iTunes and Albums
When I was young, 10-14 years old all, most the albums I had were 40 to 45 minutes. They would fit on one side of a 90 minute tapes. The long albums were around 60 minutes. That was as long as you could fit on vinyl record. It it was longer then 60 minutes it has to be a double album.
In the early 90s albums went from being created for vinyl to being created for CDs. Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is the last ablum I can think of that had a clear side A and side B. I remember thinking that Nirvana's Nevermind was the first album that all my friends owned on CD.
Starting in the mid-90s all the albums felt like they were 70 minutes long with 17 tracks. It is like the idea was out there they artist had to fill the whole CD. Bands were filling as much space as they could. I had several friends who thought this was a bad idea. It felt like no one was willing to edit themselves.
For my birthday I received a gift certificate to the iTunes Music store. One of the things that I am noticing is that lots of the albums released in 2005 have between 11 and 13 tracks. I wonder if this is because iTunes charges $.99 a track and $9.99 for most albums. Are we going to see shorter albums becuase the disturbution is changing again?
We are just coming out of a big pop period. It will be a few years before we see something like Boy Band and Britney again. The current group of fans have to get a little older to open up space for the next group of teeny-boppers. By the time that happens next I would not be surpised if most of those artists are singles artists. I think we have a chance to see music published predomintly in singles for the first time since before the Beatles. This will be interesting to see if it happens.
In the early 90s albums went from being created for vinyl to being created for CDs. Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is the last ablum I can think of that had a clear side A and side B. I remember thinking that Nirvana's Nevermind was the first album that all my friends owned on CD.
Starting in the mid-90s all the albums felt like they were 70 minutes long with 17 tracks. It is like the idea was out there they artist had to fill the whole CD. Bands were filling as much space as they could. I had several friends who thought this was a bad idea. It felt like no one was willing to edit themselves.
For my birthday I received a gift certificate to the iTunes Music store. One of the things that I am noticing is that lots of the albums released in 2005 have between 11 and 13 tracks. I wonder if this is because iTunes charges $.99 a track and $9.99 for most albums. Are we going to see shorter albums becuase the disturbution is changing again?
We are just coming out of a big pop period. It will be a few years before we see something like Boy Band and Britney again. The current group of fans have to get a little older to open up space for the next group of teeny-boppers. By the time that happens next I would not be surpised if most of those artists are singles artists. I think we have a chance to see music published predomintly in singles for the first time since before the Beatles. This will be interesting to see if it happens.
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