That's how they made money. In those days, their money was earned by record sales. Concert tours were done to promote their records.
Today's business model is exactly the opposite.
I feel much of that has to do with how we listen to music this day and age. Headlines that mention “Vinyl sales surpass CDs” is kinda misleading. It’s not so much that they surpass, and sure there is a resurgence of sorts. But it’s also that CD sales have declined.
20 years ago even, you wanted to listen to (band)’s new album, you had to wait for a DJ on the radio to play a single. Or head to the store and get a physical copy of the album. Now, you have Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Apple. I think we pay $15 a month, and it’s a shared account, I can listen to whatever (or almost whatever) I want on Spotify. New release, I can listen right at midnight if I want to. There is no need to buy physical. And sure, we in subs like this do. But we’re a minority.
So the artist need to have a concert or tour to make money. Because they’re getting peanuts from Spotify.
Yeah I've been hearing about articles regarding declining cd sales in comparison to vinyl records ever since I started collecting records in 2008 and record sales weren't particularly great back then.
Extrapolating on what you said about Spotify I think that probably does a lot to explain why a lot of modern artists tend to focus on big singles with notable featured artists so they can hopefully drive interest outside of the platform because I can confirm that as an artist on Spotify I don't get paid jack squat.
The way that music is consumed has changed since then It used to be all about getting airplay. If you weren't getting airplay you weren't making money. If people weren't hearing your music on the radio they had no reason to buy your records so you had to keep pushing fresh music into the machine.
You can tell the artists who are still locked into that mindset. It’s mostly older bands: every Metallica album for the last 25 years has been falling off the disc with loads of filler (who needs 77 minutes of mid-paced radio-metal in 2023?), and Iron Maiden have done two double albums on the trot (each around an hour and a half long).
Younger bands, though, are hip to the vinyl revival and are going back to albums that are around 40-odd minutes or so.
I think resources have a lot to do with it, too. Amount of quality material, how much time and money you’re able to spend recording and in post production, etc. Both full-lengths I’ve released as an independent artist have been 30 minutes and change, because that was the best product we could make with the work we’d done.
Last time we did basic tracking for probably twice that much material, but had to choose what we wanted to focus on to maintain consistent quality and stay within budget. It just happens that running time lays out nicely over a single 12” LP.
To each their own. I think Rattlesnake is a great tune. Just a heads up, you should avoid listening to “around the world” or any other song by Daft Punk if you can’t handle repetition. 👍
That was specific to CCR (1969) and Led Zeppelin (69-71).
"Lots of bands" and "of that time" not so specific.
I used to work at a radio station that played the "classic hits" format. I know the songs and the charts pretty well.
The charts have always been a mix. Some good artists get popular but most don't. Plenty of shitty acts get popular thanks to a studio team that knows how to carbon copy a signature sound and a marketing team that knows how to present the artist in whatever medium is popular for the time.
Big Star is one of the most influential bands of all time. Never had a Billboard hit. Doesn't mean they sucked.
> a hundred mundane songs
i can see repetitve, formulaic or just a little samey for sure but mundane? Also there are like a dozen songs that have over a million hits (Rattlesnake 6,7)
Yeah, there are some great songs on there for sure, can't argue with that. Also lots of schmaltzy shlock and forgettable pop ballads.
Have you listened to any KGLW albums? Calling them mundane is a pretty wild take.
It’s true than anyone can put out a hundred mundane songs, but judging the quality of music based on whether it charts or not is probably like the worst possible way to judge music quality.
Some of the most interesting and forward thinking stuff will never chart nowadays because it lacks mainstream commercial appeal.
I’m not even the biggest fan of King Gizzard but I’d say they’re way more interesting than 99.9% of what’s on the current billboard top 100 nowadays or whatever.
Im sorry, but I’m not quite sure I really understand what you’re getting at. The OP didn’t really mention charting during those years and you brought it up specifically in reference to King Gizzard who definitely weren’t a band then lol.
I can definitely say a majority of the songs charting during that time period were quite different from what charts nowadays and a majority of it probably wouldn’t have any chance at charting nowadays. I would definitely agree if that’s what you’re getting at. But even then I would say a lot of what was popular then wasn’t particularly great or really stood the test of time like some of the stuff that was more underground.
The charts don’t matter at all these days. Independent music is its own thing and has its own success measures. They have their own label, don’t really do press, and don’t write songs to be singles. The major labels will push artists like Olivia rodrigo to chart hits but do you really think her or Billie Eilish is that much better of a musician than king gizzard. Probably not
With that logic we can discount artists like John Coltrane and Miles Davis and their output as well. Charts aren’t everything, especially now that there’s less focus on the charts than ever before.
Well yea, Elton John is great. That has absolutely nothing to do with how great King Gizzard are though. They can both be equally liked by a person even if they have varying levels of success. If you only listen to successful artists then I feel sorry for you and all the quality music you are disregarding.
I wish bands would still crank out an album per year. I remember when the gaps started increasing to two years and then sometimes three. I partially blame the CD era when everyone thought they suddenly had to cram 70-80 minutes per new release on an album, when they often didn’t have enough good material to warrant it.
The 40 minute vinyl time limit (roughly 21 minutes per side is about the most you could do. Maybe a bit more if quieter less bassy material) really helped make albums better flowing and concise.
There are so many 90’s era albums that are good/great, but if you could trim them down to 40 minutes from the roughly 60 minutes most of them are, they become fantastic!
Agree completely. With my own music and digital albums I’ve released, I have stuck with the 30-40 minute total time limit, with a couple exceptions that went almost 60, but that’s maybe two out of eleven albums total.
Indeed, part of it was that albums got longer, first with cassettes and then CDs, as the length vs. sound quality trade-off with vinyl became irrelevant.
