The Songwriter Forum - songwriting reviews, tips and chat
Songwriter Forum => The Bar => Topic started by: 2tuoo on November 05, 2017, 09:22:24 AM
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Hi Songwriters,
I see that musicians are writing their music with an intent to create an album or an LP or other packaged deliverable.
I'm trying to figure out what is the reason for this in this day and age since the songs are bought on an individual basis.
Am I missing something?
Is this a way to manage your schedule?
Is this thematic categorization of your art?
should I start doing this too?
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Good question, I can't see the point of an EP or Album but maybe someone who knows better than us will explain :) :)
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It depends on so many things.
You say songs are bought on an individual basis these days - but you could say the same for any era. We've always had singles, and people have always bought them. Likewise, albums haven't gone away, and people still buy them too. Maybe the golden age of the album has passed, but I don't think it makes the format redundant.
Also it depends on who your audience is. The people I think will like my music are album buyers for sure. And so am I. I much prefer to listen to an album than a single song. And I love to hear it all the way through, preferably in one sitting. I love how albums paint a detailed picture and offer several sides to a writer or performer.
And if you're a performer, it gives you something to sell at gigs. You can't even break even selling CD singles because of reproduction costs, but albums will make you a little petrol money and maybe a bit more.
From my perspective, I can't understand why anyone *wouldn't* make albums or EPs :p
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Point taken Tone :)...so there is a reason to make albums or EP's :)
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Gigging Musician is one thing, so are street buskers - CD is merch, got it.
What about digital artists? Bedroom producers? Is there a point?
I understand the point in having an album which tells the story end to end over multiple songs but I don't see it in most cases I encounter EPs, In fact, I almost never encounter this.
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Interesting topic. As an amateur who's never made any money from music and just does it for kicks, I still like the concept of writing an album because it encourages you to try new things. I feel imagining the songs living together as an album means you need a few different styles / tempos / subjects so it doesn't get monotonous... I find it stretches my writing a bit (and I'd think the same about an EP). Plus like Tone it is still by far my preferred way to consume music. Long live the LP!
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Gigging Musician is one thing, so are street buskers - CD is merch, got it.
What about digital artists? Bedroom producers? Is there a point?
I understand the point in having an album which tells the story end to end over multiple songs but I don't see it in most cases I encounter EPs, In fact, I almost never encounter this.
Well if nothing else it comes down to marketing.
Releasing an EP or full album is like 'an event'. Maybe you get artwork for it and act like it's a big deal.
It also gives you an opportunity either to monetise or just draw attention to your historic tracks, if you include them in your EP or album, which otherwise may have been old news.
Then there's pricing, maybe you charge $0.99 a track but for your six track EP you charge $5.00 so the customer is perceiving a discount or added value by buying it that way.
It's also about providing options. Having tracks a la carte is great but I doubt anyone wants to play a preview of 12 tracks and run down buying them individually. But they may want to just take a whole album.
Having an album could be perceived as adding legitimacy to the music or your brand.
There's honestly a million reasons collecting music into an EP or album is beneficial both for yourself and for a consumer, I don't understand why you don't understand.
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Interesting responses,
I think the fact that I have been doing covers for so long, contributes to my viewpoint on the albums
I've been listening to music on individual song basis, jumping between genres and years.
On other hand, when I'm writing my own things I don;t think of the songs in terms of albums at all.
Seems that most of the responders here are selling their music somewhere. Where do you do it? Can I have links to visit and see what you've done?
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This is a great thread 2Tuoo. And I think the question has a lot of legitimacy in the contemporary age. Certainly great scope for a debate. My own view is firmly in the camp of the responses of Hooded Singer and Tone.
And if you browse Spotify, which is probably the most widely used contemporary platform, they still respect the integrity of the album and recognise albums as distinct entities.
From the perspective of my own band, we have an ambition to release a debut album. Not for commercial reasons, but because for us it represents a major milestone. Something to aim for. It also offers an opportunity to aggregate our best songs into something approximating a statement of intent and to tie a bunch of individual songs together into a loosely Anti Establishment theme.
