Don’t Buy the Album
In the age of music streaming, does the idea of an album make sense any more?
In this podcast we discuss the conceptual origins of the album and talk about the implications of its evolution from vinyl, to tape and CD, and finally to the cloud. We also touch on the artistic purpose of an album, and whether this has been destroyed or merely altered by the move to digital streaming. Fundamentally, we question the purpose of an album and whether it still has meaning.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
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Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. And this week, we're discussing albums. And unusually because of the lockdown, we're recording this remotely. Nick, albums, you wanted to talk about this. Yeah, why did you want to talk about albums? What's that all about?
Speaker B:Well, I had an unusual experience the other day for someone in their 40s, which is I discovered some music that I liked. Some new music that you like, right? Well, it's not actually new music, but it's music that passed me by at the time.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:It's, yeah, it's basically my daughter, one of my daughter's trumpet pieces that she was practicing was a song called Single by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Now, I was aware of them in the 90s, but I hadn't really ever sat down and listened to them. And I really liked it. I thought I was kind of, it's something very 90s about it. It's sort of a bit arty and a bit pretentious, but really nice to listen to. So, you know, I went and got myself a Penguin Cafe Orchestra album. Obviously, I didn't go to a shop or anything ridiculous like that. I downloaded it. But of course, then, you know, when it goes onto my iPod, like everything else, I put things into playlists and then just really just listen to the playlists and they're shuffled and you might get some Penguin Cafe Orchestra pop up now, you know, which would be nice. But one thing I haven't done for it, I mean, for years, is put an album on and play it in the order that it comes on in, quite apart from anything else, because that involves having to change the settings and on an iPod Classic, that's a bit of a pain in the ass. So anyway, it just made me think, well, albums, you know, yeah, that used to be a massive thing, a new album by this band. And I just wondered, obviously, I'm not, you know, down with the kids anymore. So I don't even know if, you know, how people consume music and whether or not we've lost something with the album kind of quietly disappearing.
Speaker A:Yeah, because I don't know if albums are still a thing. I have no idea, like you say. And I think it's interesting how you discovered this and how you listened to it as an album was just because it was a completely new band to you, a new sort of music, kind of music to you. So that's how you ended up listening to it. And I guess sort of sketching this out, I guess what we need to look into is, well, why albums in the first place? You know, how did that sort of come about? And because when one thinks of music, it naturally tends to be, you know, one individual piece of music, let's say. Chris, anything you want to weigh in with here?
Speaker C:Well, yeah. So I think the thing that I'm sort of quite interested in generally is kind of the language behind behind terms. And so looking like an album historically and, you know, from an etymology point of view, you know, how was it kind of first come about? Because we obviously understand it in, well, two main contexts, really, obviously in terms of the music album. But the other place we use it regularly and again, less so as technology has developed is the photo album. But originally, you know, album, you know, its stem is Albus from, you know, white in Latin. And it was originally like a public notice board that was white, you know, in classical times, a white public notice board that people stuck different things onto. And then and then kind of in the, you know, in the 16th century, it became a popular thing, particularly in Germany, the album Amicorum, which was effectively like an elaborate autograph book that, you know, you've got your friends to sign throughout your life. And they kind of added, you know, inscriptions or poems or even artwork, you know, into the album.
Speaker B:Why don't we have that anymore? That's amazing.
Speaker C:Yeah, it is. It is quite, it is quite, I was thinking about it. And the nearest we get nowadays to that kind of thing is like maybe like when somebody leaves their job and a few people scribble some things on a card and that's probably died as well. But anyway, that was that was sort of, you know, for a long time, when people talked about an album, that's sort of what they what they meant.
Speaker A:So it was like a personal extended autograph book that you carried around for your whole life and people kind of.
Speaker C:I think it stemmed from like the German education system where you might tour different universities. And so your chums, you know, you would get as you moved on to the next one, you know, a record of what they thought, you know, and it was kind of intellectual and very eclectic. But the point was it was it was quite chaotic, right? It was just a bunch of random things. It wasn't really curated in some in any way. But obviously, in musical terms, when you think about an album, it is there's a structure to it and and so on. So, yeah, I just thought that was an interesting sort of, you know, route into where music albums might have come from.
Speaker B: the modern album was born in: Speaker A:Right. Chris, I don't know if this is what you want to move on to. But I mean, yes, I know we're going to branch out and talk about albums, not just in terms of music, but in other ways of grouping things together. But do we I mean, does either of you, but I guess when I hear from Chris first, do you have any views on what do we gain or, you know, by putting music together like that and now with it being structurally more separate, what have we gained? What have we lost? Is there anything, you know, about albums that you particularly like or you see what I'm getting at here?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah. No, I think I think so. I mean, what I'd be quite interested before we move on to that, I'd be quite interested to know what what music sales actually mean and how with streaming we we we determine whether or not people are listening to listening to album collections or whether they are listening to singles and what you know, I don't I don't understand how that how that distinction would would be made with streaming. Obviously, you can you can sort of monitor what are the most listened to songs. But even when you had an album, right, you owned this physical media and you but you would skip songs, right? You know, especially when you had CDs and even even with records, you could see the little tree rings on the on the album go. Yeah. You know, like, you know, the fourth song on the album. And I don't like this one.