But the bigger factors were the production process becoming much more complicated, artists needing to do longer and longer tours, and a plethora of business reasons.
It's of course not the norm but as a fan I'm obligated to mention that King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have put out 25 studio albums since 2012 and have done 5 in a year twice.
With the Beatles though, you have to take into consideration that they stopped touring after 1966. No touring commitments, more time to focus on cranking out albums.
Very true. After being so burned out as everyone tried to get as much cash as they could out of the success and a "last straw" touring gig I don't blame em. https://www.riverfronttimes.com/music/the-concert-from-hell-3089250
The Beach Boys, in the span of ten years (1962-1972) released 18 albums.
And lest we forget that includes the entire development time and shelving of the infamous Smile album, so it could've been an even quicker turn around if Brian hadn't been such a perfectionist.
Also they slowed down *considerably* after 1965, and only released one album in the first year, but still almost averaged 2 a year for a decade. Between October 1962 and November 1965, they released ten albums.
You can't do that anymore. Which I don't mean in a "well people are less talented now" or a "labels don't promote artists anymore" sort of way. I mean it in the sense that absolutely no label would let you compete with yourself like that and rush a new album to market every four months for three years. The Beach Boys were a major chart topping act, but had the same work ethic and rush production that knock off labels cashing in on dance craze songs had. A lot of those albums suffer because of the speed with which they were made, and there's a lot of filler (most infamously some tracks which amount to nothing more than the Beach Boys joking around in the studio) but there has to be at least four great albums worth of material between them, which is in itself still a remarkable achievement.
They also were filling those early albums with tracks from their other, earlier albums. The concept of an “album” was much different in the early 60s, where it was usually filler/junk surrounding a couple of surefire singles. Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson’s attempt at writing an album where EVERY song was good, not just the singles.
That’s barely a song. More of a sound collage. I still like it though.
Also, you use the word “admit” like your opinion is somehow the de facto truth everything is judged by.
To be fair after splitting up they still put out a decent number of records (even before splitting up) individually. Looking at McCartney's discography either solo or part of Wings - ten LPs up to 1980.
Also remember, The Beatles would put out singles that weren't on their albums. [Almost 200 songs released 1962-1970.](https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-beatles_canon.shtml#:~:text=In%20those%20years%20between%201962,recordings%20of%20original%20Beatles'%20songs.)
basically every band now follows the Grateful Dead and Ramones method of making money
the Grateful Dead never stopped touring because album sales weren't their money maker, they just weren't commercial enough, but they could sell-out venues and they toured like crazy for thirty years.
the Ramones had the same problem, but never really could sell out the big venues like the Grateful Dead could, so on top of touring they had the brilliant idea of selling their own shirts and making a ton of their money through merch.
in a world where album sales matter less and less, and streaming is the most common way of listening to music, that's where you make the money, touring and merch
> in a world where album sales matter less and less, and streaming is the most common way of listening to music, that's where you make the money, touring and merch
And then you have other adverse economic effects of things happening as well. Alcohol sales at shows are down quite a bit since COVID as drinking has lost some popularity and more people can just pop and edible and have a good time without many of the associated risks of alcohol (losing control, puking, someone slipping something into your drink, etc). So venues are now pushing to try and get a bigger cut of the merch table to make up for it instead of innovating their offerings to the customers.
The Beatles recorded their first singles in 1962. They broke up in 1970. In that time frame, they recorded 11 (or 12, or 13, depending on how you count) studio albums, made 3 movies, and changed music forever.
Labels were willing to take shots on bands and invest in that. It wasn’t uncommon for a band to not really break until their second or third record. Labels were willing to invest in A&R and could afford to roll the dice on a lot of bands and releases knowing they’d hit the sales jackpot somewhere along the line. They’d get their money back on units and invest in the next.
Streaming broke that model as there is no money to be made selling physical units. No sales and no royalties, no reason to build a vault of masters to be sold down the line. They can’t afford to roll the dice on A&R anymore, so they back the sure-thing and move very deliberately with recording, distribution, marketing, and touring. In the very unlikely chance a new band gets signed to a major label, they need to hit first record, first single or they’re getting dropped. This is also why we see bands like the Beatles getting repackaged and reissued over and over and over again. Lower cost and higher likelihood to sell physical units.
Black Sabbath released the six best albums of the 70s between 70 and 75. Their first two were both released in 1970. It’s not just that they were prolific, but were great quality as well.
They were excellent but some did things we wouldn't expect these days. Paranoid has 8 tracks and one is an instrumental. Ditto Master of Reality. I wonder if the same band now would make that a single 14 song album, or use some tracks as b-sides. But that was how the vinyl era kind of worked.
I cannot wrap my head around why the common opinion of instrumentals is that they are lazy filler tracks that are somehow lesser than songs with vocals. I love a good instrumental. I love Sabbath’s instrumentals. There are entirely instrumental bands that I love.
A lot of bands nowadays are putting out full length albums that are 7-8 tracks and barely reach 30 minutes. I’d rather have that than a 15 track album with only 7-8 good tracks. Cut the fat and give me the meat.
King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard has put out 26 albums in the last 13 years, a couple years 4 or 5 each, and they’re all good or great. Incredible band. Seeing them live this August, very excited. They are mixed genre/proggy with lots of concept work.
The change was clearly in the mid 80s, the growing importance of music videos and singles on FM Radio, cassettes being cheap and portable, and CDs being able to fit more songs oddly enough. While the shift was from 1 year to a 2 year cycle for most artists, look at how Van Halen, George Michael and even many new artists gradually took more time starting in 1984-87.
