The Album: Is It Dead, Sleeping, Or About To Evolve?

Our intrepid reporter offers up more compelling CMJ panel coverage from the wild, untamed conference rooms of NYU’s Kimmel Center. In this installment, he listens in as people debate the future of the album.

Panel 2: Oct. 17, 3:30 p.m. Biting the Dust: The Decline of the Album Format Is the album is a dead format? This panel discussion explores what artists can do to continue to profit from their passion in the face of extreme change and the importance of the digital single. Topics discussed include the shifting landscape of single sales and the new angles of approach for artists emerging in the world of the digital single.

The panel was moderated by none other than Suhrid Manchanda, Online Marketing Director for World’s Fair, and star of yesterday’s CMJ attendee video (“Manhattan Meats”), and the panelists were David Pak (sales/marketing Manager, Caroline), Jim Welte (music news editor, MP3.com–yeah, I know! I guess it still exists!), Jordy Tractenberg (VP licensing/A & R, The Orchard), and Molly Neuman (director, label relations, eMusic).

This is a topic that’s been bubbling around in the industry for years now, but there was some decent discussion coming out of this panel, I think because they were mainly focusing on the business side of things. In the end, there seemed to be a general consensus that the album format, while still in relatively good health, is in (at least a bit of) a decline, and a lot of the focus here was on how to add value to the album format, in the face of a consumer base that was rapidly coming to be more singles-oriented. I was especially enjoying Tractenberg’s input, for some of the off-the-wall sorts of things he was offering up, for example (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“What about artists making constantly-changing, evolving albums? Like, here’s the album, then next week, he adds two songs, then next week, he takes away a song, and re-records another…”

That sounds completely, well, crazy to me, but props to the man for thinking “outside the box.”

I love the album format, but even I am becoming more singles-oriented. And all I mean by that is that whereas once, if I downloaded a lone MP3 from somewhere and really dug it, I would go and seek out the band’s full-length. But nowadays, I find that I’m often content with just enjoying that lone MP3. Because, jeez, who has the time to seek out and listen to every single song on every single full-length of every single band that ever put out an MP3 that they liked?

Besides mp3 bloggers, I mean.

(Note: As interesting as this panel was, I confess I’m kinda bummed that I forgot there was another panel starting at 4:00 called “MUSIC WEBSITE GURUS.” I console myself with the knowledge that I still have Friday’s panel, “THE ALMIGHTY BLOG,” to look forward to.)