'll cry if I want to" with "Judy's Turn to Cry." Gary U.S. Bonds' singles all kinda sounded alike, and he followed "School Is Out" with "School Is In" -- guess he forgot to listen to Eddie Cochran. Other than that, you got the LL Cool J vs. Kool Moe Dee rap cycle, and precious little else. (Shoot, I used the word "precious," now all the Tolkeinians will perk up.) No, albums should stay, but let us not overlook the single. The single made rock-and-roll possible, but the album made it a lasting form of art. Both should last forever.

Getting rid of albums is a good idea if you are strictly talking about pop music, which we know only exists to allow the music industry fat cats to line their pockets with the lunch money of all pre-teens everywhere.

they better not abolish albums...damnit what is MTV doing to the world of music?

Imagine how bad pop artist's songs are now, and those are the ones they felt necercery to realease, now think about if even the ones they didnt intend on realeasing has radio airplay...Dear Lord, would life be bad.

Or how about the comverse: "A Backstreet Boys" concept album...

---------------*(converse)

Good idea. Stop making Albums. Then the only stuff to buy will be crap like the Backstreet Boys and NSink (I don't know how to spell it, I don't listen to it). Listen to albums (By the Way is a good example) by the great bands and you'll notice that some of the best songs weren't singles and would have just been overplayed if they were.