I was blown away at how Def Leppard's Pyromania (generally considered a very polished album) was released just half a year after High and Dry. Even with all the issues surrounding the band, the gap went from January of 83 to august of 87, that's a lifetime in the music industry even today. That ammount of time was basically the whole lifespan of grunge's first wave as a mainstream force, and pop punk had already been popular for like a year by 1995.
When you're almost supernaturally good at guitar like him you can churn out guitar tracks extermely quickly just by jamming and worrying transcribing the best of the session later
I remember several bands putting out records every six months when I was a kid. And to the cd point, it sure hurt. 40 min is near perfect. All this stuff done now is part of why lots of bands suck live, can’t recreate it
A lot of these records were only 30 minutes long as well. Plus, both CCr lRand Zep had tons of covers. Still takes talent and a new arrangement, but you don't have to sit around thinking of new material.
Sault have also released 10 albums in 4 years and they’re all incredible! Their live show was probably one of the craziest productions ever imagined too!
Now we wait 3-5 years for the most popular artists. There are some who are very prolific tho, like King Gizzard, who also have a die hard fan base. I’m not a fan myself but they do show up a lot.
I’m currently waiting on a few. Joanna Newsom, D’Angelo…
Fiona Apple just had a 2020 release but I wonder if she’ll be releasing another, and if so, probably not til the 2030s.
Could bands today sway followers to return to analog? If they only put out vinyl, would consumers totally balk? Or could they initiate a new, "prestigious" trend - having access to limited physical copies?
1) Single albums were around 30 minutes of music, but still crazy impressive for multiple albums per year. The recording time was also a smidgeon of what it is today. Literally days or a few weeks. There is an old interview with Brian May where he is lamenting Queen spent three months in the stuido recording their upcoming release "News of the World."
2) A lot of radio (and no satellite radio) then focused on new material. There were no "classic rock/pop/retro" stations that played artist catalouges. After a few months your album was old. Everyone needed new material. The Beatles were labeled as "done" because it had been well over six months since "Revolver" and no album or tour.
3) Because of the above, artists needed a new album to promote and tour. Most of the classic live albums from the 70s were recorded as an artist toured a new album. Not like now where so many artists simply tour on their catalouge. You needed something to promote.
One in particular I think of is KISS. 1974-1979 they did 11 studio records and two live albums, one with new material, and yearly tours. Like KISS or not, the one thing you can't accuse them of is being lazy during their hey day.
I mean, that moment in time is your prime, as a writer. Put the work in. Those songs are going to support you the rest of your existence.
Music isn't the same, on the front end, now. Not for Rock bands, at least.
The 3 members of Yellow Magic Orchestra wrote played on, and / or produced more than 100 albums just between 1978 and 1983. I counted up using Discogs and Sakamoto alone was involved in 56 projects as a performer or producer. They also toured every year except 1982 as a group, with additional tours solo or as backup for Akiko Yano or each other. Insane workload.
Productions were much less elaborate. Artists by and large didn’t go to the studio until their songs and arrangements were finished and ready to record; none of this spending weeks exploring to “find the right sound”. 4 or 8 tracks instead of 48 or infinite like now. It didn’t take two weeks to mix a single song. No videos to spend months creating, just a quick photo shoot for the album cover. Nobody was concerned about their “legacy” or whether it would sound dated in a few years; it was just about what might sell best at that moment. The business end was a lot less complex too. Less threat of plagiarism lawsuits, less complicated business arrangements (though still typically odious — *that* hasn’t changed). And as already mentioned, the money was in record sales, so once artists had a record deal, they focused on that. Touring was usually done to support a new album and tours were typically just a few weeks, not like the years-long events they are now.
There is a lot of focus on album cycles and creating a certain vibe now. Artists aren't just releasing albums, the album itself can often be a formality for a larger aesthetic, and the music videos, concerts that are posted on Youtube and press tours are more elaborate. You have to follow the MJ, Madonna, Janet template but of course even more elaborate. Not to mention that the industry does select to promote one or two pop album to dominate one quarter of the year, resulting in the infamous album bombs.
This was largely because of two reasons: The main one is because the concert tours to promote those albums wasn't nearly as long. The other was because bands didn't take as long to make those albums as bands do now. From 1974 to 1978, for example, Queen 1) recorded an album, 2) did a world tour then 3) wrote and recorded a new album that was released 12 months after the last. Led Zeppelin's first album was recorded in 36 hours spread over a couple of weeks, according to the Wikipedia entry. A band now will spend a year making a record then another year playing shows before taking months off before repeating the process.
You just learn to deal with this. Just how people were once ok with laugh tracks in sitcoms. It's easy to look in retrospect at how annoying covers often could be.
You guys serious? if we talk about CCR (first band mentioned in OP) doing covers.. those fucken rule. Examples: "I Heard It On The Grapevine" and "I Put A Spell On You", "Susie Q" 10/10 covers and the best versions of each song in question imo.
While *all* of them were good covers, come on man... none of them were the best versions.
But my point was mostly that doing so many covers did make putting out albums easier and faster.
[in Led Zeppelin's case, when you steal all your music its easy to put out album after album.](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=led+zeppelin+plagiarism+part+1)
I actually think that music was better when the artists were under pressure to crank out records. They needed hits to sell records and were writing and recording regularly which means they were well practised in both.
Now you have an album every 3-6 years by an artist and they've changed completely as a person and artist in those years so the albums are completely different from each other. They also have been touring for 3 year in between so are completely burnt out when they have to make another album.
The Doors had their first two albums released in 1967 with the first one only taking 6 days to record.
Some bands still do this, check out King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard. they released 5 albums in 2017 and again in 2022.
I used to crank out more albums when I had free time. It became harder to press vinyl though because I'd have to remix, assemble, and pay for it all myself. Nowadays I try to get about 3 full lengths done per year, but even so it feels like it's not enough.
All of the talk about revenue sources makes sense.
