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neil (spatialize)

Is the album dead?

  

16 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you like EPs

    • Yes
      11
    • No
      5
  2. 2. Would you prefer 3 EP (more regular) or 1 album (longer to wait)

    • i prefer 3 EPs
      0
    • i prefer album (even if i have to wait longer)
      9
    • doesn't really matter (it is up to artist to choose)
      7


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Just noticed that Bluetech is apparently lining up 4 Ep's.

 

What do people think about this approach? 

 

Is it nice to have a drip feed of music (3 tracks at a time) or would people rather wait for an album?  Does it reflect people's attention spans these days or are artists doing it just so that they have something to promote on facebook? (it makes you look busy and the bandcamp discography looks more full).

 

Certainly as an artist I like the idea of writing a few tracks and releasing them in a small packet.  Keeps things feeling fresh.  Albums can take a long time and once you've heard a particular track X amount of times over a few years you start to lose excitement for it.

 

I could probably put out a couple of EP's next week if I wanted to but had always been saving the tracks up for an album (to the extent of turning down some requests for compilation tracks).

 

Perhaps that approach is a little out of date?

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i really like approach of EP. The sound of EP is more consistent then an album.  

However let's not forgot that people pay more attention to album :) it is historical i believe.

I personally pay more attention to album then to EP (just realised that, but it can evolve).

 

i think albums are good when :

- you have "many things to say"

- when you have a concept and EP is too small

- when you want to release on CD (or you want people to record it on CD-R)

- you want to make 1 promo campaign (and not several ones as would be necessary to 3 EPs)

 

Releasing EP has advantage of:

- faster

- maybe better sales, as price is lower 

- you can make more communication (you can promote each of EP separately)

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50 minutes is long enough for an album. I think anything much over that length has a negative impact on the album.

 

 

take me for example, people are just getting to know my music (4 previous albums) and maybe a few Ep's now would help the name get around the web a bit more and perhaps help to get some more gigs.

 

Or do multiple EP releases just feed into the modern day phenomena of there being just too much information out there?

 

if I did a few EP's, in conseqence it would be a good few years until another full length album would be ready....and that would feel like a pity.

 

Or is that just old thinking?

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nowadays we can see at bandcamp EP with a pair of 3 minute tracks -- it very dissapointed me

If you can create 1 awesome album / 2 years - it will be best I think

If you can't, than make 1-2 great EP / 1 year, but without even one released album it will be not very serious for music lovers

 

If we are speaking about getting money by music sells, I think in underground music market you can't make really good money, you can do it only by sets at festivals and clubs.

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I like both but like Gagarin for some reason I tend to focus more on full-length albums, maybe even take them a bit more seriously. Spatialize, if you feel you'd rather put out a full-length album with a long story than several autonomous EPs, which might feel a bit unfinished to you, I reckon you should go for the LP. Otherwise it doesn't really matter, as long as you alone are pleased with the final result. I'm assuming you're a realist and don't expect to make any serious money from releasing psychedelic downtempo, like arakoon said.

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EP's will never reach the heights an album can. Psybient is one of the few electronic genres that works perfectly with whole albums as it has the room to express itself with so many influences of sounds and multi-genre crossovers. How many times I have picked up an album from an unknown artist and said to myself 'Wow! I have never heard anything like this before!', its just countless. The creative freedom is massive, this is why I love the genre so much. When given 12 or so tracks to work an idea/concept it can be become monumental/iconic/ground-breaking. 

EP's are still brilliant and yeah I think because of our attention spans it became more of a norm... or maybe better described as constant hunger for new sounds? Either way seems to be better for keeping artist exposure up, and maybe you will get more festivals/gigs

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I like both but like Gagarin for some reason I tend to focus more on full-length albums, maybe even take them a bit more seriously. Spatialize, if you feel you'd rather put out a full-length album with a long story than several autonomous EPs, which might feel a bit unfinished to you, I reckon you should go for the LP. Otherwise it doesn't really matter, as long as you alone are pleased with the final result. I'm assuming you're a realist and don't expect to make any serious money from releasing psychedelic downtempo, like arakoon said.

You assume correctly.

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Well, it would be very surprising if it went the other way around, right? What I mean is, well, most if not all of us here come from the age of vinyl/cd listening. We fell in love with music in the golden age of LP so it is nigh on impossible to admire an EP the same way. Most of us would probably agree on the higher artistic value of the complete physical product as well (artwork, photography, case, story) in comparison with a soulless (but practical) folder filled with flac/mp3 files.

 

It is a combination of age and sub-genre culture that determines this preference. I doubt it is objective in any way. Would it be impossible to develop a coherent story in 30 minutes instead of 60? Of course not! To turn things around, the mere idea that an album should be conceived as an hour-long journey must seem formulaic, rigid and perhaps a bit nonsensical to younger listeners. Listeners that are now accustomed to mixing and matching tracks into theme-playlists shared around (much like cassettes from the 90s!).

