My God it's taken long enough for everyone to catch on!

www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/02/is...t-ever-sales-figures

I was looking at sales figures recently for albums in Australia - I was gobsmacked. Elton's new album sold 2500 in over six weeks! I can't help thinking that it wouldn't be such a trend if someone actually promoted the damned things! You might as well put them in a big glass bottle and throw them out to sea.

I think this is tragic not to be celebrated JK. I always respect your opinions because I know that you are a thinker and have experienced a lot more than me during your lifetime but I truly believe you are as wrong about the value of albums as you were in 1967 about that interview you did with Robert Blake...

I DO believe, however, that you are right when you say that albums started off life as marketing ploys to maximise sales from singles and that many of the early albums were sub standard. There is an art though in making a good album just as there is in making a great single and the point you do not seem to have considered is that an album full of great singles does NOT make a great album.

I noted in one of your previous posts here that you excluded 'concept albums' from your criticism of the format along with hits compilations but there are just as many drawn out, self indulgent, concept albums out there as there are albums with one top quality hit song and a number of other, quickly recorded 'also rans'.

I would like to challenge you to think again about your opinion regarding the album format Jk. I know you are not adverse to re-thinking and re-evaluating your opinion on something so maybe you would consider my request?

Take a listen to 'Dare' by The Human League or 'Hopes & Dreams' by Keane and then honestly tell me that there is not an art in making a great album!

The gauntlet lays at your feet! (lol)

Have now read the article at the end of the link you provided Jk and am really now feeling depressed. My beloved music is fast becoming nothing more than a two and a half minute background to a modern day life where there is no time to relax, everyone wants INSTANT gratification and the speed of life in general continues to quicken.

The sad result of all this will ultimately be the death, not only of the album but of the music business in its entirety because when the physical format finally dies music will no longer be financially viable outside of merchandise for tours. But then, there won't be any tours to support a new album either because there won't be albums and the idea of counting every ten download sales as an album sale is not only incorrect it is farcical. I mean, sell ten copies of 'One For You, One For Me' and your 8 CD BOX SET with over 100 songs on it Jk will register a sale as far as the albums chart goes!!!

The music business needs people/artists to make great singles, of course it does, but it also needs the money to nurture recording artists whose talents are worthy of much more than simply the ability to write a great pop song. Would you consider putting 'A Very, Very Melancholy Man' out as a single, for example? I strongly suspect your answer would be no but if singles were all there was would you even have recorded the song in the first place or been inspired to write it?

Would it not be a shame if more experimental, boundary pushing and arguably more interesting stuff like 'A Very, Very, Melancholy Man' did not exist Jk?

As it happens Tony, I think Melancholy Man is possibly the best thing I've ever done (and Carole agrees with me). My problem with albums is that they give an excuse for artistes to settle for below par tracks - "oh it's an album track". Nothing I ever recorded was an "album track" though many ended up not good enough (or commercial enough) to be singles.

Of course there are many exceptions (for me Rumours is the ultimate album - every track a smash single and each individual). Some of Paul Simon's work ditto.

I think I may have given you the wrong impression about my use of 'a Very Melancholy Man' as an example Jk. I also think it is an excellent piece of work and definitely one of your best. It is, however, a track best suited to an album project and not for a stand alone single release. My point therefore being that without the album format we might never have got to hear one of your best ever tracks.

I can understand how you feel about albums and I agree that some artists do not (or simply CAN not) try to make great albums but when you love an artist it is more often than not their ALBUMS that you rave about to other fans rather than their singles. This is not to say that singles aren't just as loved but not every good thing in life can be squeezed into 2 and a half minutes!

Anyway, don't mind me, I'm very retrogressive these days. You and I see things in very different ways which considering you are 69 now and I'm only 48 is understandable but I can't help feeling it should be me championing the new not you! (lol)

What ever happened to concept albums ?