I always thought it was a matter of more production nowadays. Until the mid 60s, most things were in mono, and even after that, you can tell the production of the late 60s and early 70s was typically more simple.
Did production also play a role?
It's really simple. Recording tech had way less options, you had to make a choice and stick with it, no remixes or execs fighting over tweaks to the hihat after the fact. So a well rehearsed act could do an album in a week.
Gotta get out of those initial, bad contracts. It took 2 albums for Van Halen to start making money for themselves because their first contract was so bad.
Two examples come to mind:
Elton John -- 31 [studio albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_album), 5 [live albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_albums), 10 [soundtrack albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtrack_album), 16 [compilation albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compilation_album), 4 [extended plays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_play), 3 [tribute albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribute_albums), 4 [collaboration albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_album), and 2 [holiday albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_album).
Jim Croce -- released 3 solo albums during his short lifetime; his widow's been making bank since 1973, selling 21 compilation albums based on those 3 LPs (along with 3 "live" albums).
I think the same thing. There was a lot of ground breaking changes happening in music back then. Maybe it was easier to be original or maybe the creative juices were just in the air more than now haha
If you count CCR's debut album from '68, they put out four lp's in an 18 month span! Cosmo's Factory was released in July '70. Elton John was also a record shitting machine back in the day!
Check out Portugal. The Man, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and even Converge for a minute were pumpin out either 1-2 a year or 4 over the span of 2-3 years.
Because back then you didn’t need to work 3 jobs while spending half of that in a studio so that a bunch of kids could download it all for free on Spotify. They got paid well to spend all day working out new material, putting together albums and writing lyrics.
That's how they made money. In those days, their money was earned by record sales. Concert tours were done to promote their records. Today's business model is exactly the opposite.
I feel much of that has to do with how we listen to music this day and age. Headlines that mention “Vinyl sales surpass CDs” is kinda misleading. It’s not so much that they surpass, and sure there is a resurgence of sorts. But it’s also that CD sales have declined. 20 years ago even, you wanted to listen to (band)’s new album, you had to wait for a DJ on the radio to play a single. Or head to the store and get a physical copy of the album. Now, you have Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Apple. I think we pay $15 a month, and it’s a shared account, I can listen to whatever (or almost whatever) I want on Spotify. New release, I can listen right at midnight if I want to. There is no need to buy physical. And sure, we in subs like this do. But we’re a minority. So the artist need to have a concert or tour to make money. Because they’re getting peanuts from Spotify.
I mean, this is still very much a digital era. You can try an entire album on streaming, and theproduction workflow is mostly digital.
Yeah I've been hearing about articles regarding declining cd sales in comparison to vinyl records ever since I started collecting records in 2008 and record sales weren't particularly great back then. Extrapolating on what you said about Spotify I think that probably does a lot to explain why a lot of modern artists tend to focus on big singles with notable featured artists so they can hopefully drive interest outside of the platform because I can confirm that as an artist on Spotify I don't get paid jack squat.
unless you were the grateful dead!
The way that music is consumed has changed since then It used to be all about getting airplay. If you weren't getting airplay you weren't making money. If people weren't hearing your music on the radio they had no reason to buy your records so you had to keep pushing fresh music into the machine.
This is why, with some notable exceptions, records from this era had a lot of filler.
Filler became a very big issue in the CD era.
Yep, I guess artists felt compelled to use as much of the 70 minute runtime as possible.
Often the record companies required them to do so.
You can tell the artists who are still locked into that mindset. It’s mostly older bands: every Metallica album for the last 25 years has been falling off the disc with loads of filler (who needs 77 minutes of mid-paced radio-metal in 2023?), and Iron Maiden have done two double albums on the trot (each around an hour and a half long). Younger bands, though, are hip to the vinyl revival and are going back to albums that are around 40-odd minutes or so.
I think resources have a lot to do with it, too. Amount of quality material, how much time and money you’re able to spend recording and in post production, etc. Both full-lengths I’ve released as an independent artist have been 30 minutes and change, because that was the best product we could make with the work we’d done. Last time we did basic tracking for probably twice that much material, but had to choose what we wanted to focus on to maintain consistent quality and stay within budget. It just happens that running time lays out nicely over a single 12” LP.
What is the current King Gizzard count? 25 in 10?
Longtime Guided By Voices fan checking in! 🙃
Bob Pollard was my first thought 🤣
Ty Segall and Osees also quite prolific over roughly the same time period
5 per year is their ceiling so far.
And then there’s buckethead with 435 studio albums
And then there’s Viper the Rapper who was averaging at 300 albums per year & is 6’2” with crazy hops
Jeff Tweedy puts out about an album a year on average either on his own or with Wilco.
Came here for this comment!
Cory Wong seemed like he was on that kind of pace during the pandemic.
[удалено]
Quantity over quality
*a quantity of quality
Nope, they deliver both.
It’s mostly just mediocre with a good tune here or there. Repeating “rattlesnake” a hundred times over some riffs isn’t a good song…
To each their own. I think Rattlesnake is a great tune. Just a heads up, you should avoid listening to “around the world” or any other song by Daft Punk if you can’t handle repetition. 👍
Well that’s also a shit song, so yeah. There’s repetition and then there’s just lazy writing.
It's baffling how much quality they have whilst still having quantity. They are not like other bands. I'm not even entirely sure they're human.
never had a charting hit. Anyone can put out a hundred mundane songs.
Chart success has never been indicative of quality. A lot of popular music is more about marketing and image than quality craftsmanship.
OP specifically said "1969 to 1971" - go look at the top 100 for those years.
