Worrying about the death of the album is so 2005.

The album isn't dying. Wal-mart even stocks vinyl now.

Come the fuck on. This Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame eschatology is smug and timid.

I've bought some excellent singles this year. Arthur Doyle, Hans Chew, Amber Alerts, Jack Rose, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Rudolph Grey off the top of my head.

The artists I'm interested in generally record albums.

wal mart stocks albums from the [past that are guaranteed sellers.

as far as new bands coming up iwth full albums..

It has been a while , years, since I have heard an album of songs where the whole was amazing.

I put on Built To Spill's KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET in the car the other day and it slammed me how each song is KILLER, and just builds and builds so that by the time you are reaching the 10th song on the album it is overwhelming how awesome it is.

That was on WARNER BROS.
I would venture that nowadays finding a full album of amazing tunes coming out of warner bros is near impossible.

The thing with this is that there's a greater impetus for complete, quality product (and we are talking product) from WB and the like. You say it's been years since you found a whole album of great tunes - if you buy primarily in the indie sector, there's far less necessity for that level of quality. I know you, and most people here, don't care for the huge end of commercial pop, but WB and the like have been upping the ante on 'quality product' for years. Again, I know most of you won't like it, but Breakout by Miley Cyrus is a simply astonishingly great record (if you happen to like that sort of thing), and there's been some very consistent whole records from the likes of Britney, Christina, Avril and so on since the 'death' of the industry.

No-one's obliged to think like that sort of thing - that's personal taste - but in the context of pop music, quality has very seriously increased in the last 10 years. I think the indie sector has a different set of problems - I'd maintain that they should let people branch out a bit, and include a couple of duff songs as experiments. The problem now, I suppose, is that someone like Kate Bush, who did some preposterous things in the name of commercial pop, simply wouldn't be given that chance. I remember reading that, all that time ago, Slipknot had to remove a couple of bitchin' solos from their second record because it just didn't fit with their general ethos. If they were on MFN or Earache (unlikely, I know) they'd be given the room to include that sort of thing in their sound.

But yeah, in essence, it doesn't surprise me at all that WB put out a consistent record; what surprises me is that the market it was aimed at wasn't the pop consumer that I'm talking about, but the pop consumer that crosses over with the blackened husk of the independent underground.

Do you thik too many bands are just not taking the time to develop an album's amount of quality songs?

I think that's a bit of it - but I also think there's the fact that there's a real premium on what it takes to make a decent record. I don't care what anyone from the lo-fi brigade says - and bear in mind I own EVERYTHING Urusei Yatsura put out on every format - to sell a moderate amount of records, it takes time and decent recording. Someone like Nurse With Wound or Faust were given studio time, and lots of it, to experiment and see what they could do. In Faust's case, this was financed by what turned out to be an absolutely massive label. Even something patently commercially viable - say, early-mid REM - would struggle to be afforded the time and patience that existed when the industry was flush with money in today's climate.

Oddly though, I think this only really affects the sort of commercial indie/ rock that has a pop at the mainstream. A band like Times New Viking or whatever can do ok (in a manner of speaking) out of minimal fidelity because they're never seriously going to trouble the charts. They're kind of left to their own devices. I can't stand them, but bands like them seem to be doing alright out of the sort of people who frequent this forum. Obviously, the money that could've sent them on a European tour isn't really there any more, but that's a different matter.

No.

The irony of all of that of course is that the average consumer will only care about one or two songs from the whole package. As great a product as the whole package of a Lady Gaga album is, for example, most will only want a 'Poker Face' or a 'Bad Romance'. Meanwhile, the demographics that make up the section of people who want the sort of whole packaged album experience are being blatantly ignored. Why? It's all economics...

what the fuck is an album

Times New Viking play in Europe frequently, though. Vivian Girls are over here enough a lot too.

Ok, well, another band then. I'm sure you get my point.

I get the point you're making, and mostly agree with it. The reason I think a lot of these lo-fi bands don't tour outside the US a lot is simply because their labels are too tiny to afford that kind of money. For every rare appearance on foreign soil by your Pink Reason (a guy who seems to be able to travel and operate as an artist despite his humble finances), there is, on the same label, a US Girls who toured both her great albums across the pond.

i remember the day i bought the times new viking cd. i sat down at home, the excitement caused me to shake as i put the cd in the player for the first time... after track one i lay stunned in a trance... imagine what track 11 is gonna be like? i salviated over every glorious second of careful attentive listening that lay ahead of me... but it was too much excitement for me and i shot myself there and then. out of respect for the album.

Or, to remain on UK soil, check the rising fortunes of Male Bonding. Not a particularly great band or one that I'd think of as difficult listening myself, still not exactly cut from the same cloth as, say, Razorlight etc.

There's plenty of albums in my local branch of HMV.

Yeah but do they look well or like they might die soon?

The "Last Album you Bought" thread is still up and running so....yeah my answer is still no.

you guys, he doesn't mean "album" as in any music released on cd or vinyl, he means album as in a cohesive package. most bands now just record a bunch of songs and when they have enough they release it. there are of course exceptions, but there are not as many bands now working on ALBUMS as in the (late) 60s/70s

I think 80 minute albums are dead. They need to start putting music on DVD's. THat way you can fill hundreds of minutes. That way drone bands can really have lots of fun. "Man, minute 636 is when it stars gettin' GOOD!"

You mean concept albums?

If the concept album is dying, I'll fucking rejoice in the streets. Concept albums are mostly wank.

And I still don't see evidence of the end of the concept album beyond peevish message board rants from people who listen to too much Frank Zappa and Primus (which, for the record, is any).