The Album as an Entity

In the ADD world of the sound-byte, the meme, apps, social media, and the wide-array of crap which serve only to trivialize everything into an easy-to-digest, quickly-consumable, packet of unfulfilling data, I worry that the album is underappreciated as an art form. With digital media, songs are easily and often chop-shopped from their albums and sold and consumed individually. Back when vinyl was THE ONLY allotment of music, the album was king. Now I feel that many fail to even recognize that music is released as an album.

Most worthwhile albums, have cohesiveness among the tracks which unify them as part of the same time, place, experience, mindset, emotion, etc, and usually has a unique feel. I’m not talking about vinyl, and I'm not talking specifically about a concept album (which takes album cohesion to a whole new and substantial level, where it encompasses an overall unifying theme), I mean an album as an entity.

Art as an analogy

A song :: An Album as a Painting :: A Collection/Gallery

Or maybe …

A song :: An Album as a Small Piece of a Painting (say the top left corner) :: to the Full Painting

The point is, that together, the songs are far greater than the sum of their parts. An album is more than several songs lumped together, it is an experience. The album is a vast spatial canvas upon which an artist can compose an aural experience. A song is but an element of this larger composition. It is the album upon which a band is free to paint a full picture in your mind and bring about an emergent experience that often is not inherent in a song. An album can be a roller coaster ride of emotions, ebbing and flowing with anticipation and fulfillment.

Music is, by far, my favorite art form. I find nothing has more potential to affect my mood than music. I need a constant influx of music in order to function. And nothing is more fundamental to my experience of music than the album. An album can ‘make my year’ or change my life. I always anticipate the next release from an artist, wondering if it will be as life-changing as the last, or if it’ll be a let-down.

I feel that the album is the vital way to experience, view, and critique a work by an artist, and in order to give an album the credit it is due, it is crucial to experience it in the proper sequence, from beginning to end as one listening experience, as it was made to be heard. I simply think that albums are the fundamental unit of music, and are often created to be experienced as one entity. An appreciation of the album as an entity is fundamental to a true appreciation and understanding of music.