Hello everyone. A quote from David Gilmour in a recent magazine article caught my eye. He says:
“Attention spans have changed. The idea of going around to somebody else’s flat or house and sitting around in a comfy room and having a really good hi-fi system and listening to a whole album all the way through…..does that happen today?”
My answer to David Gilmour’s question would be at once disappointing and hopeful….not very often, but it does still happen.
I'm a young guy (28) but even in my short lifetime things have changed. As recently as the early 90s you saw an add or heard through the grapevine that your favorite band was releasing a new album. You heard the lead single on the radio, you waited for the release date, and you got your tail out to a record store to buy the album. When you got it home you listened to the whole thing start to finish. Probably your favorite track was not the single that had already been on the radio for months. It was probably the obscure hidden song at the end or the big rocker that opened the set. Nobody does that now. They hear the single on the radio, they download it (hopefully they paid for it instead of resorting to theft but that's a whole other discussion). And nobody will ever hear the other tracks from the album.
I think this concept of the way people listen to music has made many artists lazy. Why spend time on anything but the 2 or 3 singles? You could stick those 3 singles on a record with 7 more tracks of fart noises and nobdy would even notice.
Dark Side of the Moon is a great example of what a rock album once was. Sure “Time” and “Money” and other tracks stand on their own as great songs. But who in recent years has sat down and appreciated the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon?
Perhaps even more than studio albums, live albums have suffered from today’s (lacking) attention span. Nirvana’s “Unplugged” is a great set. Again each song has individual merit, but the true beauty is in listening to the entire set start to finish. Each track builds and adds to the next, and even the banter in between enhances the overall listening experience.
I made a record earlier this year, titled “Raised by Iguanas" (shameless self promotion warning). Check it out at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rlperkins5
When I was choosing which songs to include and their running order my main focus was to create a comprehensive listening experience. I wanted someone to pop it in their car stereo when they had about an hour’s drive and take in the whole thing. No, my record is no “Abbey Road” or “Tommy” but I hope I accomplished a good dynamic flow with the running order. What I tried to avoid was an album that sounded like “okay let’s stick the singles on tracks 1, 2 and 5 and we’ll find some junk to fill it in because nobody will ever hear the album they will just download the singles”.
So….you tell me what you think the pace of today has done to rock albums? What artists currently make albums, not just vehicles for singles? What have you created as a comprehensive listening experience? Who's has recently released a live album that had any kind of sales or recognition?

A very interesting by-product of the technological flood is that musicians can't make money by selling records (or downloads or CDs or whatever)….so they tour and make ridiculous sums of money. I have bought maybe 10 CDs in the last 3 or 4 years, but I have taken my wife and kids to see about 30 concerts.

music should be good, always. I mean well recorded, nice sounds. Then, among these songs there are few that are the greatest songs of all time, that's all. I think should work this way. What has changed from the past? there are just more good songs and less crap.

it's so easy to be a musician these days, i often say that the best songs are those of the past, when there was no technology to help singing