Back in the day, it was common for musicians to take time to release albums but the music industry has really grown and changed over the years. We are seeing artistes attempting to write and release singles in a short time span and most of the time, these singles don't reach their full potential. Have things changed that much over time?

I believe they have. Artists used to take their time to create art. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd once said that they took so much time making Dark Side Of The Moon that the studio felt they were "wasting" time. But look at the result.

 

Now, people just turn out a marketable product. Musicianship has nothing to do with it.

Times have changed and it feels like the musicians have had to conform with the way things are being done now. Producers and record labels seem to have more say, in as far the timing of a musical release is concerned. Are we staring at a completely different scenario in the near future? Well, only time will tell!

I don't think so Coleman. The thing is, kids today, by and large, have short memories and short attention spans. They don't see how this sort of "music production" was done in the 90's, the 80's, an so on, and how redundant and short-lived it was. Kids will continue to buy this stuff generation after generation.

 

I don't mean to be a David Downer, but I have seen this happen over a few generations and I just don't see the change.

I think it depends on the artist/band and the genre. I believe the constant hype train of singles and collaborations and new EP's/Full albums being released so frequently is more prominent in pop/rap, but I primarily listen to rock. In my world, it's pretty common that most of the artists I listen to take 2, sometimes more years between each album.

 

For example, my favorite band of all time is Linkin Park and they often took about 3, sometimes even 4 years between records.

 

It is a bit more common for a new band to release their first album, and then try to get to releasing a 2nd album within a shorter time span, but think about this - When that first album is released to us, it's not like it's usually wholly new. The band has oftentimes been working at getting signed and distributed for years, so that first album is often stuff they've been playing or working on for awhile. Jumping right into album #2 is good for them because it lets them work on something fresh and give new fans more to latch on to.

Is it me or there is a lack of quality in the music being released in this day and age? Hip hop isn't what it used to be in the 80s and 90s. Do we even still have RnB music? Rock seems to be the only genre that has maintained a status quo. In my view, the current musician has to be versatile and think of ways of remaining relevant in a very competitive industry.

I don't listen to hip hop/rap stations so it's hard for me to say for certain since I'm not actually exposing myself to hear it - but my perspective is that R&B is not as prevalent as it once was, but it still exists. I think artists like Drake or Jason Deurillo fit R&B really well.

 

I'm particularly focused on Rock and I do think there's plenty of great stuff coming out. I also think there's plenty of garbage that comes out, too.

 

So I tend to think of it like this: Anyone who says that there's just no good music coming out anymore, probably isn't really listening to new stuff enough. I'm not saying that you have to believe New is better than Old, but if you're not giving yourself the same amount of time like you gave when you were younger to listen to music, you may not find the new stuff that's actually good.

 

I know I listen to random new music less than I used to. When I was a kid, I'd hear lots of rap/pop/r&b on the school bus radio or by sitting near other kids listening to it. Heck I watched a lot of MTV back then too, so I got plenty of exposure to basically EVERYTHING mainstream and current at the time. Nowadays, I only expose myself to rock, so it sometimes does seem like the world of rap and pop are really lacking because the rare stuff I hear from that world is often the crap.

 

But every once in awhile I hear some good stuff from them. So I think that it might be more of a surface view that everything sucks more than it used to, and we're just not diving into it like we used to.

 

I also think people tend to look back more fondly on stuff of old. My dad thinks classic rock from the 70's and 80's was the pinnacle of music and it's all downhill after that. To hear him talk, you'd think that he loved literally every band and every song from that time period. In reality, that's not the case. For every Queen or Rolling Stones, there were bands with 0 songs that he liked. But since you don't put any effort into listening to them, you probably end up forgetting about them completely and only remember the good stuff, thus making it seem like back then produced nothing but quality music while today produces crap.