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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

News / History Pink Floyd and the Album Concept

Posted by Bryce Coatmaker on Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:21 PM

Who better to sue a record label over the concept of the album than the kings of the concept album, Pink Floyd? The debate (here and here) centers on money, a 10+ year old contract with EMI, and the format music is sold in on the internet. Pink Floyd argue that their craft (of creating “seamless songs” and albums of a conceptual nature) is being misrepresented by the sale of single tracks. Finally! It’s nice to see a band with credibility and a valid line of reasoning throw their hat in the ring on the us and them matter of art versus internet-based music sales. While the LP-format may eventually give way to the atrophied attention span of Generation iPod and single tracks, this lawsuit makes for good discussion about the significance of how art (music) is presented and sold to an audience, how that form of presentation agrees with the intentions of the creator(s), and the possible implications these factors present for the creation and marketing of music in the future. Time will definitely tell.

Comments (8) RSS

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I see their point: whole albums cost more than single tracks.

Also, lots of people buy whole albums but skip songs, shuffle the tracks, etc. You can't tell someone how to listen to an album. Why would you want to? I know, the artists say things like "we picked the tracks because they flow in this direction and it tells a story" but musicians are usually idiots so you can toss that ol' acorn out the window and listen however you damn well please.

Posted by Jason Josephes

on March 9, 2010 at 5:06 PM

I see what you did there with your bold tags.

There's certainly a case to be made that if an album is conceived as a whole, the "best" way to listen to it is whole, but it's up to the musician to persuade their listeners to do that. People who give a damn about their experience of the artist's intent will investigate and do that. That's part of why vinyl is still around: some avid fans (who are not the vast majority of the music market) still want to sit down and listen to 20 or 40 minutes of one band at a time. But getting them to do that is a matter of persuasion, not coercion.

Posted by DavidG

on March 9, 2010 at 5:13 PM

Didn't the radio have these same problems since before anyone in Pink Floyd was born? The DMCA actually explicitly prohibits playing full albums on internet radio.

It's not like Pink Floyd ever tried to boycott that medium, even though the same fundamental problem exists there.

Posted by ly_yng on March 9, 2010 at 6:55 PM

I often purchase single tracks from albums but don't think I've ever done it without thinking the artist would be at least a little pissed I was ignoring the rest of the record.

Posted by Estey on March 9, 2010 at 7:31 PM

Their songs are meant to be played only as an album to show their full artistic integrity. Those albums being 'A Collection of Great Dance Songs' and 'Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd'.

Posted by cosby

on March 10, 2010 at 9:00 AM

Couldn't they just sell the whole album as one track? That'd solve their problem.

Posted by Down$ide of the Moon on March 10, 2010 at 3:25 PM

Update: http://ca.reuters.com/article/entertainm…

Posted by Bryce Coatmaker on March 11, 2010 at 9:42 AM

I am a big Floyd fan, and a true believer in bands who focus on the big picture of an album beyond the individual songs, but this seems kind of silly on Pink Floyd's part. @3's point about radio play is a good one, and even if the album is sold as whole, you can't police listeners into listening to it that way, especially in the iPod era where attention spans are shorter and playlists plentiful.

That being said, I prefer Animals and Wish You Were Here in their entirety...

Posted by Ben Torrence