The problem with albums is that they encourage creative laziness in artistes. Just listened to Mercury winner (albums) James Blake. If he had been pushed to make a decent hit single he might be quite good but on the tracks I've heard... he's an "albums" artiste.

I made a concept album Andrew - Anticloning. But my concepts are different to most people... as poor Genesis discovered when I came up with the idea in the late 60s (it caught on in the 70s).

Incidentally Tony - one of the tracks I get most plays on from Internet and foreign radio stations is Mary My Love - a flop single for me but another I still think deserves to be a smash.

Anticloning I lost that during a move, opening track was awesome.

JK2006 wrote:
The problem with albums is that they encourage creative laziness in artistes. Just listened to Mercury winner (albums) James Blake. If he had been pushed to make a decent hit single he might be quite good but on the tracks I've heard... he's an "albums" artiste.

I made a concept album Andrew - Anticloning. But my concepts are different to most people... as poor Genesis discovered when I came up with the idea in the late 60s (it caught on in the 70s).

Incidentally Tony - one of the tracks I get most plays on from Internet and foreign radio stations is Mary My Love - a flop single for me but another I still think deserves to be a smash.

To be fair to recording artists JK I think we should take into account just how expensive a business making an album is. Then you have to filter into calculations the problem of an artist 'owing' a label an album within a certain time scale. None of these factors can possibly help the creative process nor create the perfect scenario for making great records. I think the other problem as well is that when an artist takes off and becomes popular the promotional work, etc must get in the way of the songwriting and if you are dog tired all the time you aren't going to be at your best. This is why, in a lot of cases, peoples best records are usually their first album and perhaps their later, more commercially unsuccessful works.

As far as 'Mary My Love' goes, I think it has a great chorus but it doesn't quite catch light quickly enough and that may have counted against it back then - especially with so many new singles coming out each week. One of you most under-rated records as far as I am concerned is 'Old D.J's' (Playing New Sounds)'. I think that's a really clever record and one that somehow sounds as if it comes from your heart as well as your pen Jk. Its got a whimsical element to it that I like as well as a great sense of humour. We never really get much of an insight into the real JK on most of your records I feel but on that track I think we do - intentionally or not. For all of the above reasons I think 'Old D.J's' is one of your finest...

Yes another one of my favourites Tony.

I always admired The Beatles' principle of keeping their albums separate(ish) from their singles. And their albums, in stark contrast to those of the Stones, were always creatively engaging, IMHO, all the way through. I have huge respect for JK's argument, but I'm not sure it's entirely right here. Isn't it partly about intention and partly execution? If you treat an album as a ragbag, then that's what it will be. There's no guarantee it will be any better if you treat it as a cohesive piece of work, true. But don't novels work on similar principles? I don't read a great novel and wish it was a short story. In the same way, I don't read the best short stories and wish they were novels. I don't blame bad execution on the genre, I blame it on the artist. But there was such a sense of adventure, of courage, of bravado, of fun, in the old albums. Most important of all, when you listened to them, you sensed they'd made them, planned them, ordered them, for YOU. In that order. In that package. That's what's gone. They're now just a thin disposable plastic bag of disparate items. Due to be bunged in the green bin for Duffy to re-record next year.

Pru wrote:
I always admired The Beatles' principle of keeping their albums separate(ish) from their singles. And their albums, in stark contrast to those of the Stones, were always creatively engaging, IMHO, all the way through. I have huge respect for JK's argument, but I'm not sure it's entirely right here. Isn't it partly about intention and partly execution? If you treat an album as a ragbag, then that's what it will be. There's no guarantee it will be any better if you treat it as a cohesive piece of work, true. But don't novels work on similar principles? I don't read a great novel and wish it was a short story. In the same way, I don't read the best short stories and wish they were novels. I don't blame bad execution on the genre, I blame it on the artist. But there was such a sense of adventure, of courage, of bravado, of fun, in the old albums. Most important of all, when you listened to them, you sensed they'd made them, planned them, ordered them, for YOU. In that order. In that package. That's what's gone. They're now just a thin disposable plastic bag of disparate items. Due to be bunged in the green bin for Duffy to re-record next year.
I have to say, Pru, you echo my thoughts exactly - except I don’t understand your last sentence. But Duffy is a case in point. Her first album was a crafted project. Her management, Rough Trade/Janette Lee put together a fantastic team who created a body of work that was actually rather good. The package was complete. Duffy and her team worked hard and the album sold well. Then, for reasons I don’t know why, Duffy changed management, changed her team and put out a very inferior second album, which gives the perfect reason to say that you don’t like albums.