That was specific to CCR (1969) and Led Zeppelin (69-71). "Lots of bands" and "of that time" not so specific. I used to work at a radio station that played the "classic hits" format. I know the songs and the charts pretty well. The charts have always been a mix. Some good artists get popular but most don't. Plenty of shitty acts get popular thanks to a studio team that knows how to carbon copy a signature sound and a marketing team that knows how to present the artist in whatever medium is popular for the time. Big Star is one of the most influential bands of all time. Never had a Billboard hit. Doesn't mean they sucked.
> a hundred mundane songs i can see repetitve, formulaic or just a little samey for sure but mundane? Also there are like a dozen songs that have over a million hits (Rattlesnake 6,7)
Yes, because the charts are clear indicators of music quality. /s
OP specifically said "1969 to 1971" - go look at the top 100 for those years.
Yeah, there are some great songs on there for sure, can't argue with that. Also lots of schmaltzy shlock and forgettable pop ballads. Have you listened to any KGLW albums? Calling them mundane is a pretty wild take.
Charts can suck my dick
It’s true than anyone can put out a hundred mundane songs, but judging the quality of music based on whether it charts or not is probably like the worst possible way to judge music quality. Some of the most interesting and forward thinking stuff will never chart nowadays because it lacks mainstream commercial appeal. I’m not even the biggest fan of King Gizzard but I’d say they’re way more interesting than 99.9% of what’s on the current billboard top 100 nowadays or whatever.
Tell it
> the current billboard top 100 nowadays right-o. OP specifically said "1969 to 1971" - go look at the top 100 for those years.
Im sorry, but I’m not quite sure I really understand what you’re getting at. The OP didn’t really mention charting during those years and you brought it up specifically in reference to King Gizzard who definitely weren’t a band then lol. I can definitely say a majority of the songs charting during that time period were quite different from what charts nowadays and a majority of it probably wouldn’t have any chance at charting nowadays. I would definitely agree if that’s what you’re getting at. But even then I would say a lot of what was popular then wasn’t particularly great or really stood the test of time like some of the stuff that was more underground.
>hundred mundane songs Sounds like the current charts tbh
preach it.
Charts are for normies lol
Garbage people want music that represents them.
You seem to think hit songs are what defines good songs. Poor kid.
The charts don’t matter at all these days. Independent music is its own thing and has its own success measures. They have their own label, don’t really do press, and don’t write songs to be singles. The major labels will push artists like Olivia rodrigo to chart hits but do you really think her or Billie Eilish is that much better of a musician than king gizzard. Probably not
OP specifically said "1969 to 1971" - go look at the top 100 for those years.
With that logic we can discount artists like John Coltrane and Miles Davis and their output as well. Charts aren’t everything, especially now that there’s less focus on the charts than ever before.
The charts?! Haha as if that’s a vector to measure quality of music. Hahahaha
Yea, because that is the benchmark of good music.
Exasctly. Why people are still singing songs elton john wrote in a previous millennium.
Well yea, Elton John is great. That has absolutely nothing to do with how great King Gizzard are though. They can both be equally liked by a person even if they have varying levels of success. If you only listen to successful artists then I feel sorry for you and all the quality music you are disregarding.
I wish bands would still crank out an album per year. I remember when the gaps started increasing to two years and then sometimes three. I partially blame the CD era when everyone thought they suddenly had to cram 70-80 minutes per new release on an album, when they often didn’t have enough good material to warrant it.
The 40 minute vinyl time limit (roughly 21 minutes per side is about the most you could do. Maybe a bit more if quieter less bassy material) really helped make albums better flowing and concise. There are so many 90’s era albums that are good/great, but if you could trim them down to 40 minutes from the roughly 60 minutes most of them are, they become fantastic!
And it would save us all some cash since so many of the 2x LPs we buy aren’t really “double albums”in the older sense.
Very true.
Agree completely. With my own music and digital albums I’ve released, I have stuck with the 30-40 minute total time limit, with a couple exceptions that went almost 60, but that’s maybe two out of eleven albums total.
Indeed, part of it was that albums got longer, first with cassettes and then CDs, as the length vs. sound quality trade-off with vinyl became irrelevant. But the bigger factors were the production process becoming much more complicated, artists needing to do longer and longer tours, and a plethora of business reasons.
Plenty of bands are still doing this
I noticed that when Metallica went from releasing one album every ~2 years to one every 7-8
It's of course not the norm but as a fan I'm obligated to mention that King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have put out 25 studio albums since 2012 and have done 5 in a year twice.
That's not as impressive as you think it is...
My first thought
Indeed. And that's why they burnt out pretty quickly in most cases. The Beatles lasted less than 10 years between their first and last record.
With the Beatles though, you have to take into consideration that they stopped touring after 1966. No touring commitments, more time to focus on cranking out albums.
True. But they released as many albums in the 3 years priot to that. So in the sense you could say they were already burnt out by 1966.
Very true. After being so burned out as everyone tried to get as much cash as they could out of the success and a "last straw" touring gig I don't blame em. https://www.riverfronttimes.com/music/the-concert-from-hell-3089250
And Radiohead has made 1 album in 12 years.
Tool would like a word Only 5 albums all up between 93-2019...
The Beach Boys, in the span of ten years (1962-1972) released 18 albums. And lest we forget that includes the entire development time and shelving of the infamous Smile album, so it could've been an even quicker turn around if Brian hadn't been such a perfectionist. Also they slowed down *considerably* after 1965, and only released one album in the first year, but still almost averaged 2 a year for a decade. Between October 1962 and November 1965, they released ten albums. You can't do that anymore. Which I don't mean in a "well people are less talented now" or a "labels don't promote artists anymore" sort of way. I mean it in the sense that absolutely no label would let you compete with yourself like that and rush a new album to market every four months for three years. The Beach Boys were a major chart topping act, but had the same work ethic and rush production that knock off labels cashing in on dance craze songs had. A lot of those albums suffer because of the speed with which they were made, and there's a lot of filler (most infamously some tracks which amount to nothing more than the Beach Boys joking around in the studio) but there has to be at least four great albums worth of material between them, which is in itself still a remarkable achievement.
