Were bands of yesteryear more or less lazy/productive than today's musicians?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Harvest Your Thoughts, Aug 30, 2015.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Nope. "Back in the Day" [said day being around 1730] composers managed to regularly produce massive quantities of work, unlike those lazy, shiftless Hippies of the sixties. Before recording studios, musicians had to scramble much harder to make a buck.
     
  2. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    I'd say that anyone who has made it to the top of the incredibly difficult and competitive world of pop music and has stayed there for two or three albums or more, is probably an extremely driven and focused person who has worked very hard at what they do, probably very much the opposite of lazy.

    The industry and its expectations have changed -- in the '50s and '60s constantly making new music: two albums and mulitple non-album singles per year, with singles being more important than albums and albums often being padded with filler, was the contractual norm. Now top artists make one album every couple of years, but as you note they tend to be longer. In the digital track sales and streaming era, the focuses has started to turn back to the single, and, in hip-hop at least, the continuing release of new music between albums in the form of remixes and mixtapes, has become quite common, something more akin to the '50s/60s model. Tours for the biggest artists are typically less frequent but much wider ranging geographically and larger scale in production, you know, world tours were rare and difficult in the early '60s.
     
    mschrist and scotth like this.
  3. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    Yes, it seems the new trend is to release a "normal" length CD, wait for a period, an then release the expanded "deluxe edition".... ;)
     
    telepicker97 likes this.
  4. sfp

    sfp Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    For sheer work ethic, take Hüsker Dü: between 1984 and 1987, they recorded five albums, two of them doubles, with essentially no filler*, and toured the world several times.

    *Yes, I'll go to bat for "Reoccurring Dreams" (albeit "Plans I Make" & "The Baby Song" less so).
     
  5. sfp

    sfp Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    That said, blaming contemporary artists for contemporary business practices is stupid and unfair.
     
    majorlance and scotth like this.
  6. Summer of Malcontent

    Summer of Malcontent Forum Resident

    No band of yesteryear was more productive than Robert Pollard!
     
  7. dino77

    dino77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    They have been mired in a big lawsuit for 10 years or so. That probably saps the inspiration.
     
  8. Eric B.

    Eric B. Active Member

    Location:
    San Diego
    I think you can find examples of lazy or prolific from any era, indeed CCR 3 albums in 1969 came to mind, but Joe Bonamassa cranks out albums and concerts Blu-rays at a blistering pace. Other bands took forever to release albums, remember TUSK, or Chinese Democracy? That being said, the current timetable for artists is much slower on ALBUMS, but they sure TWEET and INSTAGRAM more than Fogerty in 1969.
    :tiphat:
     
    majorlance likes this.
  9. BluesOvertookMe

    BluesOvertookMe Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX, USA
    That's true - artists used to tour to sell the album, but now more money is made by touring than album sales.
     
    mschrist and dennis the menace like this.
  10. BluesOvertookMe

    BluesOvertookMe Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX, USA
    Yes, the constant touring led to poor health and ultimately broke up its most popular lineup.
     
    dennis the menace likes this.
  11. BluesOvertookMe

    BluesOvertookMe Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX, USA
    I think a vast majority of those that consider the 90s to be the best decade for music are of that age. Personally, I think the 00s were a better decade for music overall.
     
  12. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous

    Early/mid 1960's:
    • Artist's toured more for shorter amounts of time
    • Record albums and singles for shorter amounts of time because of the technology limitations and industry practices.
    • Worked with a team of skilled engineers and producers that called the shots.
    • Average album release 2 per year.
    Late 1960's to early 90's:
    • Artists tour for longer amounts of time
    • Record just albums for longer amounts of time because of more complex technology and song arrangements.
    • Some of them working with a team of skilled engineers and producers that called the shots, while others call the shots themselves.
    • Average album release 1 per year.
    Early 90's to Early 2000's:
    • Artists tour for longer amounts of time.
    • Record for longer amounts of time because of more complex technology and song arrangements and to fit more songs on the CD format.
    • Some of them working with a team of skilled engineers and producers that called the shots, while others call the shots themselves.
    • Average album release 1 per every 2 years.
    Early 2000's to Today:
    • Artists tour for even longer amounts of time to recoup lost revenue from album sales
    • Record for longer amounts of time because of more complex technology and song arrangements and to fit more songs on the CD format and because most do it themselves now.
    • Some of them working with a team of skilled engineers and producers, artists call the shots.
    • Average album release 1 per every 2 years.
     
    Rojo and e.s. like this.
  13. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    less tools and more productive...
     
