During idleness a few days ago, my mind struck up a question which made me genuinely inquisitive. The contemporary Electronic music scene has been blessed with diversity of gifted musicians, yet albums have become less frequent. And with this write-up, I hope to show my opinion about the situation.
First of all, with some g̶r̶e̶e̶d̶y̶ peculiar exceptions such as R3HAB or MotI, EDM producers usually take their time with music. When compared with pop/hip-hop performers, the production process is usually slower.
Nevertheless, statistics can show that a lot of artists (Garrix, DV&LM, Timmy Trumpet, W&W etc..) don’t opt for albums, disregarding heavyweights like AvB, DJ Snake (who is more commercial lately), Tiesto and tons of US-based acts like Illenium. They do not intend to play the same approach as say rappers, who release albums as soon they reach a trending status in order to capitalize the most. And as to why, here are my educated guesses, since this is again a subjective matter.
In modernity, convenience has seeped into every corner of professionalism. Releasing a song once or twice in a month has become commonplace with most industrial acts. They can discretely focus on promotion of the single, and after 10 days, when it’s likely to be forgotten, release another one. If it’s not performing well, who cares, neeext!
Albums, however, have outcomes more dispersive with part of the songs inside bound to be underwhelmed and “less performant” compared to their single releases. Furthermore, marketing costs are increased by a significant amount. Also, in an era where Digital streaming triumphs vinyls and CDs, youngsters aren’t buying physical albums.
Albums, if made, need to represent a strong theme and atmosphere.. anything which would enrapture its listener. A concept. With most creators jumping on bandwagons, LPs, if made, are bound to be indistinguishable and not stand-out.
Therefore, to start with the same interrogative, the cause is multi-faceted. In shades of expanding commercialism which has lead to the motif that brevity is efficiency, it can be assumed that producers want to upturn the quality to quantity ratio, without negating their image. It is psychological, with new talents emerging everyday in competition. Thus, this has become the new norm.
What do you think?
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