Lefsetz On The Album
"Pure greed, not artistry."
"Don’t you realize that’s what the album was about, money? That’s how you got paid, by delivering an album… Selling 33’s was much more profitable than selling 45’s. And the high-priced/low royalty CD was even more of a moneymaker than the LP record. That’s how we got here. Pure greed, not artistry."
"If you want to record a full-length statement, be my guest. I see nothing wrong with that. But are you really interested in laying down ten tracks on wax if you’re not going to trigger a payment?"
"An album’s worth of material usually does not build an audience. A TRACK builds an audience. If you’re a career artist, people will want more tracks. But only if they’re good."
"So the focus is no longer on cutting ten songs, but cutting GOOD songs! There’s an unlimited audience for GREAT songs."
"…DON’T tell me how much you love albums. That’s like labels saying no one will ever download music from the Internet. The album is history, you just don’t know it yet. STATEMENTS are not history, but are you really making a statement?"
"The insta-collection of ten tracks is no longer the starting point, rather you dole out your tracks in drips and drabs, making each release a minor marketing event, that keeps people interested, that keeps them going to the show…"
"We live in an information society. That’s what your fans want, information. They don’t want a CD dropped every few years with canned hype, they want continuous info. Don’t get locked into the album syndrome. You’re missing the future."
– From The Lefsetz Letter
I have to say, this is an extremely cynical view point. While it is something the majors used to do, I can assure you that many, many artists over time have used the album format as an end product for creation. I can agree that perhaps the definition of an album may change or evolve (to be longer or shorter or whatever is necessary), but releasing compositions as a body of work is simply something artists do. Some crowds prefer this, others don’t. While genuine pop culture simply wants one good song to listen to, this definitely does not account for all listeners.
Further, this “Track” mentality really only works if you write songs. A lot of us independent musicians write music differently than just cranking out song after unrelated song. I think this guy is just targeting a very specific musician who caters to a very specific audience. I’m very in tune with my audience and can tell you, people like albums. Hell, I like albums. In fact, I have very little patience for an artist who can’t release an album full of good music that doesn’t all tie together as one body of work.
Bob Lefsetz tends to say all sorts of things as if they were universal truths. I really have no patience with such people.
I have said elsewhere, that the album became the major format not because the labels were greedy, but because that was what the people wanted. This was when we used to buy music, remember? People voted with their cash and the album was their product of choice.
It need not stay that way, but that doesn’t make the artistic reasons for releasing an album any less valid. Just like classical music has its short and long-form pieces, so popular music has developed its long-form album. Which isn’t to say that those artists for whom the album is simply a collection of short-form songs still need to remain locked to the format. That’s a good thing, right?
On an aside: while people may now choose to release single songs over a period of time, they’ll probably continue to record them as if they were recording an album. Why? Because it is a good deal cheaper to do it like that. Setup time in the studio is a substantial part of any recording session, so the more tracks you record once you’ve done it, the cheaper it is per track.
Makes a mockery of the live scene doesn’t it, Bob?
Generally, I agree with Lefsetz here. The ‘album’ was more or less an arbitrary standard. Yes, some works need to presented within these boundaries, because that is what they were designed to do (i.e. Dark Side of the Moon). But we are no longer constrained to the storage space of discs. I think his point is that we shouldn’t talk about the ‘album’ as if the medium was what we cared about.
I am from the band “Madcap Syndrome” a Dance/Techno/Eurodance band simular to Depeche Mode/Tiesto and I would agree with Andrew and Lefsetz If all I cared about was making money but my first c.d. had 5-tracks on it now my 8th.c.d. later had 15-tracks and a couple minutes short of 80-minutes on that c.d of music. As long as you can do this and have each song still be creative and indevidualy sounding with the way so many people get free music all the hooplelah and promotion can’t beat twice as much music…I get input from fans all around the world for this Idea….
Dan Krzykwa (singer/programmer/producer/remixer)
“Madcap Syndrome”