“Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of alternative band Third Eye Blind, is the latest person to agree that the album format is better off dead,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET.
“Jenkins, whose band is known for such hits as “Semi-Charmed Life,” “Jumper” and “How’s it Going to Be,” gave the keynote address at the SanFran MusicTech Summit on Monday,” Sandoval reports.
Sandoval reports, “‘I don’t think it’s necessary or useful,’ Jenkins told several hundred conference attendees. ‘The album is an arbitrary concept. It’s not something that has to exist.’
Sandoval continues, “In his speech, he mentioned that he disliked ‘album filler.’ This is a term used to describe the practice of loading albums with so-so quality in order to meet the required number of songs for an album… Jenkins is putting his money where his mouth is. He said Third Eye Blind plans to release three songs on November 18.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Spark” for the heads up.]
Arbitrary concept. Artificial construct. Case closed.
Perhaps the flawed “album” model is an artificial construct that was designed to grab more money by prepackaging the average (or worse) with a hit or two (at best)? We think that the health of the “album” shouldn’t be worried about by anyone other than those who profited from it. The industry can be “concerned” all they like and for as long as they wish, but at some point they should probably wake up and realize that the rip-off “album” paradigm they invented and nursed along for all these years has long since died. Have the funeral already and let’s get on with it. – MacDailyNews, January 05, 2005
Slow news day?
Third Eye Blind?
Who?
The album format is simply one kind of form for the medium of music. Songs, symphonies, sonatas, sketches, collections, singles, oratorios, tone poems are just as valid as forms.
No form determines whether or not the art is actually any good.
Why…because Third Eye Blind is the high artist?
MDN, I think you should at least wait to hear from Dishwalla, and maybe Hanson.
Vinyl forever!!
The argument made by our washed-up friend here is noble and true, but they could have picked someone else; you know, someone more trendy and today; than this has-been.
The lesson here is to find someone that the sheep worship TODAY to get your point across. This is like Microsoft using Seinfeld for advertising.
ALBUMS DEPEND ON THE ARTIST! Good songwriters and musicians routinely fill up an album with 10-20 good songs. Blanket statements like the above and the MDN take are just plain dumb. Music isn’t confined only to the big four and top 40 talentless hacks.
The album is what it is. Sometimes it’s filler and sometimes it’s classic.
Choice, though, is what the future is all about.
If there’s a band out there that makes 10 great songs, they’ll sell shit loads of them. There’s still incentive to make quantity. It’s just that quality now (or at least marketability) now has more weight.
There are still bands I’ll buy the whole album for. The White Stripes and Tool both come to mind. They have filler, too, but generally speaking it’s artful enough for me to want it.
Can’t believe I’m agreeing with frickin’ Third Eye Blind on something, but go Stephan Jenkins!
all true. the album is dead and for good reason. but i still like the idea of artists working on a set of songs which represent their artistic minds for a given time frame and releasing them all together in one nice little package. think of ok computer or lateralus.
Why can’t people just let those that like albums buy them and shut up? It’s not like the existence of albums does anything bad to single tracks.
No one ever brings this up, but the facts are that album length musical pieces, as well as individual songs and all sizes and forms in between have always been around IRRESPECTIVE of music delivery formats.
In classical music days, when music performances averaged a few hours, there were still shorter musical pieces that were performed in people’s homes as well as the same short ditty’s or “singles” that were performed in bars and music halls.
This stupid musician’s argument, that the album is somehow “bad” for music could as easily be turned on it’s head. One could say that you only need “filler” on an album if you aren’t creative enough or work hard enough to make enough good songs in the first place.
I buy albums exclusively, based on the idea (my own belief), that if the artist doesn’t have what it takes to put out an entire album that can be listened to without skipping over the majority of the tracks, then they aren’t worth listening to.
All other groups, no matter how popular today, fall into the category of “one hit wonders” after a few years. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times or more. The groups that last, and the groups that have talent, put out ALBUMS.
The fact that acts like Britney Spears, or 50 cent only have one song on each album that’s any good and only put out one album a year anyway, tells you more about how little talent they have, than it indicates a problem with the album format.
Rush can put an album together, though.
Yes, I’m a big fan, hehe!!
My Edison wax cylinders only have one song each. Damn I feel ripped off!
Choice is what it’s about. Precisely. Artist demanding only album sales and denying iTunes users access are fraudsters…
This from the guy who dumped Charlize Theron….
I haven’t see it that way, but he is absolutely rigth. If you are an artist, you don’t have to wait until you have 12 songs (or so) to make an announcement. Every time you have a new song ready, you can make publicity and shows and interviews and all that.
It is like apple, they don’t wait until a full line has been renewed, if they renew just iPods, they make and event, if thew renew laptops, they make a event.
“album filler” is a problem only for musicians that don’t have more than a few good songs to offer us anyway. for good artists, it is a chance to present a range of their talents and interests and ideas. for us buyers, we get a price discount on the package.
and if you run out of ideas after an album or two, that is your problem.
in other words, this guy is full of crap (and just wants more money).
