Friday 4 November 2016

The album is dead, long live the world music album!

21/10/2016 - Sparks fly at Womex panel on the future of the world music album.

I am glad to report that our panel went off with considerable success at this year's music expo in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It was not a debate but opinions on the question were polarised .

The session began with my short presentation where I blamed, in part, the demise of the album format on a failure of the industry to react to developing technology. My view is that since the arrival of recordable media, through to streaming, we have not had a handle on either technology or the legal situation that arose from the many new ways of using copyrighted material. Ultimately in the current environment of streaming and now stream ripping, making an album, is not a sound business model.

Pic Songwrights Publishers

Carolina Vallejo, the newest entrant to the music business on the panel appealed to the record collector, slow food fan and nostalgia in us, saying that she will continue to make albums for her artists. She disagreed with my proposition. "God is dead? art is dead? the album is dead?"she said, which was warmly received by the audience.

Former artist turned label owner, Ninder Johal conceded that album making was not a good investment, at the same time showing the samples of his own band's new CD. He however said that it was a question of that the consumer wants, saying that in the older demographic there was still demand of albums. He pointed out that concert promoters still ask for albums as an indication of the direction performers are taking.

The representative of the digital business, Scott Cohen, strongly disagreed with my statements about the killing off of the business by technology. He said that the upturn in music sales revenue was proof that things are improving. He did not like the slide with a statistic comparing the huge number of stream plays needed for a songwriter to equal the salary of a Spotify employee, as presented in the introductory presentation. But he did agree that the album is over.

There followed a very lively discussion between panel and members of the audience, some of whom were label owners who said that they still support and want albums and that in some formats such as the vinyl album, releases are still profitable.

If I have to draw a conclusion it is that, as a format the album is dead, but in specialist genre, like world music there are still arguments in favour album releases, that are not only profit driven.

There is an audio recording of the proceedings is available online here >   Audio record of Panel

It certainly helps having an organised team behind events such as this and I want to thank and congratulate the Womex for their work and input.

Patrick Lee-Thorp

5 comments:

  1. Hi Patrick: I will reiterate some of what I said in Santiago. Most of the big artist related music stories of 2016 revolve around the "album." And that cuts rights across genres. Frank Ocean, David Bowie, Radiohead, Beyonce, Bon Iver and so on. Their albums were big stories this year. None of the paradigms that Scott talked about have anywhere near the same traction with either artists or real music fans. The album is dead? Resounding evidence shows otherwise. The album will only die when trend-setting, major artists stop making albums. But we are far away from that. Frank Ocean could have easily dropped single after single over the last 4-years - a strategy that Scott suggests all profit motivated, reasoning, brand aware "artists" are already following (they aren't). But Frank chose to release a conceptually driven, long-form statement. As did Beyonce, Bon Iver, David Bowie ect. ect. Scott talks about music as though it is fundamentally a consumer driven business. Most of us in the indie world, see it from a different vantage, as an artist driven business. It is obviously a bit of both. But statements like "the album is dead" are neither accurate nor helpful in helping us to understand the complex ecosystem of contemporary music.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/08/21/frank-ocean-released-a-new-album-heres-why-thats-such-a-big-deal/

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  5. First of all thank you for putting up this panel, it forced me to analyze my own reasons to be involved in this. Beyond the nostalgia, I do believe in other qualities than money, witch was the reason my fellow panellers declared 'the album dead', as the money is now mostly made through downloads.
    There where 2 ways of discussing it, witch was slightly confusing; we talked at the same time about the PHYSICAL album and the album as a CONCEPT, 40 minutes of several songs in a row... I believe in both.
    I love vinyls, nothing can beat the sound nor the feeling nor the look nor the weight of it. I like CD's less, but they a practical selling for tours and for listening cars. Over all they are absolutely needed in order to get reviews and plays at most radios. And then there is the OEVRE witch is as important as everything in works of ART. Like me, I could not make an exhibition with ONE piece only, it would make no sense- only when taking part in collective exhibitions. I need to see more pieces from the artist I love, to better understand the works, and to get a full experience. My teacher used to quote Italo Calvino, when he once, about to write a new book, felt desperate that he could not put EVERYTHING in that one book, and then, relieved him self with the thought, that he could write many books. Well as much as i appreciate our 'zap' culture, since well never get bored (?), I do too appreciate the deeper experiences where time is not a factor. At this conference I stated we have an obligation. To provide these works of high quality, to provide those long lasting experiences that can be enjoyed over and over again, and where we can discover the personality of an artist. It's an obligation I feel, from with in, with no other reason than the urge to share what I love. And here is maybe the deepest reason, why we create and why we produce, why we release any kind of art work without at any moment thinking further than it HAS to be known, it HAS to be shared, the world must know... It is a drive, it is first of all, LOVE.
    Carolina Vallejo
    Here's an example with the release of RAPHAEL GIMENES & AS MONTANHAS DE SOM
    http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/ u=7a0f77c7665176f3e2e31009b&id=0d456ecc91&e=%5BUNIQID

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