Nowadays it feels like it is more lucrative for an artist to aim for a hit song in order to blow up

This describes the popular music industry at any time between the 1910s and present day.

Do you guys feel like the rise of streaming has led to the decline of artists putting out more focused and cohesive albums?

There has arguably never been a large mainstream focus on putting out cohesive albums. If anything, the rise of streaming — multiple, major platforms that can by utilized by virtually anyone who wants to make music — has given artists more incentive to create more cohesive projects. The amount of artists uninterested in commercial charts that can be found by the average consumer on demand is higher than its ever been before.

Yes

some of the biggest rap artists rn are more concerned with putting out a single that makes it into a tik tok challenge than making a good album so i would say yes

Then don’t listen to it in one sitting lol.
People forget that this is an option. It’s not like a movie where you have to watch it til the end.

You can listen to a 30 song album and still like every song if not ALMOST every song on that album, the same way you can listen to a 7 song album and only like 2 or three songs. The albums length makes no commentary on the actual music itself. Streaming rules has completely warped how people view an album because as soon as people see a longer album they already make assumptions and prejudge before even pressing play.

How was album quality between 2009-2015 in your opinion?

not streaming by itself, but the digital era has 100% . its not necessarily artist's fault. everything is just digitalised. sounds are are artificial and lack depth and soul.

Just telling people not to listen to it in one sitting is gonna do nothing

And I'm not talking about reading the tracklist. I mean the actual music in the actual album.

Most artists are using quantity>>>>quality, just beefing up the tracklist for higher streams. This automatically results in a lower quality experience for the listener.

There's a reason people complain about 30 or 40 song albums all the time. Most of them simply aren't that good. I can't think of too many albums over 20 songs that are classics. 20 SONGS, not 20 tracks with a bunch of interludes.

2010-2016 was peak bieber era

from certain artists yes, but there have been some amazing albums the last few years

But you are completely ignoring the other end of the spectrum, people don’t like having their time wasted, so if they see an hour long album over a 30 minute album, what is more appealing just from the sake of timing?

Also what’s the probability that all 60 minutes of that project are enjoyable compared to a 30 minute experience? The probability is much higher that the longer project will have filler. Also how many classic albums are longer than 16 tracks (approx. 1 hr) compared to those shorter than that?

Look at it from numbers side and it’s a way higher probability that with a longer project, at least part of it will be filler and not up to the quality of the best stuff on the album.

And that isn’t to even speak on the games artists play now to pad out their albums to have longer run times to basically find anything that will stick and blow up and or get multiple “streams” per one album listen because their project qualifies as a double album.

So I’d say there’s good reason for people to be skeptical even if their are great long albums and bad short albums.

Just listen to the music, yalll complain bout dumb S*** fr

Filler is such a stupid argument, we acting like PAC and Biggie didn’t drop 20+ song albums decades before streaming was a thing.

What’z Ya Phone #

Nasty Boy

Fact is: most people don’t listen to full albums nowadays, and that isn’t just because of length.

I’m seeing these threads a whole lot lately(I probably made one myself lol)so this must be a real concern among fans. Streaming wiped out everything that made an album an album imo. It’s suppose to be a finished product,a statement and commentary on what the artist behind the album represents or thinks.

Now it’s just a cheap way to get as many songs charting as possible,only reason they still call albums “albums” these days is outta tradition. An album in a pure sense is a product you can hold,it’s a complete package of an artist vision at the time,not just the music. Albums are just assorted songs now and that’s not enough.

Swear to god niggas been complaining about albums not being “moments” anymore and all this other weird s*** for a week now. Like just listen to the music you enjoy and go lmao.

.

Imagine throwing your album on a streaming service with it being full of filler and popcorn #1’s vs your album actually releasing in physical form and being a whole celebration for at least a week and going almost plat off pure sales alone in a week.

It’s different

I mean there were a ton of trash albums and songs back in the 60s and 70s too. We just don't talk about them.

With that said, streaming has certainly given rise to the biggest names often being people who just front load their releases with huge 2-3 minute singles and the rest with filler that is just consumed to satisfy their stream count. So whereas before we got proper albums that were just bad, now we get bad music from artists who don't even try to make albums but either these EPs or 20+ track albums.

I think music output in general has just gone up a lot, but theres a ton of good-great music coming out in ways of albums as well if you look for it. Especially this year.

Long albums aren’t anything new. Short albums were supposed to be a more modern approach cause niggas attention span.

Most artists are using quantity>>>>quality, just beefing up the tracklist for higher streams. This automatically results in a lower quality experience for the listener.

No, this automatically results in a lower quality listening experience for YOU.

But I've already said a couple times that this doesn't say anything about the quality of the actual music.

And also, lets just be honest. How often ARE people legitametly having 30+ or 40 song albums? That's on the extreme side. The real reason people complain is like I also said above, streaming era changed how people view long albums and make them pre-judge and make assumptions. Long album? Oh, they definitely did that for streams. Now you're already going into it with a negative view.

It doesn't matter if the album is a classic or not, that's not what this thread is about. You can definately have an that's 20 songs long and be GOOD and just like you can have an album that's 20 songs long at it be TRASH. But it'd be dumb to just automatically assume that the longer album makes it inherently worse because that's not true at all and is 100% subjective.

mostly agree here but I think the barometer for "commercial charts" has largely shifted since streaming. We are definitely seeing homogenous sounds starting to form in virtually every genre rather than before when artists from diff genres would just incorporate edm or top 40 pop influence for relevance (see Florida Geogia Line or the kind of music Rihanna was doing in 2010)

Tbh I don't really see that happening anymore than it usually has — whenever any artists/bands (even "indie" ones) receive relatively decent marketing via music press, featured playlists, charts, et. al, there are always going to be a handful sounds that form stylistic circles/create trends in genres. (For example, the "post-punk" wave in indie rock that started gaining traction at the start of last decade, and is still going on now.)

But for every artist/band that gets promoted through music blogs/reviews, featured streaming playlists/recommendations, etc... there's a hundred that don't get that exposure, and a good chunk of those are doing their own different things.

Just like in the late-70s and 80s, when New Wave was married with Synthpop and those styles could be heard in what seemed like everything that came out at the time (it's still basically considered what the 80s as a whole sounded like). But you know as well as I do that there was really dozens upon dozens of sounds that had nothing to do with New Wave/Synth happening alongside it at the time, they just aren't as commonly remembered/discussed.

But im not really sure i understand your "2010 FGL–Rihanna" reference. Isn't the widespread use of pop-edm and chart style standards an of a homogenous sound across genres? Maybe im reading that part of your post wrong haha it confuses me.

Yeah I meant moreso around that late 2000s/ early 2010s kinda wave where you saw tons of artists across all genres (Coldplay, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Flo-Rida, Kanye, Wayne, etc.) all start to use that pop-edm sound to blend with their respective styles.

I think moreso now artists dont really look to incorporate pop trends like that anymore. Rap has got its own homogenized sound that most rappers just stick to and get popular off of. Pop artists still do some blends (certainly with hip hop/r&b at times) but for the most part its still a viable strategy for many pop stars to just stick to a typical top 40 sound. Even Coldplay for all their pop-edm stuff they were doing in the early 2010s, were cool with going back to their more traditional sound again for their latest release. So I think moreso now we are seeing artists from their genres look to stick to the roots of their genre moreso than before when everyone would look to take the trendy sound in pop and add it to their style.

The great albums are easily digestible in one sitting.

Im.not listening to an album.for an hour and a half.

I got s*** to.do.

For those with nothing better going on in their lives, have at it lol