The album vs the playlist
Before beginning this post, I want to say that this is not to pin the two mediums of music in the title against each other, but to analyze how society interacts with the two. To further clarify, my observation isn’t strictly about the traditional vinyl album, though it includes it. Rather, it focuses on the concept of releasing music in album format. Therefore, my topic also concerns playlists as a whole, not just user-curated playlists or algorithmically generated playlists.
To start, many have believed in today’s society that the album has essientially died out while playlists on streaming services have become the main source of listening to music. To play devil’s advocate would be a complete lie. This has led many artists to follow the trend of short-form content by releasing songs individually as a singler rather than creating a full album. While short-form has had an exponential growth within the last ten years of content making, the album is not dead in the water yet—it’s treading.
The album is the artist’s way of deeply expressing their emotions, identity, and story in many ways for listeners to interpret. On the other hand, the playlist is the listener’s way of deeply expressing their indentity and emotions towards different musicians’s music. In an essence, the album is the original playlist for listeners that is curated by the artists. With vinyl and cassettes, each side told their own stories. Although a listener can still select the song they want to hear off the album, it is easier with those mediums to let the music play through each side in full. After vinyls and casettes, CDs arrived that allowed individual selection of songs. By the early 2000’s, Apple released the online music store, iTunes.
That’s when the listener curated playlist began.
People could now easily switch between artists with ease, and create their own playlists. Along with this, the concept of “burning” CDs which allowed songs from iTunes to be transmitted to blank CDs. After iTunes came the iPod which made the listeners curated playlist grow exponentially. This included products such as the iPod Shuffle which I will discuss later. By the late 2000’s, the introduction to smarphones and the release of Spotify alonside its algorithmically generated playlists curated for the individual listener had led to the playlist taking the throne over society’s predominant choice of music listening habits.
The iPod Shuffle had an interesting duality between the album and the playlist that has translated into many people’s listening habits since. Songs on the device were normally downloaded from iTunes which still promoted common practice of buying albums as a whole. Regardless of the artist, many people will listen to multiple songs off of certain albums, and this was the case of the iPod Shuffle. When the iPod Shuffle was released in the mid-2000’s, one may find multiple songs from Green Day’s American Idiot or the Gorillaz big album Demon Days within their shuffled playlist. Most of my Spotify playlists contain multiple songs form multiple albums to create an expression of certain emotions or genres.
Spotify playlists are also algorithmically made at times to allow listeners to discover similar artists or B-sides of their favorite songs off of albums. Without the curated playlist Spotify makes, I may have never been a fan of B-list artists from the 90s such as Mudhoney or the Screaming Trees. I may have also never taken the time to listen to the B-side of multiple Bob Dylan albums. The release of albums allow listeners to further explore an artist's work, and is a timestamp for an artist in their life. While a short, three-minute single release could help algorithms work for an artist to gain traction, a quality album gives more content for listeners to here. Here are the benefits of both the album and the playlist:
The Album
The artist’s curated playlist
A portfolio of work for a given amount of time
In most cases, a combination of similar timbres and feelings.
Fans can listen to their desired artist at once.
Often tells a story
If explicit, clean versions are often made for radio play
Can set the mood
Set the tone, express certain emotions
The Playlist
A listener’s curated album (or double album, or triple)
Limitless amount of music
Rarely ever restrictions or guidelines
Work playlists are often censored
Multiple albums or artists.
Can set the mood as well
There is no right or wrong way to listen to music. There never has been. The entire world of music has been centered around creativity outside of the box, and this is not limited to an artist or a listener. I may listen to album sometimes, or I may listen to a playlist containing three songs from a certain album I like alonside other artists’ music. Either way, the album is not dead, it has just been repurposed in the way we as a society listen to music today.