Speaker B:I'm just going to live on the album was always the best one.
Speaker C:Yeah. OK. It'd be the ninth. It'd be the ninth song that you'd bother to listen to.
Speaker A:OK, let's take that up then, because I think one of the downsides of albums which you're getting out there, and I quite agree with this, is you got a lot of filler. Right. And so you I lost count amount of times, especially. Yeah. When I was sort of wanted to get more into a band that I'd heard a song or two that I really liked. So I thought, right. And everyone's talking about a certain album. I go by the album and half those songs were a load of rubbish. And, you know, I really didn't enjoy them. And there's that, you know, there's. Yeah. And well, hold on. And but there's a side B to that. And and of course, the truism is that, you know, the best album that any individual group brings out is always their best hits album. Right. And and that's the first thing. And secondly, I mean, I can see I'm going to guess, Nick, what you're going to say is you find undiscovered stuff that maybe and maybe it gets more nuanced. I don't know. But the only other thing to say is now the way I listen to music and I, you know, music is actually quite a big part of my life is, you know, and I'm constantly listening to music and I use Spotify now is that although I'm live streaming what looks like individual songs, actually what I'm often doing is is working off playlists, either ones that I've generated myself or that have been suggested to me by the algorithm. So there's still that grouping together of songs and arguably better because I'm getting the pick of songs. I don't know. And also through algorithms, maybe getting introduced to new stuff, which is getting close to another podcast that we did. So, yeah, I mean, so just sum it up, albums, big downside is you get crap songs on them as well that are fillers, Chris.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, I think that's true. I mean, you know, there were even good albums. You know, there were usually only three sort of strong, strong songs on them, you know, that you would that you would kind of listen to 10 years later and go, oh, yeah, I love this song. But there's also an element, as you know, Nick has kind of indicated, which is you expect you get patterned when you listen to an album, like sometimes there are still songs I hear where I expect the next song to be the next song on whatever the album was that that was that that was on. And there's something about that to me this morning that that patterning of of a sequence that has been given to you by the artist, because I think there's a I think there's a difference between a playlist and a best of album or, you know, and now a compilation of of all the songs that are good in a particular year. I don't think those count as albums. I think for me, an album is something that's been presented by the artist and the, you know, the producer in a particular order for a particular reason, you know, either to balance out the the wheat and the chaff or or to, you know, emotionally sort of manipulate you through through through the listening process. And by taking that away from the artist, that's what I think you're losing some artistic expression.
Speaker B:Yeah. Yeah, I think the if if I was to offer you, you know, if you'd never heard of music and stuff and I was to offer you two options, one is, well, you can listen to 10 songs in a row, but they're all by the same person. And the other is, well, you can what you can do is create your own playlist, which is might suit your mood particularly and has been carefully selected so that you're not constrained to just have songs by the same person. Which of those do you think sounds better?
Speaker A:It's obviously I've forgotten what the two options were, were they a bunch of songs by
Speaker B:the same artist or a bunch of songs that have been carefully selected to work together in a certain way. And you are not constrained by the same second option, obviously, but I see and I think this this is the the the crux of what I was going to say earlier, which you anticipated, which was that actually, I'd say as often as not. The song that I end up liking most from the album is not the one that I bought, you know, is not the reason I bought the album. And I think one of the most like a particular just one that pops to mind was I bought I bought a Peter Sarstad album. Mmm, I don't know one song by him. Well, exactly. I just wanted I had like a lot of people who've ever heard it, you know, where do you go to my lovely?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, great song.
Speaker B:Well, not when you've listened to it a hundred times. It's actually really quite boring. And and I, I kind of can't stand that song anymore. But there were there were two or three other songs on the on the album that I bought, which I really, really like and which are really obscure. And there's just no way I would have discovered those, you know, just through Spotify, just it wouldn't nobody would have put them on playlists. No one's going to have listened to them. And that's so that's that's sort of my that's that's my concern, really, is that actually albums, albums are doing something. I've got another I've got another point as well.
