The Platinum Album Dies, 1976-2014

People's buying habits have changed.  We'd rather pay $£€9.99 per month to stream anything we want rather than $£€14.99 for a single album we might get bored of in a few weeks.

I've always been an album type of guy, and I've recently noticed that it went farther than that. If a band only has couple of decent songs or a hot single, I won't listen to them.
 
I can bear through a couple of fillers, but I need albums. I'm not interested in listening to a single or putting on a record for 2 or 3 cuts. So when the CD's too long or when there are too many fillers, as good as are those few good songs, the CD just gathers dust.
 
Since the stuff I like isn't really single-oriented anyway, I hope that this situation will cause a split in the industry. I know there is a public for well-crafted, well-engineered, well-produced albums. It just doesn't make sense to try to push that through a one-size fits all type of market. 
 
I see an opportunity to start making real music again, regardless of what the imperatives of a market based on the tastes of teenagers dictate. Anyway, most of them don't pay for their music and are only interested in one type of song - make that one pattern.
 
 

that's why i make the music i want to hear,
with reckless disregard to mainstream whatever..
 
 
but geez,
to go out on taylor swift?
 
gag me with a spoon.
 

Rain
 
Since the stuff I like isn't really single-oriented anyway, I hope that this situation will cause a split in the industry. I know there is a public for well-crafted, well-engineered, well-produced albums. It just doesn't make sense to try to push that through a one-size fits all type of market. 
 

Thats a very good point Rain, I never really thought about that before. If the industry adopted a channel to get through to similar minded music lovers, bands like Porcupine Tree, Anathema, and countless others would be exposed to far greater audiences than they are now, and take so much musical pleasure so much furthr, whilst also bringing more opportunity to a far more diverse range of musicians around the planet. I wonder how this could be achieved?

MakeShift

that's why i make the music i want to hear,
with reckless disregard to mainstream whatever..

 
Yep.  I write and record, what pleases me.  It's not like I'm going to get rich in this industry anyway.
 

See, that's 3 of us already. All hope is not lost yet. :P
 
I've always thought that the ideal format for me as a musician was a EP. It's not as random as a single, you can dig a bit deeper and there's a sense of unity, at least potentially.  Yet, it's not too long, so it's relatively easier to maintain some kind of cohesion. You can fit a nice little universe in 5 or 6 songs.
 
As for a LP, 10 songs and a total playing time of 35-50 minutes would be my comfort zone.