If you’ve followed my blog, then you know I love music.
Recently, I purchased 4 albums. They were Zachary Brown Band’s Welcome Home, Chris Stapleton self-titled release, Maggie Rose’s Dreams > Dollars, and Miranda Lambert’s The Weight of these wings.
I did download a few other singles, using iTunes instead of the great ‘Zon, so there were pop and oldies in the mix all designed to stimulate the little grey cells when writing.
But I digress.
What I found weird was the number of songs on an album. Yes, I am from the age of the giant black CDs (i.e., real records-which usually have 6-7 tracks per side). For this last weekend’s purchases the number of songs on each album was (in order) 10, 9, 24 (Miranda’s was 2 CDs), and 5 songs.
I’m not complaining about the prices. I love the artists and I am really enjoying many of the songs.
But 5 songs on Maggie Rose’s album. It as 3.99 on iTunes, 4.99 on amazon so the price is cheaper than the 1.39 I paid for the singles, but why 5 songs?
This is the second album of hers I’ve bought of Maggie’s with only 5 songs. I’ve loved all the songs on both albums, but I would love someone to explain why the number of tracks is so low? Are musicians like writers pressured to produce new content with greater frequency, so shorter makes sense. Or is something else at work.
Anyone have any ideas?
Until next time.
Linda Andrews 
Probably has to do with the current market/platforms that are in place now. Recording artists are probably doing these short albums to keep fresh new content out there to try and remain up to date and “trending”. Old school albums with 12-16 total tracks take multiple days to record and produce whereas 5 tracks can be done in a day, packaged and put out there. I would bet that within the next 3-5 years we will see all new singles released live via the web while they are recording/producing them become commonplace. Just imagine your favorite band or artist announcing on twitter or other social media that,” We will be live in studio recording our latest song today at 6 PM!” Would draw media and public attention, give them publicity, and probably boost sales and downloads of older material. I know that I would love to see one of my favorite groups launch a new song live while recording.
Good points. Sadly I see live recordings as taking some of the magic out of the music industry as some of the best work has 4 layers of tracks to produce what we love.