[jmathai]

We've seen a steady shift in music over the past 2 decades from full length albums, to single hits, to artificially generated.

Surely there's some gained and some lost. But coming from the era of buying an entire album, spending time reading the CD booklets and art, and listening to 10 songs which tell a larger story ---- what's being lost really hits home.

[shusaku]

This comment is like 20 years out of date haha. People shifted to single hits when the iTunes store was selling songs for 99 cents. Now (and by now I mean for over a decade) we’re in the age of streaming, and you can easily access whole albums with zero friction. It’s the best time ever for the full listen through experience. And artists are responding by releasing long albums.

What I do think is lost these days is listening to the save album over and over again.

[afavour]

I really don't think we have. When I was growing up in the 90s it was the heyday of the pop single but there were still plenty of albums being produced and I think it's the same today.

[soundworlds]

I can tell you that myself (and many others) still create concept albums as our primary format. It's not that people aren't still creating it.

The choice is still there for any listener that cares about albums as a format. I don't mean that in a negative way. I suspect that many people listen to both playlists of singles, and albums of their favourite artists, depending on mood.

[tempaccount5050]

No, the game has changed. Back then, the singles were typically accompanied by an album, even if it was just filler. It's better to release singles now due to the way the Spotify and iTunes algos work. Best practice is now to release your songs one at a time rather than a full album (at least if you aren't an established player).

[skeeter2020]

On one hand this pretty much destroys thematic albums (like classical music, prog rock, Tool or for example, something like Alice in Chains' Dirt), but on the other few could pull it off and those who can are still doing it (ex: the latest Opeth album). So maybe discovering new music is hurt, because itunes and spotify look like crowded ERs, but there's just as much good music out there - regardless of your tastes.

[charcircuit]

It doesn't kill it as songs can be remixed for the album version.

[afavour]

Right, there's less unnecessary dressing of an "album" of filler. But I don't think that's a meaningful change. Singles drove the market then and they do now. Albums were still produced then and still are now.

[tempaccount5050]

Right but the approach is different. Now the idea is as soon as you have a song, you record and release it. You don't wait until you have 45 minutes or 12 tracks or whatever. The album comes out later, but it's just a collection of songs (and that arguably isn't really new either).

[vectordust]

> there were still plenty of albums being produced and I think it's the same today.

agreed with this, I would almost go so far as to say there are more full length albums being created than ever before.

[mapmeld]

I think it's an AI-generated response.

[bobthepanda]

Artists have actually been moving back to the full album with goodies, even in mainstream pop with Beyoncé, Rosalia, RAYE, Charli XCX to name a few.

[BoingBoomTschak]

Does it really matter since pop albums were/are (almost?) always "collections of singles + fillers"?

[bobthepanda]

ah, the standard trite, reductive anti-pop cudgel.

no, these days, pop albums are more frequently meant to be consumed in their entirety, often with full length visuals for each song that blend into each other in order.

* the death of radio has really meant that singles are declining in utility, especially in our social media era where the songs that pop off an album are not necessarily the record-designated singles

* the more parasocial development of pop encourages fans to invest more in merch and the concept of the album

* like everything else in the economy trending towards more expensive but meaningful experiences, tours are becoming larger productions to experience an album intensely

* in the AI era, we are now seeing artists pivot towards doubling down on experiences that AI cannot curate and provide meaning for

Rosalia this year is touring with a full orchestra and RAYE with a full big band, because these are intentional choices that the pop music industry has been trending towards for a while. There's always going to be trite drugstore music as long as there are drugstores, but what is charting is not really that at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htQBS2Ikz6c&list=RDhtQBS2Ikz...

[kjkjadksj]

I feel like in those days I really didn’t appreciate albums. Storage was a premium so I would focus on bands greatest hits songs vs discographies. Both in terms of my burned cd collections and early mp3. I didn’t start getting into albums until terabyte hard drives were cheaper. Then I started pirating discographies and listening to the back catalog for the first time.

[kristopolous]

music has been a product of its form factor for a long time. It's no coincidence that the wax cylinder, 78, 45, 33, cassette, CD, and mp3 dictated changes in how music was packaged (single, lp, ep, album, b sides) and the average length of a popular song.

Good thing music as a topic is diverse and people are doing all kinds of things. But yes, commercially distributed mass-consumption music is influenced by its packaging and distribution ... obviously.

[kzrdude]

There is another new trend now that some artists are doing album concerts, where the set list follows one of their albums. I thought that was cool.. probably as a reaction, on how to bring back the album in a way.

[warkdarrior]

One can still buy artisan albums created by independent singers/bands. But they tend to get lost in the marketing/influencer noise and thus do not get worldwide success. As a result you have to search harder for them.

[mistrial9]

the main article is about marketing/influencer noise completely replacing the artists, enacted by companies close to the search process

[themafia]

You're only describing pop music. Thankfully this is a tiny fraction of all music.

[Barrin92]

it's become a much larger section of music. Notice, there are no bands any more. Try finding a metal band with musicians under 40, or a Greenday, Linkin Park or, the itself automated Kpop industry aside, a spontaneous boy or girl group.

Solo pop or hip-hop performers with a focus on social media have crowded out collectively made music, likely due to the general social atrophy and technology enabling production from their bedrooms.

Anecdotally, I used to be a guitarist and a lot of my friends are musicians and teachers, teenage bands are pretty much nowhere to be seen.

[peab]

charts will become totally meaningless.

Event data will be what matters most. That's how artists actually make their revenue these days anyways.