Album Releases

[JemothSkarii]

So anyways, as some of you may know I'm a pretty big Alkaline Trio fan. They're releasing a new album in April called My Shame is True and it's shaping up to be pretty good. ow normally I don't take too much notice of the music scene but I've found this kinda weird. The album releases in under 2 weeks, but in the last two weeks they've released 5 songs and a music video of one (with Milla Jovovich in it).

Spoiler: The songs as a scope, spoilered for size

I find it odd because they used to only release maybe two at most (bands that I noticed at least). Why release almost half the album a month before release? Not that I'm complaining, I doubt I'd get sick of the songs before release.

Right, so some topics for discussion:

1. Do you think 5 songs is reasonable? Unreasonable?

2. Other bands do this?

3. Albums you're looking forward to?

4. Music

 

[Launcelot111]

It's not unusual for bands to stream their entire albums through some notable music site (ie NPR or Rolling Stone) prior to the release of the physical CD for a week or two. With leaks being a real issue to smaller bands, it seems like a popular path for both lessening the impact of a potential leak and getting some good publicity.

5 songs is a little unusual though. It's usually either the typical one or two songs or the whole album, not some odd halfway number.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Some bands go crazy with singles. In fact, most of the pop industry is built around singles, with them all being thrown together for an album occasionally.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

A lot of bands tend to stream most of, or the whole album before release. I was listening to the latest Bronx album (which is fucking amazing [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIe6C6vKnFk]) on Rolling Stone (I think) for days before it was released.

As for stuff I'm looking forward to, for one, there's a new Black Sabbath album coming in June, with the original lineup (sans Bill Ward, but if we have to be missing one, the drummer is probably for the best). Protest The Hero are recording a new album, Killswitch Engage are releasing a new album soon (with Jesse Leach on vocals again for the first time in a decade!) and Stone Sour are releasing the second half of House of Gold & Bones (the first half was amazing).

 

[Something Amyss]

Hey, if five songs isnt'enough to dissuade people from buying their stuff, more power to them.

 

[Scrustle]

As I understand it, music is far more focused on singles than it used to be. Since the internet became a widely used method to acquire music (originally via illegal means) it has become possible for people to simply buy individual songs that they like from an album, and music in general has become cheaper.

Before that the music industry was in a pretty bad state. If you wanted a single song you usually needed to buy an entire album, and record companies were becoming increasingly exploitative with their pricing. That's part of why downloaded music took off so quickly. As a response record companies, instead of adapting and embracing the change, decided to place draconian DRM on CDs to try and combat people ripping and copying their music. Sound familiar?

In the end they finally embraces the online model we have today, copying the piracy model that so many people used. Made it possible to buy individual songs off albums and allowing them to download straight off the internet instead of having to go to the record shop.

So as a result album sales have fallen quite a lot. Most people just only bother with the songs they want, effectively turning them all in to singles. Singles have always been selected as the songs that are the most catchy and stand up well on their own. Because of this it seems only logical that an artist would try to make as many songs on an album that they can that could possibly be singles.

I don't really know exactly why they would release so many singles so early, but the explanation that it is done to try to curb leaks sounds reasonable to me.

I personally don't listen to music that way though. I only ever buy albums, and usually in CD form if I can. Five singles seems pretty ridiculous to me. Even if an artist makes pop music, that seems like it would be an unusually high number. It seems even stranger, greatly so, that a relatively niche rock band like Alkaline Trio would do something like that. Perhaps they are particularly scared of piracy for some reason.

 

[piinyouri]

I have no opinion on bands releasing songs prior to an albums release.
If they release a couple/stream the whole thing, cool.
If not I'll live.

Some albums I'm jazzed for.

Orphaned Land - All Is One
Immolation - Kingdom of Conspiracy
Gama Bomb - Tapes of Terror
Sodom - Epitome of Torture
Children of Bodom - Halo of blood

The new Daft Punk is also on my radar.

 

[Guffe]

To me the 5 song thing sounds pretty strange, but everyone had their own ideas and why not try something new?
I'm looking forward to hearing the whole new Stratovarius album

 

[Angie7F]

After I saw AKB, any album and cd release seems normal to me.
Also Hamasaki Ayumi. Seriously, what do they expect their fans to do of all the different CDs with the same songs in it....

 

[Auberon]

I thought Nemesis was already out worldwide, but apparently we got headstart - just like Circle comes roughly two weeks before the rest here in Finland.

Anyway, that's what I'm waiting for at the moment. More probably comes.