Speaker A:But I don't know if you want to finish. Well, we'll come on to your point and say we'll go to Chris first. But just before we do, I'm interested to know how often how much you listen to albums at the moment, Nick, despite despite what you just said. But anyway, we'll come on to your point later, Chris.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, I was just going to say that the other thing that you get from albums and this kind of relates to other art forms as well. OK, but the other thing you get from albums is you is they are recorded over a period of time, right? Or they certainly historically, you know, that's the way they worked that you got, you know, Sergeant Peppers or something. And it was it was capturing a particular zeitgeist. Right. And and and that band's development. So you can chart via albums how, you know, how a how a band progresses. And and, you know, in the same way as, you know, collections by artists, you can see the phases, you know, from from, you know, cubism to blue period or whatever. You know, you can see that that movement and that journey and that artistic progression. And that's something that that that you don't get if you just throw it all into one big, big sack of, you know, the collected work of whoever. And yeah, I think that's that's, you know, that idea of having a sort of, you know, seeing a particular style of music or a particular style of art. You know, if you think about particular collections or exhibitions project, you know, provided by the artists themselves that that you miss when you when you go to to playlists or, like I say, the entire collected works of somebody.
Speaker A:And of course, even if it's just one song, right, it's nice to get that sort of that that breadth and that depth together with an album. Nick, what was your point going to be?
Speaker B: dissimilar to what it was in: Speaker C:Roughly. Did it go up? Because I think it started short. It ballooned up and then it came down again.
Speaker B: out two and a half minutes in: Speaker A:Okay. I mean, this is actually zipped by pretty quickly, actually. And we're close to wanting to be wrapping up. There's an obvious or two of a couple of obvious questions I want to move on to to round us off. But before we do, is there anything we want to, you know, to bring this to a close?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think I will. I've got I've got I've got the sort of wider point, I think, which is which is about technology in general and the effect it's having on the way we experience art. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, things like so I think a lot of the way that technology is gone, certainly over the last sort of 40. Well, I mean, the communications technology, essentially, from the beginning of the 20th century, has has has one of the key effects has been to remove friction in terms of the enjoyment of things by which I mean, you know, it's delivering information faster and it's delivering artistic experiences faster. And it's allowing you to switch between them more easily. And obviously, that is all good. You couldn't no one would say we shouldn't do that. Like we should reverse that. I mean, you know, see, if you think about playing a computer game, I don't think it's you know, my my kids would not they wouldn't tolerate they'd be astounded when they learned that you had to wait 25 minutes for a game to load, you know, from and it might all go wrong, by the way. And it would crash two minutes before it had finished loading. Yeah. And, you know, and then but then, of course, once that game had loaded, you really spent a lot of time playing it, you got very into it, you you explored what the game had to offer much more. And and I would say probably got a lot more out of it. And I think, you know, if you think about films, for example, now, me and my kids, we spend we spend now 10-15 minutes choosing a bloody film. Yeah. Whereas in the past, what films were on, you'd watch them, and you might discover something interesting, you know, and and and I think albums very much, you know, the decline of albums very much fits into that, you know, if you're only going off playlists, and if you're making your own playlists, you're essentially always listening to the greatest hits. And, you know, I totally understand why that's happened. And it's very hard to say that that's bad. But I think we there is a downside. And we can't shouldn't forget that. Yeah, it's just so easy. And it's so easy to skip, you know, to go, I don't really like this song, you skip it. And then you miss those those songs, which actually, if you'd have given them a chance would have grown on you. And that's right.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's about instant instant gratification, isn't it? And I think I think the other thing is, you know, there's, there's, you know, some things are designed to be seen some, you know, there's this concept of a body of work, right. And, and being designed to be seen in a particular direction order context. And, you know, if you think about things like Hogarth's, you know, Rake's Progress or Bruegel's Seasons, they don't really make sense, you can see them in isolation, but they're much, much more meaningful when you see the whole thing together. And I think we can think of albums like that. Similarly, you know, book collections, like, you know, like trilogies, obviously makes sense to read in the order that they appear. And nobody, you know, nobody would sort of read the middle one and then not not bother. And so so yeah, I think that we definitely lose out if we only go, you know, go for a sort of potted selection. But I do think the way because my daughter's both, you know, sort of eight and 11 now, and the older one in particular is, you know, getting into that age of listening to to music and developing her own tastes and so on. And actually, there is something about the there is something about the way that you get presented with the next song that is, is actually quite, quite interesting. So, you know, very often, it is a set of songs by an artist. So it will play, you know, the next song by that artist. And quite often, they will sort of follow a pattern of, you know, their stuff from the last year or so. So they're almost, in a way, I wonder to what extent artists now are producing music to be consumed via the, you know, via the media or streaming, and they're getting inside the algorithm. So actually, they are shaping what we hear by, you know, I don't know, the metadata around the songs or the styling of the songs. And it's so yeah, that's, I think that's, that's quite interesting. And you do get that serendipitous stuff where you're like, yeah, look, I, you've kind of nailed my taste now for the time being or the mood I'm in. And some song comes up and you never, never heard it before. But that's, that's interesting. So I think you do get that serendipitous discovery still. So yeah, it's an interesting development.
