Album era

The album era was a period in English-language popular music from the mid 1960s to the mid 2000s in which the album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. It was primarily driven by three successive music recording formats, the 33​1⁄3 rpm phonograph (gramophone) record, the audiocassette and the music compact disc.

Origins

Technological developments in the early twentieth century led to the development of the vinyl long-playing (LP) album as an important medium for recorded music. In 1948, Columbia Records began to bring out 33​1⁄3 rpm twelve-inch extended-play LPs that could play for as long as 52 minutes, or 26 minutes per side. Musical film soundtracks, jazz works, and thematic albums by singers such as Frank Sinatra quickly utilized the new longer format. However, in the 1950s and into the 1960s, 45 rpm seven-inch single sales were considered the primary market for the recorded music industry, while albums were a secondary market. The careers of notable rock and roll performers such as Elvis Presley were driven primarily by single sales.

1960s–1990s

The dominance of the single as the primary medium of creative expression in music changed with the release of several albums in the 1960s, such as A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector (1963), the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966), the Mothers of Invention's Freak Out! (1966), and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).[1] In reference to the Beatles' and Beach Boys' mid 1960s work, writer Bill Martin noted: "In the wake of [their] albums, many rock musicians took up the 'complete album approach.'"[2] Rolling Stone assistant editor Andy Greene felt that Sgt. Pepper's "was the beginning of the album era. It was the big bang of albums."[3]

According to David Howard, writing in his book Sonic Alchemy, "pop's stakes had been raised into the stratosphere" by the Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul, resulting in a shift in focus from singles to creating albums without the usual filler tracks.[4] In January 1966, Billboard magazine cited the initial US sales of the Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul (1.2 million copies over nine days) as evidence of teenage record-buyers increasingly moving towards the LP format.[5] In the US, no singles were released from the album, which writer David Leaf says created the "perception that their new work should be viewed as a whole. ... it introduced the possibility to the recording industry that the 45 RPM disc ... preeminent for a decade ... might soon give way to a new king ... the album as a work of art."[6] During Pet Sounds' composition and production, Beach Boys bandleader Brian Wilson found the American version of Rubber Soul to be "a collection of songs that…somehow went together like no album ever made before", which inspired Wilson to briefly shift his focus from singles to albums.[7] The Beach Boys became the strongest selling album act in the UK for the final quarter of 1966, dethroning the three-year reign of native bands such as the Beatles.[8]

The mid 1960s to the late 1970s was the era of the LP and the "golden era" of the album. According to BBC Four's The Golden Age, "These were the years when the music industry exploded to become bigger than Hollywood."[9] This period, especially the 1970s, is also called the Album Rock Era. Music critic Dave Marsh has called Jimi Hendrix's 1967 "Purple Haze" the "debut single of the Album Rock Era"[10] while Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Lou Gramm's 1987 "Midnight Blue" the "last great single of the album-rock era".[11]

Along with the LP record, the 8-track tape was another format popular in the United States in this period. After the fall of LP record sales at the end of the 1970s and rise of first the cassette and then the CD as the dominant format for recorded music saw the end of the LP-driven "golden age" of the album, the album consolidated its domination of the recorded music market. Seven-inch vinyl single sales were dropping and were almost totally displaced by cassette singles by the end of the 1980s. Yet these were never as popular as seven-inch singles and they and the subsequent CD singles never amounted to a significant threat to the dominance of the album.

The primary threat to the album's primacy in the 1980s and early 1990s came from MTV. It was quickly recognized that, "after the album-rock era of the 1970s, MTV helped return the hit single to prominence as a pop marketing tool".[12]

Decline

A record shop in Wakefield, England closing its operation in March 2013

"Death of the album" is a phrase used to describe the perceived decline of album sales in the 21st century, sometimes attributed to internet sharing and downloading,[13][14] and the changing expectations of music listeners.[15] Album sales more than halved from 1999 to 2009, declining from a $14.6 to $6.3 billion industry.[16] As opposed to releasing an album, some bands have begun releasing a series of singles[17] or EPs as a way to combat the "average person's short attention span."[18]

By the middle of the 1990s, single song delivery of music to the consumer was almost dead, at least in the United States.[19] In 1998, Billboard magazine ended the requirement of a physical single for charting on its Hot 100 chart after several of the year's major hits were not released as singles. But, despite the dominance of the CD, technological changes quickly turned the tables. In 1999, the internet peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster allowed internet users to easily download single songs in MP3 format. By early 2001, Napster use peaked with 26.4 million users worldwide.[20]

