My teacher asked me 'So what is an album anyway?'
As a long term student, I am used to the occasional bout of sagely smart alec-ness from my Gurus.
This time I was with it tho'.
'What is an Album' my master said to me, knowing full well that what he was really saying was 'Aren't things completely shithouse in the business of selling music as discrete physical units.'
He's right.
At recent shows I have asked who has a CD player. The numbers are not looking good for the once pinnacle music sales form.
Our online retailers have stopped selling physical product. It's over.
'Oh but MuH ViNyL' I hear.
(sigh) Its like the Penny Farthing Appreciation Society decided to lobby for a return the golden era of unstable bicycling 'cos it's cool.
Yeah it's cool. I have so far asked each person who suggested it for their credit card number. Strangely, I haven't received so much as a digit.
Yes, streaming is low rent. Yes we pay for data and pirate the content and everybody knows it, from the Telco's to the VPN providers. Yes some people support by paying for their new forms of 'radio' - the spotifys etc.
It takes a lot of views to make up the equivalent of one old school sale.
There's the really mundane aspects of recording a song that take time.
Writing, testing, arranging, rewriting, recording, mixing, mastering.
Or you could bang it down in a tiktok (I'M AN ISLAAAAN BOIIIIII) in 60 seconds on your phone and whammo! A Hit!
The formats have always affected the product. From time limits (singles, eps, lp's, the cd's max size etc).
The music royalty system is still based in part on Player Piano Roll sales back in the day. Who says it has to make sense? Who says there's logic at play here? That's outta my pay grade ;) As a Mastering Engineer quipped to me one day, 'You're a painter. Paint'.
Ok yeah so that's a fair analogy and that's what we do. 'Cos we can. Cos that's what drives us. And that's cool too.
Back to the mundane. To do it, ya gots to do it. And that takes either as short or long a time as it takes. For us, we have been able to produce around 14 songs a year, or roughly what they would call an album in old school terms.
For us, it's a 'record' - where we were, what we were doing, what was influencing us at the time.
Mostly for practical reasons, they all have an individual sound as we have recorded each one in different ways and places.
After that, is it a playlist? An Album? I've leave that to the Gurus. Meanwhile, I'm working towards final mixes :)
Listening party started two days ago and we're tweaking the stuff now. Mr Wizard says it adding magical fairy dust. for a few others it's more fundamental work as we aim to finish the last few songs.
Can't sit here blogging I gotta mix.