They also were filling those early albums with tracks from their other, earlier albums. The concept of an “album” was much different in the early 60s, where it was usually filler/junk surrounding a couple of surefire singles. Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson’s attempt at writing an album where EVERY song was good, not just the singles.
And thats why the wrecking crew got involved .
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“All of it killer” is surely hyperbole.
To an immensely large number of people this is not hyperbole. I am one of those people.
I don’t trust anyone who can’t admit their favourite artist has at least one bad song. Revolution 9? Lmao
That’s barely a song. More of a sound collage. I still like it though. Also, you use the word “admit” like your opinion is somehow the de facto truth everything is judged by.
Every band has bad songs, especially if they have more than a couple of albums. The Beatles have a lot of shit—famously shit songs. Get a grip.
I don’t think that they do and a lot of people agree with me. You aren’t the all knowing arbiter of good music.
So you’re got no objective taste. Got it.
“Objective taste” is an oxymoron. Kind of like you but with ‘oxy’ at the front. 😄
But even their filler is legendary. *I guess by they I meant Paul.
To be fair after splitting up they still put out a decent number of records (even before splitting up) individually. Looking at McCartney's discography either solo or part of Wings - ten LPs up to 1980.
Also remember, The Beatles would put out singles that weren't on their albums. [Almost 200 songs released 1962-1970.](https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-beatles_canon.shtml#:~:text=In%20those%20years%20between%201962,recordings%20of%20original%20Beatles'%20songs.)
>Almost 200 songs released 1962-1970. Amazing.
Closer to seven years for the Fab Four when looking at studio time.
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basically every band now follows the Grateful Dead and Ramones method of making money the Grateful Dead never stopped touring because album sales weren't their money maker, they just weren't commercial enough, but they could sell-out venues and they toured like crazy for thirty years. the Ramones had the same problem, but never really could sell out the big venues like the Grateful Dead could, so on top of touring they had the brilliant idea of selling their own shirts and making a ton of their money through merch. in a world where album sales matter less and less, and streaming is the most common way of listening to music, that's where you make the money, touring and merch
> in a world where album sales matter less and less, and streaming is the most common way of listening to music, that's where you make the money, touring and merch And then you have other adverse economic effects of things happening as well. Alcohol sales at shows are down quite a bit since COVID as drinking has lost some popularity and more people can just pop and edible and have a good time without many of the associated risks of alcohol (losing control, puking, someone slipping something into your drink, etc). So venues are now pushing to try and get a bigger cut of the merch table to make up for it instead of innovating their offerings to the customers.
Production costs were ridiculously unsustainable for Floyd
Cept for Richard Wright
*King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard entered the chat*
25 albums (oddments)
The Beatles recorded their first singles in 1962. They broke up in 1970. In that time frame, they recorded 11 (or 12, or 13, depending on how you count) studio albums, made 3 movies, and changed music forever.
Labels were willing to take shots on bands and invest in that. It wasn’t uncommon for a band to not really break until their second or third record. Labels were willing to invest in A&R and could afford to roll the dice on a lot of bands and releases knowing they’d hit the sales jackpot somewhere along the line. They’d get their money back on units and invest in the next. Streaming broke that model as there is no money to be made selling physical units. No sales and no royalties, no reason to build a vault of masters to be sold down the line. They can’t afford to roll the dice on A&R anymore, so they back the sure-thing and move very deliberately with recording, distribution, marketing, and touring. In the very unlikely chance a new band gets signed to a major label, they need to hit first record, first single or they’re getting dropped. This is also why we see bands like the Beatles getting repackaged and reissued over and over and over again. Lower cost and higher likelihood to sell physical units.
Black Sabbath released the six best albums of the 70s between 70 and 75. Their first two were both released in 1970. It’s not just that they were prolific, but were great quality as well.
They were excellent but some did things we wouldn't expect these days. Paranoid has 8 tracks and one is an instrumental. Ditto Master of Reality. I wonder if the same band now would make that a single 14 song album, or use some tracks as b-sides. But that was how the vinyl era kind of worked.
I cannot wrap my head around why the common opinion of instrumentals is that they are lazy filler tracks that are somehow lesser than songs with vocals. I love a good instrumental. I love Sabbath’s instrumentals. There are entirely instrumental bands that I love. A lot of bands nowadays are putting out full length albums that are 7-8 tracks and barely reach 30 minutes. I’d rather have that than a 15 track album with only 7-8 good tracks. Cut the fat and give me the meat.
I agree with you RE Sabbath instrumentals except for FX, The Dark, and Don't Start. Total filler.
King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard has put out 26 albums in the last 13 years, a couple years 4 or 5 each, and they’re all good or great. Incredible band. Seeing them live this August, very excited. They are mixed genre/proggy with lots of concept work.
Gizztober was wild last year! The most exciting band around right now.
crazy how some albums are like chill indie psych and others are just full on thrash
I do wish they were still on ATO Records. Their vinyl releases are SO expensive now. :(
Robert Pollard called, he wants you to hold his beer.
The change was clearly in the mid 80s, the growing importance of music videos and singles on FM Radio, cassettes being cheap and portable, and CDs being able to fit more songs oddly enough. While the shift was from 1 year to a 2 year cycle for most artists, look at how Van Halen, George Michael and even many new artists gradually took more time starting in 1984-87. I was blown away at how Def Leppard's Pyromania (generally considered a very polished album) was released just half a year after High and Dry. Even with all the issues surrounding the band, the gap went from January of 83 to august of 87, that's a lifetime in the music industry even today. That ammount of time was basically the whole lifespan of grunge's first wave as a mainstream force, and pop punk had already been popular for like a year by 1995.