And sometimes, an album musically can end up being far better than the sum of its individual parts. Funhouse by the Stooges is a good example of this. Its revered by most people who love garage rock/punk. Yet it contains some songs (eg LA Blues) that simply wouldn't work as isolated entities.
I'm with you re EPs though. I don't think they have much relevancy any more, and they rarely leave much of a historic legacy, but back in the day they were useful to bands starting out, who couldn't afford to produce a full album.
Cheers Micky.
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Seems that most of the responders here are selling their music somewhere. Where do you do it? Can I have links to visit and see what you've done?
https://hoodedsinger.bandcamp.com/track/fresh-lemonade
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Seems that most of the responders here are selling their music somewhere. Where do you do it? Can I have links to visit and see what you've done?
https://hoodedsinger.bandcamp.com/track/fresh-lemonade
Thanks!
How's Bandcamp treating you, if it's not a secret
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Seems that most of the responders here are selling their music somewhere. Where do you do it? Can I have links to visit and see what you've done?
https://hoodedsinger.bandcamp.com/track/fresh-lemonade
Thanks!
How's Bandcamp treating you, if it's not a secret
It's a good platform. There's no cost for uploading a track, no subscription fee to sell there or anything like that. It's quick and easy to upload to. I've heard that iTunes control 95% of digital music sales though so there's that. I don't think there's a lot of discoverability on bandcamp either, you kind of have to do your own marketing and drive traffic.
On a £10 sale I would lose 20% after deductions and on a £1 sale I would lose 25% after deductions so that's quite a hit.
Order total: £10.00 GBP
Revenue share (15%): -1.50 GBP
Payment processor fee (PayPal): -0.49 GBP
Your share: £8.01 GBP
Order total: £1.00 GBP
Revenue share (15%): -0.15 GBP
Payment processor fee (PayPal): -0.10 GBP
Your share: £0.75 GBP
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Nice!
Are those figures from your own sales or the business model chart from somewhere?
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Agree that Bandcamp is a useful tool. I'm just an amateur who only really uses Bancamp to record a "snapshot" of what I was doing at a particular time. I've made both my albums "Pay what you want" which means they can both be downloaded for free if people wish.
My latest release contains collabs with fellow forum members Nameless MC and Neil C
Thanks guys ;D
https://pompeyjazz.bandcamp.com/
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I’m a big fan of albums (and EP’s too)
It’s a great way to create a snapshot of where you are at a moment in time.
I always loved the way you could tell what album a song was off just from the drum, guitar or bass sound.
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Great thread. I'm with Tone on this. I like to put a record on, sit down and listen all the way through. Writing 10 -12 songs with the intention of making them into an album makes you think about varying arrangements, the musical palette, short songs, longer songs, slow songs, fast songs and so on. It's easy to just produce variations on a theme but to challenge myself to keep a listener hooked for 45 minutes is important to me.
M
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Thanks, everybody!
I'm almost convinced in the necessity of albums now.
I like the idea of someone sitting and listening, actually listening, to a full album.
The damned streaming kills the mood for sure :(.
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Hey hey,
Looks like you've been convinced, but cool thread and imma jump in anyway 'cos lurking.
Think I'm with John mostly on this one (oi I'm still waiting for that million pound cheque ;)); snapshot of time.
And that time for me can be in the format of a story, like a TV series (some of the most notorious rap albums tell a linear story) or simply capture the emotions of the time (whether that's the songwriter, or the feel of a nation).
For me I just had a feeling one day that I'd moved on in my songwriting and it just felt right to collect what I'd done so far, order them into something which felt like has the best chance at greater than it's parts, then save 'em together so I could look back at 'that stage'.
Cheers for the opportunity to babble,
Scott.
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I live in a house full of vinyl enthusiasts. My boyfriend and I have lots of records, and we listen to them every day. My housemates own a used record store. There's just something really special about a physical LP. From finding the one you want to hear on the shelf, to the artwork, to the noise of the needle in the groove, it's all part of the experience.
Vinyl records last forever if taken care of. My boyfriend still has all his records from his childhood. His first copy of Yellow Submarine still sounds great, and the poster is still in there. Pulling out a record is full of memories. Albums are art.
Lynn
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Thanks to this thread I've just retrieved my record deck and vinyl from the loft :)