Bob Lefsetz: Albums Are A Relic Of A Past Generation

[samtheman57]

I was wondering if anyone happens to read the Lefsetz letter?

 

I was turned on to it a couple of years ago by some pro musicians I know, and I am now a regular reader.

 

Although I don't agree with every (sometimes cantankerous) opinion, I find that, by and large, it is a pretty good blog. This is probably because we are from the same era , growing up at a time when music mattered more in terms of having an influence on the culture.

 

At any rate, he was reviewing the sales figures this week, and said:

 

"Albums are a relic of a past generation. The audience has given up on them, it’s the performers who are holding on to them, not the listeners".

 

Maybe some here and HD Tracks sales numbers would beg to differ?

 

Do any of the younger people at CA concur with this? Because the difference between a great album streamed at high resolution, and shuffling or streaming from Spotify (which he is a proponent of) is like the difference between filet mingon and hamburger.

 

The thought occurred to me that, while he is aware of cutting edge technology, he isn't aware of the developments in streaming audio using a computer.

 

Link:http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/09/21/sales-week-ending-91612/

[mayhem13]

Like a lot of things in our culture, I think people find themselves less passionate about music....and more interested or involved in social networking. It doesn't help that there's not a lot of Epic albums being made by recording artists today. For me, the last album of Epic status is G&R Appetite for Destruction....and that was a while ago. There's certainly great songs being recorded....but albums.....not so much.

 

But....maybe unlike many, I still buy music by the album, looking for a hidden gem.

[samtheman57]

There's certainly great songs being recorded....but albums.....not so much. But....maybe unlike many, I still buy music by the album, looking for a hidden gem.

 

That's me as well. I realized how few and far between new album purchases have been for me.

 

Daniel Lanois band Black Dub was the last album I got excited about. Mostly it's HD Tracks reissues of older releases.

 

Grinding out singles just seems so depressing to me.

[NOMBEDES]

Mayhem has made the point, that there are not a lot of epic albums being made these days. How true, I recall when the latest Beatles album (add your favorite group/performer here) generated the excitement of an iPhone update. Oh well, times change.

 

I would add that attention spans have been adversely shortened. Video may have killed the radio star, but MTV and the ultra short cut video edits, and the personal computer (on several levels), killed the epic album, and, indeed the album in general. I believe that brain structure (in some individuals) may have been altered. Educators report that many students have lost the ability to deep read. So we don't sit down and listen to music anymore and we do not read with the same passion and loss of self. Music has become background noise to lives consumed by pseudo friends and social networks with little value to the individual, but great value to "big data".

 

So, then, when people are less passionate about music, auto-tuned compressed dreck becomes acceptable.

 

As I speak from the throne of geezerhood, I recall as a young broke student always wanting the best copy of a recording. I remember searching for the "full length" version of a song, a double album, a nice "record player".

 

So thank god for the few artists who still want to put out an exceptional product; Lanois, working with Eno or Neil Young or his brilliant "Black Dub". New good music is still out there we just have to find it.

[ringenesherre]

I'm in the "not so many epic albums released nowadays" camp, too. For me, the last satisfying full album purchase was "Long Road out of Eden" by the Eagles. Just doesn't make a lot of sense to me song by song, but listening to the full album like once a week.

 

When I think of my more "aged" music, I cannot imagine listening to ANY of my Pink Floyd albums on a song by song basis. Track 1 to n in one go or nothing.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[samtheman57]

Mayhem has made the point, that there are not a lot of epic albums being made these days. How true, I recall when the latest Beatles album (add your favorite group/performer here) generated the excitement of an iPhone update. Oh well, times change.

 

I would add that attention spans have been adversely shortened. Video may have killed the radio star, but MTV and the ultra short cut video edits, and the personal computer (on several levels), killed the epic album, and, indeed the album in general. I believe that brain structure (in some individuals) may have been altered. Educators report that many students have lost the ability to deep read. So we don't sit down and listen to music anymore and we do not read with the same passion and loss of self. Music has become background noise to lives consumed by pseudo friends and social networks with little value to the individual, but great value to "big data".

 

So, then, when people are less passionate about music, auto-tuned compressed dreck becomes acceptable.

 

As I speak from the throne of geezerhood, I recall as a young broke student always wanting the best copy of a recording. I remember searching for the "full length" version of a song, a double album, a nice "record player".

 

So thank god for the few artists who still want to put out an exceptional product; Lanois, working with Eno or Neil Young or his brilliant "Black Dub". New good music is still out there we just have to find it.

 

Nomberdes, I proudly join you in the court of Geezer, thanks for the incisive commentary. Interesting, I agree we can't "loose ourselves" in a (book, album) because we are so busy promoting ourselves (some of us) through Tweets and Social Networks. It certainly is a world of short attention spans. Watch people in a typical store parking lot wrestling with their phones and walking into walls. FWIW I would love to see a Hi Res download of Black Dub if anyone is listening.

[mav52]

Nomberdes, I proudly join you in the court of Geezer, thanks for the incisive commentary. Interesting, I agree we can't "loose ourselves" in a (book, album) because we are so busy promoting ourselves (some of us) through Tweets and Social Networks. It certainly is a world of short attention spans. Watch people in a typical store parking lot wrestling with their phones and walking into walls. FWIW I would love to see a Hi Res download of Black Dub if anyone is listening.