Although Napster was shut down in 2001 for copyright violations, other music download services took its place. In 2001, Apple Inc.'s iTunes service was introduced and the iPod, a consumer-friendly MP3 player, was released later that year. This and other legal alternatives as well as illicit file sharing continued to depress sales of recorded music on physical formats. By 2006, downloaded digital single sales outnumbered CD sales for the first time and buyers of digital music purchased singles over albums by a margin of 19:1.[19] Even music industry executives were forced to admit that the album was on its way out. "For some genres and some artists, having an album-centric plan will be a thing of the past," Capitol-EMI's COO Jeff Kempler said. Other warnings were more dire. Media researcher Aram Sinnreich bluntly predicted that "the album is going to die. Consumers are listening to play lists" on their MP3 players.[19]

With consumers abandoning albums, performers "started concentrating on dishing out singles as opposed to churning out albums".[21] Critics of the trend argued that single songs "never truly showed an artist’s true prowess and every singer or songwriter proved to be a one-hit wonder".[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Julien, Oliver (2013). Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles: It Was Forty Years Ago Today. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013. ISBN 9781409493822.
  2. ↑ Martin, Bill (1998). Listening to the Future: the Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (1. print. ed.). Chicago, Ill. [u.a.]: Open Court. p. 41. ISBN 0-8126-9368-X.
  3. ↑ Chris Kokenes. "'A Day in the Life' Lyrics to be Auctioned." CNN.com. 30 April 2010. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  4. ↑ Howard, David N. (2004). Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-634-05560-7.
  5. ↑ Staff writer (15 January 1966). "Rubber+Soul"+%22nine+days%22 "Teen Market Is Album Market". Billboard. p. 36. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  6. ↑ Leaf, David (1997). "Pet Sounds – Perspective". The Pet Sounds Sessions (Booklet). The Beach Boys. Capitol Records.
  7. ↑ Stevens, Robert (October 24, 2007). "An Evening with Brian Wilson: The Palace Theatre in Manchester, England—September 23, 2007". wsws.org. Retrieved March 3, 2009.
  8. ↑ Andrews, Grame (March 4, 1967). "Americans Regain Rule in England". Billboard Magazine. Vol. 79 no. 9. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. pp. 1, 10. Retrieved April 27, 2013.
  9. ↑ Synopsis of "When Albums Ruled the World." from BBC Four's The Golden Age Of The Album series. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  10. ↑ Dave Marsh. Review of "Purple Haze" in The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. Dave Marsh. Da Capo Press, 1999. p. 178. ISBN 9780306809019
  11. ↑ Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Review of Jukebox Heroes: The Foreigner Anthology in All Music Guide Required Listening: Classic Rock. Chris Woodstra, John Bush and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds. Hal Leonard Corporation, 2007. p. 72. ISBN 9780879309176
  12. ↑ Jon Pareles. "Pop View: As MTV Turns 10, Pop Goes the World." The New York Times. 7 July 1991. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  13. ↑
    • Baneriee, Scott (6 November 2004), "New Ideas, New Outlets", Billboard, Prometheus Global Media, p. 48
  14. ↑ Kiss, Jemima (29 August 2008), "The death of the album", Guardian.co.uk, Guardian Media Group, retrieved 16 December 2012
  15. ↑ Paxson, Peyton (2010), Mass Communications and Media Studies: An Introduction, Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 84, ISBN 9781441108951
  16. ↑ "Why Album Sales Are Down". Speeli. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  17. ↑ Hopkins, Daniel (12 September 2012), "Advice to Every New Band: Stop Putting Out Albums", Dallas Observer, Kevin Thornburg, retrieved 16 December 2012
  18. ↑ Hearsay (3 October 2012), "Death of the Album?", Fort Worth Weekly, retrieved 16 December 2012
  19. 1 2 3 Jeff Leeds. "The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor." The New York Times. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  20. ↑ Jupiter Media Metrix (July 20, 2001). Global Napster Usage Plummets, But New File-Sharing Alternatives Gaining Ground. Press Release.
  21. 1 2 Tejas Morey. "How iTunes Changed The Music Industry Forever." MensXP (Times of India). Retrieved 5 January 2014.
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