|
Has the era of the music album come to an end? "Weird Al" Yankovic recently released his new album Mandatory Fun and during an interview on the financial show Varney & Company he indicated that this will be his last proper album, and he would be releasing singles rather than formal albums since it would allow him release his parodies in a more timely manner.
This isn't the first time he has released some songs early. Before his last album (Alpocalypse) he released an EP called Internet Leaks which contained a few songs that would later appear on Alpocalypse. He also released the parody You're Pitiful (parody of James Blunt's You're Beautiful) as a free download after Blunt's record company disapproved of the parody (Blunt approved the parody).
I think this could be the beginning of a trend where musical acts release individual songs rather than complete albums. This would be a return to the way music was often released prior to the development of the album as an album, when singles were the norm and albums were often just a collection of previously released singles rather than being conceived of as a thematic grouping like The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
As an example, when music of The Beatles was first released on CD one of the factors that led to a controversy is the decision to use the original U. K. albums as the basis for the CDs rather than the U. S. albums. One of the reasons this led to a controversy is that many of The Beatles earliest hits (including She Loves You) were only released as singles or as part of an EP in the U. K. Due to this, they weren't released on CD until after the original U. K. albums had been released on CD.
Although I think the musical album will still be important, I think that the single will return to importance as a significant way to release music. The development of on-line music, where you can often buy just the songs you want, makes the single once again practical for the first time since then end of the 45RPM record (when you could buy two songs for a low price).
One negative I see out of this is the elimination of the album track. There are many of my favorite songs that are considered album tracks, songs that would not be released as a A-side of a single (at most, they might be released as a B-side) but are excellent songs in their own right. Without the need to provide enough tracks for an album, many excellent songs might rejected for since they aren't needed.
An example of this is the song Trying To Get The Feeling Again by the Carpenters. The song was considered for inclusion in their album Horizon but was rejected. Decades later, a work lead (essentially a vocal draft of the song) featuring Karen Carpenter's vocals for the song was found. Production of the song was completed and included in the compilation album Interpretations. The Carpenters' version of the song features the original lyrics of the song (which were significant changed in Barry Manilow's hit version of the song). To me, this is an example of a song that likely would never had been heard, but is a song that has become one of my favorite songs.
|