 

 

I also join the Geezer crowd. People today appear to be interested in their social status as noted in the post above. Children would rather text their parents than call them. I think some music being made today is the same and in that, it's a lack of real effort to make a quality product and you must pick and chose your music wisely or just stick with an artist that you grew up with.

[Julf]

I think some music being made today is the same and in that, it's a lack of real effort to make a quality product and you must pick and chose your music wisely or just stick with an artist that you grew up with.

 

As opposed to all that high quality popular music from the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's

 

But with my Grumpy Old Hat on, I have to agree that these days there seems to be even more emphasis on social pressure, brands and names (can you say "lifestyle'?) instead of actual quality.

[spdif-usb]

Even though I fall right in the middle of the "MTV generation" (I'm 38), I listen mostly to manually (!) declicked vinyl transfers in 24/96 and most of them are very high quality LP albums (I compare different pressings of the same albums, as well as compare them to HDTracks / DVD-A / SACD / CD etcetera when possible, as well as compare identical pressings of the same album, to search for the versions that sound best to me) and I practically ALWAYS listen from start to finish, including the silence between tracks.

[sandyk]

[i practically ALWAYS listen from start to finish, including the silence between tracks. /QUOTE]

 

Silence between tracks ?

In that case you must have also used a noise gate in the software you used to declick them ?

I used to do all that years ago, as well as a little extra channel separation in some cases to help make up for cartridge deficiencies.

[spdif-usb]

Silence between tracks ?

In that case you must have also used a noise gate in the software you used to declick them ?

The noise in between tracks can be faded using Adobe Audition where it's the appropriate thing to do, but the faded selections never overlap any part of the music, so no music was harmed in the making of the vinyl transfers. The software used to declick is ClickRepair, always in manual mode because automatic mode can kill transients even when used with conservative settings, and iZotope RX Advanced 2, because it can be used in spectrogram mode to manually zoom in on those clicks that are less loud, etcetera, so I guess the skilled process of vinyl restoration, and the preservation of top quality sound, could in a traditional sense be seen as an exceptional form of art.

[spdif-usb]

I used to do all that years ago, as well as a little extra channel separation in some cases to help make up for cartridge deficiencies.

Messing with the channel separation IMO is simply a bad idea, but the channel imbalance commonly caused by a cartridge can be measured using a transfer of a mono record, and can easily be corrected digitally.

[wgb113]

I think the blame starts with the record companies becoming ultra-lazy. They gave up on the epic album first, listeners can only follow their lead. They're way more bands today than there were at any other time in popular music industry. The talent scouts needed to filter out the not-so-good bands has diminished along with the number of record companies, putting more pressure than ever on one-hit-wonders rather than developing artists. Listeners got fed up with paying for CDs with only 2-3 good songs and things like Napster became a savior. iTunes legitimized it and now some are saying the future of the industry is in EPs more often - say every 6-12 months - rather than full length albums. We'll see.

 

In my "prime" of the 90's I started the habit of taking a chance on an album. Most of the bands I liked were from the UK so I didn't have any pre-disposition to the "hits" and gave every track a fair shake. I can honestly say that over the hundreds of albums I've bought that way I've only been disappointed a handful of times.

 

Bill

[Jsmith]

I think I would have to take the other side on this one. I think there are a lot of epic albums being made these days. I think it has to do more with the types of music you are in to, and what is popular these days.

 

If you are into classic rock, funk, disco, new wave, hair bands, and grunge..... well your choices are rather limited since these are not the overly popular. If you are into rap / hip-hop I would say that some of albums coming out now are just as defining as the early days. Look no further than Kayne West for an example.

 

I am not into hip-hop, but one of my musical preferences is metal. Here, there are great albums still coming out. Just look at what Anthrax put out last year with Worship Music. Every track on that album is good, with some great ones mixed in there. I can listen to that album start to finish.

[Blake]

From my perspective and for my musical taste, there are tons of great new albums being released these days. Both from newer artists and older artists. I completely disagree that the glory days of the album are behind us. Keep an open mind, spend more time on music sites and subscribe to a streaming service such as Rhapsody or MOG and then do some digging around. Your efforts will be rewarded.

 

If I was limited to listening to my favorite albums of the past I would have quit the whole audio enthusiast thing a long time ago.

 

Sure, there are great albums from the past but I don't care which album it is..... I can't listen to the same album over and over.

[Audio_ELF]

The Next Big Thing...

 

Does anyone else agree that the media continually describing new bands as "The Next Big Thing" or "The Next Beatles" is also bad. No sooner a bands first release out then they get the title "awarded"... Their second album (that they are forced to complete in 10 minutes because the first was a commercial success) isn't so ground breaking and we move on to the next band...

 

Give them time and space - Led Zeppelin's best work isn't Led Zeppelin, or Led Zeppelin II or even III... it came once they were given space to mature.

 

Eloise

[spdif-usb]

Does anyone else agree that the media continually describing new bands as "The Next Big Thing" or "The Next Beatles" is also bad.

I don't rate bands, I just listen to everything... well... almost everything, that is. What often fascinates me is that music doesn't have to be complicated to be beautiful and that's why people will strongly remember those simple catchy tunes from Les Paul

[Jsmith]

spend more time on music sites and subscribe to a streaming service such as Rhapsody or MOG and then do some digging around. Your efforts will be rewarded.

 

I totally agree with this. I have fallen in love with Sirius XM and listen in the car and around the house. Listening to a few of the stations on there has opened me to new bands.