The face of music marketing is changing with the dominance of online streaming as the leading form of music consumption. It's rare people will buy records or albums anymore, although some still do. This means that artists are no longer limited by the constraints of physical storage. As a result, they have gotten wild with longer albums. But I don't think that's a good thing.
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Luke Combs has recently spoken out about his upcoming album and the decisions he has had to make about which tracks to include. As it comes to album pressing time, cuts need to be made. Not everything belongs on the final release, and some simply don't fit the theme.
"So I'm trying to cut probably, anywhere from like, in a worst case scenario four or best case six... I would say right now, songs that are in serious contention to make the record, I mean like forty to fifty? You got to whittle it down," he said on the MeatEater podcast.
For Luke Combs, there is a limit to how long an album can be. He's a traditional guy, so 15 is more than enough. "15 would be finished... that's one record. Now people are putting out bigger and bigger records; that's been the trend as the streaming economy has taken off," he said.
He went on to say that because there isn't an added cost to making much longer albums anymore, people are opting to do that. It essentially maximizes profit with a streaming platform model. But I have a bit of an issue with it.
My Problem With Longer Albums
Financially, pressing a massive 37-track album will maximize plays and profit, especially when the amount of streams an album gets determines income. But it goes against what an album is all about for me.
Many of my favorite albums are from artists who go through periods and ages. An album release should be the condensing of what that era is for them. I want the 12 to 15 tracks, played out over about an hour, to capture that. They should be the best of what that artist can produce. The best albums out there have no misses, and every track is a banger.
Releasing an album like Zach Bryan's 'American Heartbreak' with its 34 tracks just isn't it. It is diluted, unfocused, and two hours long. I'll listen to it in parts, but there is no way it'll keep me locked in enough to listen end to end. It's not an easy process to cut work down to only 15 tracks. But, when those 15 tracks are the best of a big library, it means the album is of a higher quality.
An album should tell a story. Longer albums may tell a story, but good lord, they waffle.
