Memory Brothers' first album 1979
WITH ALL THIS DOWN TIME, I've been able to get a lot of work done on Sometime in September, my current album project.
Without the diversion of playing gigs every other day, I've been able
to concentrate my time and effort on this longstanding project.
Creating a cohesive listening experience in the form of 10 or 12 songs
is quite a challenge. There's the actual writing of the material, then
the recording, mixing & mastering and of course finally the artwork
& promotion.
It's not unusual to spend months on an album or even years. In the case
of this current album, I started in 2016 (with a couple of the tunes
actually initially recorded in the early 2000s.)
So when an album project drags on for years, why is that? In my case the
two factors that immediately come to mind are the time element and the
motivation.
- TIME: With most working musicians, our days are essentially broken into two parts - the pre-gig time and the actual gigging. During
the pre-gig time, a person does all the "normal" stuff that a person
does such as shower, eat, read the newspaper, eat, check the mail, pay
bills, (did I mention eat?) Then around 4 PM, everything has to stop as
it's time to head out to the gig. So you can figure the eight hours from
4 PM til midnight belongs to the gigging.
- MOTIVATION:
If you haven't already noticed, we musicians are a temperamental lot.
That's part of this crazy, right-brain wiring we're blessed with. We run
hot and cold - one day brimming with musical ideas and the next day
mired deep in a creative block. Therefore it's sometimes hard to get
those inspirational juices flowing.
So between finding the time and - more
importantly - being in the right state of mind, a musician might go for
weeks and even months between revisiting lyrics and/or firing up
the studio equipment.
AN ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATION
There's something else nowadays that factors into the motivation
equation. Technology has changed the listening habits of the general
public . . .
Years ago when we'd record an album - back in the vinyl days - the
fans would have already been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new LP
for months. Of course in those days, the record would have a beautiful
12" x 12" album cover with colorful graphics plus lots of credits and
liner notes.
When the album was finally finished, we'd even throw an "album release
party" - a spirited gathering where the band would play the album cuts
live, and sales of the shiny new, shrink-wrapped LPs would be brisk!
Album sales from the stage would continue for months until it was time
to re-order another 500 records - half of which we'd eventually sell and
the remaining 250 would end up stashed in my basement in
disintegrating cardboard boxes.
If I was lucky, I'd ultimately recoup my recording expenses; if not, what the heck, it was a ton of fun and great promotion.
BUT THINGS STARTED TO CHANGE
In the late '70s - with the introduction of the Sony Walkman - the audio cassette began
to overtake the LP in popularity. So of course, then when we'd make an
album, we'd also have to release a corresponding cassette with its tiny
graphics and its virtually-unreadable liner notes.
Shortly after this, the Compact Disc came onto the scene and started
gaining popularity in the mid '80s - supplanting the audio cassette. By
the end of the decade, everyone wanted CDs instead of cassettes or LPs.
It was hard for us musicians to keep up with the changing formats!
FAST FORWARD TO 2020
Do people today listen to LPs, cassettes or CDs anymore? Well, some of
the kids have found vinyl to be a trendy diversion, but there's hardly a
mainstream market for vinyl at this time. Physical media (CDs, vinyl
and cassettes) account for less than 10% of music sales, whereas digital
streaming makes up 80% of music sales (the other 10% is from digital
downloads.)
What does this new way to acquire music - this digital streaming - mean?
Well, first of all it's bad news for record stores - remember those?
That's where you'd go to thumb through the albums in the record bins.
Secondly, music streaming means that people are listening to single
songs via their smartphones, tablets and smart speakers (Amazon Echo,
Siri, Google Assistant, Siri, etc.) as opposed to listening to entire albums.
So with the advent of all of this streaming, just why aren't people listening to albums anymore? The answer is: Why should
they listen to an entire album by a single artist when they can
customize a playlist comprised of a variety of their favorite artists
and songs?
Hence, the joy of listening to 30 or 40 minutes of a carefully-crafted album project has become an anachronism (a·nach·ro·nism: noun:
something belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which
it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.)
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU LISTENED TO AN ALBUM?
Remember Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Rubber Soul or Hotel California or Tommy? Those
albums were produced to be listened to from start to finish. In your
mind's ear, you could even hear the beginning strains of each ensuing
track before it would even start, because you were so familiar with
listening to the entire album - from start to finish.
WHAT'S THIS HAVE TO WITH MY CURRENT PROJECT?
Well, due to this change in how people acquire and listen to their music
in 2020, there now is almost zero interest in purchasing albums. It's
so infrequent that someone comes up to the stage and asks for a CD that I
actually can't even remember the last time I sold one at a gig. (In
fact we routinely give our CDs away as door prizes, and the typical
recipient more than likely doesn't even have a CD player anymore!)
So this current lack of interest in listening to (and ultimately
purchasing) albums has put a huge damper on my - or any musicians -
desire to produce a 10 or 12-song album.
IT'S NOT THE END
But it's not all doom and gloom in the age of music downloads and
streaming. Despite the downturn in merchandising at the gigs, the Memory
Brothers' online music sales on Amazon and iTunes does quite well,
thank you. But again, these sales are almost all singles as opposed to albums.
Yes, things have changed. The public has now returned to embracing the single
- a pre-'50s and '60s staple of the music industry. Now days you
can download (or live stream) virtually any song you can
imagine to your phone in an instant. The 10-song album is a relic -
passé to a new generation of listeners who just don't have the time
and/or attention span to spare 40 minutes to listen to an entire album.
But take heart. There are still a few of us old
musicians out here who believe in making albums . . . just for you - the
few remaining music aficionados who still take joy in sitting down,
tuning in and . . . listening!
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