By Malice Intended

Track listings for recent releases have been increasingly long. Saigon’s The Greatest Story Never Told clocks in at a walloping 17 tracks, (not including the bonus track and bonus disk). Snoop Dogg’s Doggumentary is another endurance test at 21 tracks, only two of which are shorter than three minutes. Raekwon’s Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, is another offender.

This is not a question of quality, as two out of three of those albums delivered. The problem lies in the presentation. Even a good or great album can be a chore to sit through when it is bogged down with unnecessary tracks. An LP is a stand alone body of work that should be as tight and cohesive as possible. It should show the full range of an artist’s capabilities in the best and most efficient way possible. This recent trend of bloated albums runs contrary to that. The question is, why are so many artists going this route?

One reason could be simply be ego. Artists, especially musicians, tend to have very fragile egos that demand to be protected and fed constantly. It takes a lot of work to craft an album, especially one that actually has a vision behind it and many artists are probably reluctant to thin their track listings. That is understandable but that hesitancy can turn an otherwise effective collection of songs into a less potent elixir, like too much water for one pack of Kool-Aid.

Another reason could be the way that the internet has changed the way listeners consume music. The internet has eliminated the necessity to actually go out and purchase music on physical media (CD’s etc.), eliminating that tactile experience. No more fighting with the wrapping, dealing with the plastic case, reading the track booklet and the cover art and flipping pages. Perhaps artists no longer see the need to spend so much time selecting and arranging tracks when that experience itself has become diluted.

The ability to buy songs separately from an album also has an effect. The people no longer have to adhere to the vision you establish, they can listen to your album in any order they want and pick out songs that they like. Why not give yourself the opportunity to sell more song sin the marketplace? Why worry about what order and how long the experience is when they can bypass what you intend?

Then there is mixtape effect. Mixtapes have always been excessively long and most times, they were nothing more than a few “exclusives” padded out with freestyles and song selections direct from urban radio play lists. We look back on the era of DJ Clue, Doo Wop, and the like with nostalgia, but we forget the amount of time one spent fast forwarding through those tapes to get to those exclusives. The internet has compounded that problem, with certain artists releasing mixtapes seemingly every other month with no quality control. Artists now see every thing they make as suitable for mass consumption. And why should you complain? It’s free!

The very concept of releasing an LP may be slowly coming to an end. Current stars like Wacka Flocka Flame are building careers off a single song that can guarantee lots of show money and BDS spins. The album seems to be an afterthought. What’s more frightening is that the fans don’t seem too concerned. That’s a shame. That veteran artists think nothing of saddling their albums with filler speaks to a loss of collective focus and the overarching effect of mass commerce on the art of music. That focus is sorely needed if the LP is to survive. I don’t know how the music will advance if it’s reduced to catchy singles.

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