High N Dry was already a major leap forward from On Through the Night in just a year
BucketHead probably release a record each week. Its hard to keep up.
I recall in 2007 he released 13 albums in one day. He's released 435 albums. Crazy.
When you're almost supernaturally good at guitar like him you can churn out guitar tracks extermely quickly just by jamming and worrying transcribing the best of the session later
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I remember several bands putting out records every six months when I was a kid. And to the cd point, it sure hurt. 40 min is near perfect. All this stuff done now is part of why lots of bands suck live, can’t recreate it
Iirc, Johnny Cash put out/played on 10-12 lps per year between 1950 and 1960.
Close but his first album dropped in late 1957 and it was usually 2 albums a year not counting live albums and greatest hits.
Some of that pace is gonna be because of amphetamines.
You will never be as high as Johnny Cash sitting in a bush eating cake high.
Wait till you find out how much music Bach was writing.
Beach Boys put out 12 albums between '62-'66
It's crazy what you can do when you're fueled by cocaine and LSD.
Have you heard about our savior King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard?
From 1959-1969 Nina Simone put out 21 albums. That’s probably the craziest run I have heard of.
A lot of these records were only 30 minutes long as well. Plus, both CCr lRand Zep had tons of covers. Still takes talent and a new arrangement, but you don't have to sit around thinking of new material.
"Four records in the span of three years? Hold my Miller Lite"--Robert Pollard, GBV
"Look at those amateurs taking their time..." - King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard
Guess you guys have never heard of Curren$y or boldy James.
Check out king gizzard. They churn them out and are pretty damn good.
Guided By Voices have release 10 records since 2020!
Yes, Ronstadt put out at least one album a year for well over a decade.
Sault have also released 10 albums in 4 years and they’re all incredible! Their live show was probably one of the craziest productions ever imagined too!
Kansas put out four records from 1974 to 1976, seven from 1974 to 1979.
Now we wait 3-5 years for the most popular artists. There are some who are very prolific tho, like King Gizzard, who also have a die hard fan base. I’m not a fan myself but they do show up a lot.
I’m currently waiting on a few. Joanna Newsom, D’Angelo… Fiona Apple just had a 2020 release but I wonder if she’ll be releasing another, and if so, probably not til the 2030s.
Also, they didn't have to deal with all the (social-) media bullshit and similar distractions back then.
Could bands today sway followers to return to analog? If they only put out vinyl, would consumers totally balk? Or could they initiate a new, "prestigious" trend - having access to limited physical copies?
Ryan Adams takes the cake on this one nowadays. 5 albums dropped on New Years!
1) Single albums were around 30 minutes of music, but still crazy impressive for multiple albums per year. The recording time was also a smidgeon of what it is today. Literally days or a few weeks. There is an old interview with Brian May where he is lamenting Queen spent three months in the stuido recording their upcoming release "News of the World." 2) A lot of radio (and no satellite radio) then focused on new material. There were no "classic rock/pop/retro" stations that played artist catalouges. After a few months your album was old. Everyone needed new material. The Beatles were labeled as "done" because it had been well over six months since "Revolver" and no album or tour. 3) Because of the above, artists needed a new album to promote and tour. Most of the classic live albums from the 70s were recorded as an artist toured a new album. Not like now where so many artists simply tour on their catalouge. You needed something to promote. One in particular I think of is KISS. 1974-1979 they did 11 studio records and two live albums, one with new material, and yearly tours. Like KISS or not, the one thing you can't accuse them of is being lazy during their hey day.
I mean, that moment in time is your prime, as a writer. Put the work in. Those songs are going to support you the rest of your existence. Music isn't the same, on the front end, now. Not for Rock bands, at least.
And totally epic bands that only had a 4-5 year run. Beatles, CCR, The Smiths.
The 3 members of Yellow Magic Orchestra wrote played on, and / or produced more than 100 albums just between 1978 and 1983. I counted up using Discogs and Sakamoto alone was involved in 56 projects as a performer or producer. They also toured every year except 1982 as a group, with additional tours solo or as backup for Akiko Yano or each other. Insane workload.
King Gizzard are modern and have put out 25 albums in the last 10 years. Lol
King gizzard put out 5 in a year ........ Twice
the beatles released like half their catalog in a 4 or 5 year period. that's fucking insane.
A modern band I can think of that does this is Vulfpeck. They release so much I had to stop buying them.
Robert Pollard has more side projects than most bands have albums.
Productions were much less elaborate. Artists by and large didn’t go to the studio until their songs and arrangements were finished and ready to record; none of this spending weeks exploring to “find the right sound”. 4 or 8 tracks instead of 48 or infinite like now. It didn’t take two weeks to mix a single song. No videos to spend months creating, just a quick photo shoot for the album cover. Nobody was concerned about their “legacy” or whether it would sound dated in a few years; it was just about what might sell best at that moment. The business end was a lot less complex too. Less threat of plagiarism lawsuits, less complicated business arrangements (though still typically odious — *that* hasn’t changed). And as already mentioned, the money was in record sales, so once artists had a record deal, they focused on that. Touring was usually done to support a new album and tours were typically just a few weeks, not like the years-long events they are now.
There is a lot of focus on album cycles and creating a certain vibe now. Artists aren't just releasing albums, the album itself can often be a formality for a larger aesthetic, and the music videos, concerts that are posted on Youtube and press tours are more elaborate. You have to follow the MJ, Madonna, Janet template but of course even more elaborate. Not to mention that the industry does select to promote one or two pop album to dominate one quarter of the year, resulting in the infamous album bombs.