Jeremy,
I think you misunderstood the argument. Album as format is artificial and it was shoved down artists’ throats by the labels. In the years of vynil, production costs were virtually the same for singles as well as albums. Retail price (therefore, profit) for albums was much higher for albums. For an artist to get a recording deal, they had to agree to write, record and produce an album’s worth of songs. When CD arrived, labels just elliminated the concept of single.
Now, there is no doubt that there are many great artists who took this artificial construct and within its constraints created great works of art (Pink Floyd comes to mind as an act that consistently put out works of art in the shape of an album). These works of art are integral pieces, although in many cases, individual songs stand independently as well.
Album wasn’t an artists’ creation, unlike sonata, symphony, concerto, concerto grosso, or other music forms. Album was designed by the record industry. You can clearly see the switch between Vynil and CD; previously, albums were around 45 minutes long, with two distinct halves; later, they grew to about 60-65 minutes with no discernible breaks. Great artists adapted to the modification of the (artificial) construct. Lame acts continued to produce one or two hits with 8 to 13 filler songs.
ITunes liberates artists from the constrains of the album. Those who wish can still create and produce them. They are no longer limited by the media format. Albums can now be 25 minutes, 45 minutes, 85 minutes, whatever.
Ultimately, it boils down to one word: choice.
As a musician I am glad to hear some successful artists speaking out against the practice of offering lame ass songs as part of the antiquated album marketing model, just to satisfy contractual “obligations”. It is that model that has kept me as a listener from buying many songs by many artists. If a listener wants a single song, they should get exactly that and not be held over a barrel to buy more than they want.
You JUST KNEW that MDN would be posting this one.
I respectfully disagree with MDN (and Third Eye Blind).
What a crappy group they are!
If the albums you buy have a lot of “filler” in them, then you need to get better taste in music.
Period.
The album concept came into being due to the physical process of making records and it carried over to CD’s. Anyone remember 45’s (or 78 breakable rpm’s)? A chart topper always had to have a forgettable second song for the other side.
iPods, iTunes, and Genius playlists have indeed made the album concept irrelevant.
So, of course he is right, but it is the artists’ fault, not technology. There have always been very few artists who consistently make great albums. But, they all had to make albums anyway. Now, the economics favor the hit single with commercial licensing to TV-shows, movie trailers, etc….
We suffer; they gain. That’s life in The Naughties.
Plain and simple, the album made sense for other reasons. I’m sure it saved resources for an artist to release all their latest songs at once.And when you see a concert…um… ISN’T IT ABOUT THE SAME LENGTH AS AN ALBUM? sorry I had to raise my voice…I’m a little perturbed.
MDN, your opinion is like the people we all know who don’t understand music as art. I get the artificial contruct, and of course there are artists who put out crap. DUH…that doesn’t mean the medium they use is lame.
OK, so these album-filler-lame artists will be forced to put out better music because they have to sell singles. Point taken. BUT, the album clearly started as the way to fill a vinyl record with as much music as possible from the artist… (DUH?!)…doesn’t this make sense to you?! Artists became conditioned to pulling their current songs together for an ALBUM. THEN…some got money on their mind (or their record company did) and they came up with some sweet singles to push the rest of the album…this is natural in capitalism…And still, many artists remained “pure”-er by viewing each new album as a full CANVAS to paint on.
And I do agree the album will pass away, related to the reasons I stated above.
…Not because the album is a useless construct as MDN seems to believe.
BY THE WAY… the SINGLE is a useless construct using your same argument.
Well, with so much crappy music today it is true for these losers like TEB and 99% of stuff you hear on the radio.
I still buy CD albums of my favorite, talented bands because their stuff doesn’t suck.
There is an experience of the album that many today have no idea about.
But in today’s society of instant gratification and low attention span I do see how the album format is suffering, and therefore benefitting the shitty artists.
While I am pro-digital distribution, I absolutely disagree that the album format is unimportant and unnecessary. True, with pop music, often times the album provides a necessary framework for the flow of the music.
Consider albums like the Beatles’ “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band,” or Tool’s “Lateralus” and “10,000 Days.” What about Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”? These albums hinge on the listener experiencing the flow from one song to the next.
So, with many bands, sure, albums are just vehicles for a hit or two, but there are some bands who use them as vehicles to tell a story or convey something meta-lyrical.
Real artists don’t produce “filler”. To an artist (musician), it’s the single that is an artificial construct. Artists rarely have much input into what is released as a single, and, from an artistic perspective, the singles typically don’t mean any more to them than the non-singles (see how I didn’t call it filler?).
“Filler” songs are something specific to performers of the Britney Spears ilk, who have no input into the creative process of song creation. The songs are written, arranged, and/or chosen by someone else. The performer just shows up and sings it. For these types of people I agree, there’s no longer any point in releasing albums.
For real artists, they should have the choice to release a group of songs together as an album, or just a song or two as they record them. The album is still a very effective format if done correctly. Coldplay’s new album is a perfect example. The songs are all of a cohesive theme, and they are meant to be listened to together. Britney Spears will doubtfully never produce such a group of songs, so individual songs make a lot more sense.