  14. broshfab4

    broshfab4 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Baseline opinion on the matter. Just look at the recent polls on the best musical decades and it's very clear to me where things stand. I'm sure if I was born decades later I'd feel the same way. As many young people do.

    -Richard
     
  15. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    Lots of reasons artists appear "less productive":

    Touring length
    Labels won't allow multiple releases in a short amount of time (helps expand the career length)
    Technology / perfection / over-production
    Side projects (business, art, music, personal interests)
    Money (may be working in between albums to save up money for touring/recording)

    It's not necessarily laziness. There may be a lot going on behind the scenes that we're just not seeing or hearing about on a regular basis. I happen to think most artists are always working, just not necessarily on the band itself. You have to remember, music is not the cash cow it used to be and there's more avenues in today's world to make money that isn't exclusively music.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2015
    paulisdead likes this.
  16. leeroy jenkins

    leeroy jenkins Forum Resident

    Location:
    The United States
    Boris puts out so many albums, I can't keep up with them all. It seems like Acid Mothers Temple puts out an album every other month.

    Both of these artists are on the road all the time as well.
     
  17. Khamakhazee

    Khamakhazee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Then you have bands like U2 and Metallica who release an album every many multiple years simply because they can. It's almost semi-retirement.
     
  18. Rojo

    Rojo Forum Resident

    You can't get more productive than the Beatles, the Stones, or the Beach Boys in the 60s. Those guys would put out 2 (some times 3) albums per year plus singles.

    CCR, mentioned here, is another amazing example.
     
  19. Gregster

    Gregster Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Hello,

    My $00:02 would say that the "market" has been flooded for years with re-issues of records from just about every band that ever was, & this ultimately makes it a little more difficult for new music to make an impression ( you need "air-play" do get this ) enough for folks to grab onto something new. Add a changing listening media to the mix & things get complicated...eg. Who wants to make records when you can put your stuff up on "Sound-cloud" & people can download your music for free !!!

    Musicians are bound to a large extent to market / musical trends, & ultimately, if under a record deal or contract, to deliver the goods within an agreed time frame.

    I'd suggest that they're certainly not lazy, but may have their hands-tied by contractual arrangements, or more likely, a lack there-of...

    Cheers,

    Gregster
     
  20. showtaper

    showtaper Concert Hoarding Bastard

    Thank you, internet...... :shake:
     
  21. BrentR79

    BrentR79 Forum Resident

    I think this pretty much nails it.
     
  22. Ash76

    Ash76 Wait actually yeah no

    They Might Be Giants are putting out a song a week this year which will end up being 3 albums of material.
    As well as this they have a monthly residency in Brooklyn and will tour Australia in November.
    Then again they've been going for 33 years so might be considered a "band of yesteryear".

    Another prolific new band are King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard who have released 6 albums since 2012
     
  23. mschrist

    mschrist Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    At least as far as recording is concerned, artists are less productive than they've been in the past. Album length is back down to 40-50 minutes, which I think is a good thing, but it's also become the norm to put out an album every three years. This isn't just the case of arena headliners, which have had long periods between albums for quite a while now, which I presume is to allow time to do things like tour South America and shoot TV specials. I've also noticed that indie rock acts start to get to an album-every-three-years cycle once they get a reasonably well-sized national audience, the sort that makes it possible to play theaters: acts such as the National, or Beach House, or Grizzly Bear.

    I suspect it's that albums don't really make very much money, and so there's not much of an incentive to put out albums at a much higher frequency than that. And I think that's a loss to rock music today: not that there is any shortage of excellent acts, but instead that those acts don't produce as much recorded output, when I don't doubt that they have more to say. Especially since I can only think that these long album cycles would make acts more risk-averse musically: you can experiment and try a different sound on an album, but you might miss the mark and get a dud, and it'll be three years before you get another chance! I'd like it if bands could record more, produce more material, and maybe take more chances. I don't know how that could happen in today's music industry, but I do feel like there's some potentially great popular art that isn't getting made.

    I don't think these acts are lazy at all, because they seem to constantly be touring. As lots of other posters have noted, it seems like it's now more that the album promotes the tour rather than the other way around. That's probably another thing that contributes to the long album cycles--there's just not much time to record given how often these acts are on the road. I guess that does mean that more people get to see an act perform live, which to some degree compensates (and, for many people, probably more than compensates) for getting new records much less often.
     
  24. One motivation for continual new releases in the 60s was the sense of evolution in music, that made last year's release old fashioned. If you didn't release a new album that gave an awareness of current trends, you were no longer considered a current act.
     
    smoke likes this.
  25. truth hurts don't it
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine