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May 12, 2003

“The A&R man said ‘I don’t hear a single’
                                           -Tom Petty

Which of the following heinous crimes are you guilty of? Serial killer? Extortionist?  Downloader of mp3s?

Well, I readily admit to falling into one of those above categories. And here’s a hint: it’s not serial killer or extortionist. (You can breathe a sigh of relief now).

Yes, I, like most people I know, have thousands of mp3s on my computer.  Many were ripped from legitimately-owned CDs, but most were downloaded over time from sources such as Napster (in its day), Morpheus, and my current favourite, WinMX.  I tend to listen to them on my computer most of the time, but I’ve also burned my fair share of CDs and mix compilations to take with me. The mix CD has long replaced the mix tape as the staple of my collection of current favourites.

There are opponents to the practice of obtaining music for free instead of buying it in the stores.  The record labels and many artists are, of course, peeved.  This isn’t news.  It’s an old issue.

But in today’s Gazette, an editorial by Bernard Perusse makes a case against downloading mp3s.  He doesn’t use the standard lines about it being theft of intellectual property, or hurting the artists or the business. He acknowledges that those arguments, for the most part, are met with indifferent shrugs.

Instead, he claims he will never download mp3s because songs are meant to be appreciated in the context of the album, and not as lone singles:

But I don't use Kazaa or Grokster. Never will. And I have no plans to get any legal songs through Music Store or whatever equivalent we end up with in Canada, either.

That's because I grew up believing that the rock n' roll album is a full statement. I was 12 when I brought home the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - the first LP I remember that seemed a wondrous package: the photos, the lyrics, the artwork, even the label were integral to the presentation. That was 1967, so if you do the math, I'm squarely in old-geezer territory now - but I still apply the same stubborn hard line to current groups like the White Stripes, the Strokes and Radiohead.

The order of the songs was - and is - crucial. For me, it's the artist's job - not mine - to sequence the songs in the most effective manner. Would A Day In the Life have been such a jaw-dropper anywhere but at the end of Sergeant Pepper's?

Very idealistic, but also very wrong.

Are some albums complete works of art in themselves that are meant to be appreciated that way? Sure.  But most aren’t.  The truth of the matter is, there are very few albums out there like Sgt. Pepper.  For every Tommy or The Wall, there are thousands of albums that don’t have any kind of flow, context, or complete package to them; they’re merely a collection of singles.

And this is more true today than ever. I’d be hard-pressed to name any in the last decade.  August and Everything After and The Joshua Tree are two albums that are pretty close to perfect. But even those are respectively ten and sixteen years old! In the last 5 years, there was Spiritual Machines, which, despite being a fantastic album, was a bit too contrived to count. OK Computer might count if it wasn’t so annoying. Maybe one or two others. But they’re few and far between.

So, if that’s the case, did mp3s kill the album? Not a chance! 

I was making mix tapes long before CD burners and even the Internet were household staples.  In fact, I was taping songs off the radio if I didn’t own them.

The radio, of course, is what killed the album by introducing the concept of the “single”. Songs hit or miss on their own, on the radio, sandwiched between songs of many other artists. Radio listeners don’t get the benefit of the “context” of an album to appreciate a song.  They either like it on its own, or they don’t.  If they do, the song tops the charts, and often the album soon follows.

Again, this is nothing new.  It’s as old as music itself.  Back in Bernard Perusse’s day, it was going on too.  Singles and B-sides were widely available in record stores to people unwilling to shell out the bucks for a full album. And this was in the vintage age of vinyl. 

In the grand scheme of things, it is the concept of the album, not the single, that is the anomoly. Don’t believe me?  Look at the Beatles’ bestselling album of all time: 1, a compilation of their #1 hits released almost 40 years after they first rose to fame. Is it the best Beatles’ album ever? Not even close.  But it doesn’t diminish the appreciation of the individual hit singles.

We are living in the age of the single, make no mistake. Maybe we always have been. So I think I’ll continue to download single mp3s, and yes, even set my playlist on random.  Because not all albums are works of art unto themselevs. Most are just collections of singles.  And that’s okay with me.