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I will admit I prefer full albums over ep's.

 

But I have no clue which brings more dollars into producers pockets. I realize our genre has little in the way of money making but perhaps something is changing as spatialize suggests.

 

Take the top two labels...Altar and Ultimae. Altar is strickly albums but Ultimae seems to be going the ep route of late.

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I'd prefer to wait for an album. It makes it much more special when it finally gets released, and it avoids overwhelming your fans with too many releases. Take Kuba for example, one of my favorite artists but he has put out so many releases in the recent past that I can't help but lose interest a little if not enough time has passed since the last release.

 

It's a strange thing, but the timing of when to release music is important imo, it can't be too slow but it can't be too fast either. Another example was last year Abakus released 6 albums from his archives at one time and it was just too much to digest all at once.

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I can't help but lose interest a little if not enough time has passed since the last release.

Very important point. For a personal example, despite the relative diversity of recent Koan releases, they've simply been way too many too soon for me to digest properly. I don't think it's a good idea to exceed three releases in the space of a year. Sure there are exceptions, but I tend to feel bombarded by too much input if an artist puts out more than that in that time frame.

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A full album for me, i have nothing against EPs, but i rather wait for an artist to release a full album then a bunch of EPs...alot of times it's just makes me wish for more, 3 or 4 tracks just don't cut it. And i sometimes feel some Eps are made of "leftover" tracks, like these couple of tracks don't fit in the album so i'm just going to release them on an EP kind of thing...but i like artists who release an EP as their "debut" album, i think it's a nice way to get into a new artist easilly than having to sit through a full lenght project...and like some of you have said, releasing way too many albums in a short amount of time it's not a good idea either, take "Buckethead" for example, one of my favourite guitar players, but the dude has over 250 albums released and i just can't keep up so i just end up not giving some of them a chance...

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Very important point. For a personal example, despite the relative diversity of recent Koan releases, they've simply been way too many too soon for me to digest properly. I don't think it's a good idea to exceed three releases in the space of a year. Sure there are exceptions, but I tend to feel bombarded by too much input if an artist puts out more than that in that time frame.

 

They closed their trance project Vacuum Stalkers, and they don't play sets on russian festivals/clubs, so they have got more time to create music

But I agree with you, they made too much remixes and released them.

I will say it to them, Vova is my friend.

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And i sometimes feel some Eps are made of "leftover" tracks, like these couple of tracks don't fit in the album so i'm just going to release them on an EP kind of thing...

 

This is where compilations should come in. If an artist has extra tracks, offer them to all the VA's out there...that may not bring in dollars for the producer but it certainly supports the genre, in my opinion.

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definitely appears that the album is King around here. 

 

On a thread on another forum recently there was a guy asking whether he should release 2 or 3 tracks per week to keep his fans happy. :o  He obviously believed that this was a fairly normal ratio and that quantity was king (how you maintain any sort of quality control releasing that volume of music I don't know).

 

I can only think that artists / labels are using shorter releases to maintain a facebook prescence.  Maybe it works if you want to play that game continually but it doesn;t look like it's fooling anyone here.  But then again these forums are usually for the smart, engaged music listener.  Who knows what the wider public think?

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Spatialize,

Électronic dance Music is différent :)

Is All about tracks :)

 

Also from my favorite artists, anything they release is good : track, single, ep, album. Tracks are harder to follow

throught.

 

As for business side, i am easier to buy a 3 eu ep over 10 eu album. :)

 

Timeisart,

Totally agrée that Kuba overdid with EPs in 2015 , it was very hard to follow.

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They closed their trance project Vacuum Stalkers, and they don't play sets on russian festivals/clubs, so they have got more time to create music

But I agree with you, they made too much remixes and released them.

I will say it to them, Vova is my friend.

 

I feel the same way if i'm honest... I got introduced to When The Silence Is Speaking about 3 years a go, which just blew me away, truly awesome record. Since then I have no idea whats going on with thier releases. I follow them on facebook and it (feels like) a new release every week, I cant keep up, very hard to digest whats going on. It kinda killed the buzz for me too, because when I see sooooo many albums released very quickly it causes it to loose its charm/appeal.

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The problem of timing is, as mentioned before in the thread, probably the most important thing addressed yet. I, too, lose interest if artists just spew out new tracks all the time (with very few exceptions, Ishq being one them).

That said, I also prefer the album format over EPs, though I'm not one to shy away if the EP in question is of high quality. As a general rule I think more thought and deliberation is put into an album. It's easier to create fascinating and coherent journey over 10 tracks than over four. It's simply not enough to tell a full story.

Not having written either EP or album this is of course only based on assumptions and observations :) 

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