Albums or Singles? The Ultimate Choice

Unfortunately, I haven’t been very inspired by any current songs lately so I cannot enlighten you today by analzying a particular song I find thrilling, passionate or powerful.

But, this week I want to talk about a very interesting topic: albums versus singles. Throughout early music, we’ve seen a variety of different albums produced among thousands of bands through any genre imaginable: from country to jazz to rock. As society has progressed, though, I think that we have lost a little bit of the magic behind producing an entire album and have shifted towards pure singles.

This is definitely a direct result from how our listening habits have changed. I’ll be honest, when I post a blog about the latest song that has enamored my ears, I don’t always sit there and listen to the whole album. Even artists I love, like Alex Clare, cannot seem to draw me in for an entire 30+ minutes of pure song. I mean, who has the time? That’s actually the key issue. Time. Time. Time.

EVERYTHING is based on time. If something isn’t quick, efficient, or convenient enough for the user, we as an audience get bored. Let’s admit it: If a page takes longer than about fifteen seconds to load, you start to rapidly attack the refresh button. If an answer to a question in Google doesn’t instantly appear, you NEVER go to the second page. Likewise, if artists take too long, you lose interest. The way our society operates today is all about how much you can do in how little time. This is why albums have been engulfed by short and efficient singles.

And can you blame us? We’re (well most of us) are busy people. Most people listen to music while doing something else. And at heart, we all have a pretty limited attention span. While I and some other music lovers enjoy sitting down and bathing in an entire album, most people get bored with the same style/artist. That’s why things like iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, and the shuffle feature on iPods came about. It is to serve the craving people have for music without the negativity of getting bored. And when people do get bored, which they are inevitably going to do, they can move on to the next artist with a simple click of a button.

Because of this craving for instantaneous music, singles have dominated the music industry. While artists may release songs as part of an album, radio stations see potential in a single song and rip it apart from its family and throw it onto the big stage. It is overplayed and shoved down the public’s throats, until the song is whipped and beaten. But before that happens, many singles are enjoyed, loved, and cherished by the masses. Singles allow people to get a variety of different music. They enable exposure to other artists, new genres, and fresh styles of music never seen before. Singles are almost like a taster at an ice cream shop before you buy the whole cup.

While I personally enjoy both albums and singles, I can see how individuals could go either way. Albums tell a story through the songs that is lacking in singles. I see well-done albums as a fantastic, magical mural full of detail and intricacy. I see singles as if the mural was cut into fourteen different pieces. While the one piece could still possess all the great qualities of the art (with all the infinite brush strokes and shadings), it still lacks the bigger picture encompassed by and only seen through the entire mural. On the other hand, if pieces of several murals were pushed together, something new and artistic could potentially take shape.

So the next time you turn on your radio or pull out your iPhone to listen to music, think about this: “Do I feel like I want more of this particular song, or does it stand strong all by itself?”

You decide for yourself: Albums or Singles?