Speaker A:Yeah, interesting. Okay, so look, we need to finish off. But of course, before we do, there's stuff I need to ask you, right? Which is, I've got two questions. Which is, first of all, album that has made, not necessarily your favorite one, but it's just such an impression on you that as a whole, you really appreciate. And also, any albums out there, which are sort of vaunted, but you were actually disappointed by? Because I've got one. So that's my two questions, which are kind of related. Does anyone want to kick off?
Speaker C:Well, yeah. So for me, I think, you know, I was kind of just thinking about this. And there's actually almost like a story of albums in a selection. Because I think the first album that really had a major, as an album that had a major impact on me was probably Thriller, right? And I had it on vinyl. So, you know, it was the first kind of record I had. And it's a massive phenomenon. It's easy to forget. I don't think you get these kind of pop phenomena anymore of somebody who just becomes absolutely massive and you get screaming crowds and people fainting and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, Thriller on vinyl. But then the other album I really remember, a few years later when I was a bit older, was Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. And I had it on tape. And I remember listening to it over and over again. And because it was on tape, you didn't really skip stuff. So you did go in that order.
Speaker A:Because you have to fast forward. You might miss it.
Speaker C:There's no way of knowing where you are or what's going on. So that was, you know, an album, you know. And then the one that was really a sort of coming of age album for me was on CD at the end. So kind of book ending the 80s, you know, Thriller. And then was the Stone Roses album, which I had on CD.
Speaker B:I was strongly considering mentioning the Stone Roses as a band, which I think nothing for whatsoever.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, I know. I think we've discussed the Stone Roses previously.
Speaker A:But 30 seconds of one song that's amazing. But the rest of it. Yeah.
Speaker C:Anyway, so as a sort of, you know, a teenager at that coming of age stage and, you know, looking for something and, you know, finding this album. Yeah. So that kind of charts my progress. But it also charts the, you know, I've seen vinyl tape and CD, the entire album era in one go. Overrated albums.
Speaker B:It's living history this Christmas. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker C:Yeah. Overrated albums. I bought an album by a band called Ride, who were coming to tour in. They were like a 90s indie band, weren't they? Yeah, yeah. And it was terrible. You know, somebody said, this is really good. I listened to it. Every song, you know, on the fifth listen was still terrible. Sorry, Ride, if you're out there. I know you're among our listeners.
Speaker A:Right. Okay, I'll come in. So favorite albums, I would say, and it's funny if it crosses over with what Chris was saying, is on CD when I was about 14, 15 was an album that was already quite old by then, was Making Movies by Dire Straits, which is just full. Every song is really good. And the whole thing fits together nicely, I think. And also, yeah, probably my favorite song in there is Romeo and Juliet, I think. It's a great album. But because of that, it led me to an album, which at the time was more contemporary, which was Brothers in Arms. And Dire Straits were always a bit naff at the time. They weren't particularly trendy.
Speaker B:Well, Brothers in Arms, it was interesting because that was the one that when everyone got CDs, everyone went out and bought Brothers in Arms on CD. Yeah, right. They were one of the first five CDs that everyone bought.
Speaker A:Yeah. And right, there you go. Exactly the same with me. And actually, when you listen again, as exactly as you're saying, Chris, the album as a whole is, I think it's beautiful. It's great. It's really rich. You know, it's marvelous. Disappointment. I remember being in my early 20s and feeling a bit sort of shamefaced when a mate of mine was talking to me about The White Album, which stands as totemic amongst not just Beatles, but all albums. So I went off and bought it. There's a lot of weak songs on that album. So, you know, like Obla Di Obla Da, which I think, you know, is just awful. And then I got it, like, Piggies is one of them as well. And there's all sorts on there. And even stuff like Hell to Skelter, I don't particularly like. I think John Lennon used to call them, McCartney used to call them the grandma songs or something like that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think Revolver is the one that everyone thinks is the best. I know Sgt. Pepper is the popular one, but Revolver is the Beatles fans. Yeah.
Speaker A:We're getting really short on time. Nick, as briefly as you can. Sorry to, you know, do that to you, but tell us.
Speaker B: three sessions in New York in: Speaker A:Right. Do you know, I'm not familiar with Astroweaks. Van Morrison has always been a bit of a weird mystery to me. I mean, I got quite a few songs that he does that I like. But I've always found a bit odd. And there's plenty that I don't like. But that's what I'm going to do. I'm have a listen to that.
Speaker B:But don't yeah, don't don't go in there with with expecting to like it.
Speaker A:Right. I'll give it at least five listens. Yeah, you should because I've got loads of time to do that. Okay, we'll stop there. I really enjoyed that. That zipped by for me. So thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.