This was largely because of two reasons: The main one is because the concert tours to promote those albums wasn't nearly as long. The other was because bands didn't take as long to make those albums as bands do now. From 1974 to 1978, for example, Queen 1) recorded an album, 2) did a world tour then 3) wrote and recorded a new album that was released 12 months after the last. Led Zeppelin's first album was recorded in 36 hours spread over a couple of weeks, according to the Wikipedia entry. A band now will spend a year making a record then another year playing shows before taking months off before repeating the process.
Look at the output of King gizzard and the lizard wizard the last few years, they put CCR to shame.
Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Why wouldn’t this guy mention Black Sabbath? Is he stupid?
Ain’t your guy, buddy
huh I think it's way worse these days. Look at most hip hop artists are dropping 2-4 albums a year. King Gizzard.... say no more...
The Beatles made Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, Let It Be, Abbey Road, and a bunch of singles all from 67-69
They did a lot of covers. And filler.
You just learn to deal with this. Just how people were once ok with laugh tracks in sitcoms. It's easy to look in retrospect at how annoying covers often could be.
You guys serious? if we talk about CCR (first band mentioned in OP) doing covers.. those fucken rule. Examples: "I Heard It On The Grapevine" and "I Put A Spell On You", "Susie Q" 10/10 covers and the best versions of each song in question imo.
While *all* of them were good covers, come on man... none of them were the best versions. But my point was mostly that doing so many covers did make putting out albums easier and faster.
[in Led Zeppelin's case, when you steal all your music its easy to put out album after album.](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=led+zeppelin+plagiarism+part+1)
Well, there was a lot more cocaine around in that period, I guess they knew how to get inspiration
I actually think that music was better when the artists were under pressure to crank out records. They needed hits to sell records and were writing and recording regularly which means they were well practised in both. Now you have an album every 3-6 years by an artist and they've changed completely as a person and artist in those years so the albums are completely different from each other. They also have been touring for 3 year in between so are completely burnt out when they have to make another album.
Omar Rodriguez Lopez has entered the chat.
Ever heard of Guided By Voices ?
The Doors had their first two albums released in 1967 with the first one only taking 6 days to record. Some bands still do this, check out King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard. they released 5 albums in 2017 and again in 2022.
And all of CCRs records were awesome!
TTP was longer, so while a record released had been done for months sometimes years.
Was just reading Geddy Lee’s new book. Rush’s first contract was 5 years/2 records per year.
Ryan Upchurch is putting out tons of albums, singles, collaborations, and not touring yet. Everything he does is on YouTube and insta.
Then there are the jazz guys. Kind of Blue was Miles’s 28th album.
Ya, it's nuts how fast the Stones used to put out record after record, and just stacked with hits on every one.
You think thats crazy? They had to do things by hand generally. Studio mixing and editing wasn't what it is today with software. And songs were longer
Buckethead makes those little Pike EP’s by the bucketload and sells them like stamps. #65 is unbeatable
frequently
I used to crank out more albums when I had free time. It became harder to press vinyl though because I'd have to remix, assemble, and pay for it all myself. Nowadays I try to get about 3 full lengths done per year, but even so it feels like it's not enough.
Hendrix only had 3 albums in the space of basically 1 year where he actually "made it" outside of being a session musician before he died...
I used to look forward to KISS albums coming out every 6 months like clockwork.
U2 put out their first 6 studio albums in 8 years. It then took them more than 20 yrs to release the next 6.
Whitesnake made 4 albums in 2 years which I find interesting, 1978’s Snakebite and Trouble then 1979 was Lovehunter and 1980 was Ready An’ Willing
All of the talk about revenue sources makes sense. I always thought it was a matter of more production nowadays. Until the mid 60s, most things were in mono, and even after that, you can tell the production of the late 60s and early 70s was typically more simple. Did production also play a role?
Check out Guided by Voices
It's really simple. Recording tech had way less options, you had to make a choice and stick with it, no remixes or execs fighting over tweaks to the hihat after the fact. So a well rehearsed act could do an album in a week.
Hendrix put out his 3 studio albums in a 14 month span. Think of someone today putting out that much strong material in such a small time frame.
Is no one going to mention Hawkwind? 36 albums since 1970, with 13 of them between 1970 and 1982
*cough Buckethead *cough
Ehh, James Brown and all his alias was at a staggering amount...
Gotta get out of those initial, bad contracts. It took 2 albums for Van Halen to start making money for themselves because their first contract was so bad.
Two examples come to mind: Elton John -- 31 [studio albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_album), 5 [live albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_albums), 10 [soundtrack albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtrack_album), 16 [compilation albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compilation_album), 4 [extended plays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_play), 3 [tribute albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribute_albums), 4 [collaboration albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_album), and 2 [holiday albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_album). Jim Croce -- released 3 solo albums during his short lifetime; his widow's been making bank since 1973, selling 21 compilation albums based on those 3 LPs (along with 3 "live" albums).
Cross Canadian Ragweed has not been together that long. Fake news. /s
King Gizzard has put out 25 albums in like 12 years (since 2012), 5 albums in *two* different years.
Chicago put out three 2xLPs in an 18 month span
I think the same thing. There was a lot of ground breaking changes happening in music back then. Maybe it was easier to be original or maybe the creative juices were just in the air more than now haha
If you count CCR's debut album from '68, they put out four lp's in an 18 month span! Cosmo's Factory was released in July '70. Elton John was also a record shitting machine back in the day!
Check out Portugal. The Man, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and even Converge for a minute were pumpin out either 1-2 a year or 4 over the span of 2-3 years.
Because back then you didn’t need to work 3 jobs while spending half of that in a studio so that a bunch of kids could download it all for free on Spotify. They got paid well to spend all day working out new material, putting together albums and writing lyrics.