Of course there are albums that are exceptions that prove the rule - Rumours being, in my opinion, the greatest. I'm a massive Springsteen fan and recently bought a pretty comprehensive collection of his best and biggest tracks - was amazed, on listening to the whole thing, by how many tracks I didn't like and, worse, how the relentless quantity of repeated tricks, vocal, instrumental, melodic and production, detracted from my love of some old great favourites.

Michael Jackson's squeak is a good example. What a fantastic talent - singer, writer, performer - but some clever tricks can become extremely annoying if not ironed out (Quincy Jones once said he spent ages cutting those squeaks out of tracks and there are still far too many remaining).

Albums encourage and allow artistes to self indulge dreadfully.

Again, I think it's down to the ability and intention of the artist rather than the form itself. You might as well say speeches encourage speakers to self-indulge - if it's a humourless bore giving the speech, then yes, you'd certainly want them to tweet instead, but if it was a brilliant, witty speaker you'd sit back and not want it to end. Same with movies - directors who don't know what they're doing (eg most actors turned directors) turn a ninety minute story into a 180 minute snoozefest. Not the genre's problem but the artist's. Surely it's the same with albums. I like the Stones but I rarely wanted to sit through every track on their albums - I think your argument applies well with them. The Beatles, on the other hand, as I said above, knew the difference between singles and albums and treated both with equal care and respect. The artists who have the talent and the wit and the discipline make albums a delight for me - Randy Newman, Paul Simon, Dr John, Elvis Costello, Queen, etc etc. So I do think intention is key - if you think of an album as a mere container for individual songs, release them all as singles and just do a greatest hits album every ten years. But if you want to USE the genre, do it. It CAN be glorious.

I agree with a lot of what you say Pru. A good album should be something planned, worked towards and evaluated before its put out into the marketplace not simply enough songs to fill up a CD or ten songs for a vinyl album etc.

I do agree with you JK when you point out that albums can allow artists to be very self indulgent. For me though, and I have made a few albums myself, it is all about working with the right people, trusting in your producer and (if needs be) leaving your eh=go at the front door. If an artist has some good people about him who are not scared to tell him the truth and that artist is prepared to accept criticism and use it to inspire him to up his/her game then some seriously good stuff can come of the 'conflict'.

I would love to try and work on you JK to see if I could not change your mind about albums. A lot of the points you make are valid and I hear that you have already voiced that there are exceptions to the rule but overall you seem pretty entrenched in your unfavourable view of the format.

The JK I hear on record is a fantastic lyricist who is clever and quirky and has a cute sense of humour but we never REALLY get to learn much about him as a person. The way that you are in the habit of fading records very quickly also makes me think that even when you do release an album each track has 'one eye on single release'. What is/was the idea behind so quick a fade on your records JK? The Bubblerock 'Rock Around The Clock' song fades incredibly quickly - was this done with radio play in mind?

I'm a right one for tapping into the emotional side of things and I guess that's why your work fascinates me JK but then again I am such an open book that I often get told off for 'burdening the rest of the world' with my thoughts and feelings!

Please don't feel 'under the microscope' JK - I'd like you to think of these words as a compliment in the respect that I am so interested. God knows, for most of us APATHY towards our work reigns supreme! Did your family/friends ever take an interest in your stuff? My lot are more supportive now but for years I could have been No 1 in every country of the world and they wouldn't have known about it!