Posts tagged Downloads

The prog-rock band’s court win against their record label is a vindication of the album as a creative format

They don’t often look cheery in photos – and at least two of them can barely stand to be in the same room – but Pink Floyd have a lot to celebrate. The prog-rock legends won a pivotal victory against record company EMI over the sale of their own music. Basically, EMI wanted to make their classic concept albums available to download as individual songs. The band, however, prefer their albums to be downloaded as they were made: in their entirety, as complete musical works. And the judge agreed with Floyd.

At first glance, their motivation seems a little pretentious, recalling a time when supergroups like Led Zeppelin only released albums because they were serious artists and above all that pop stuff, man. However, Floyd’s victory is more than just musical snobbery: it’s a triumph for artistic integrity.

Michelangelo wouldn’t have wanted his Sistine Chapel ceiling to be chiselled into bits and flogged to individual buyers, so why should the same fate happen to Floyd’s painstakingly crafted The Dark Side of the Moon? Floyd’s most famous album appeared in 1973, when “long-playing records” appeared on vinyl. Back then, unless acts released tracks as singles, the only way of hearing individual tracks alone was to fiddle with the needle or hold a microphone in front of the stereo – a popular pastime among 70s teens – and record Roger Waters and co, perhaps accompanied by the sound of the family dog barking at the postman. 

Downloading has changed everything. Now we can dip into albums, taking a little bit here and there. It’s a wonderful way of experiencing music, especially music you have never heard before, without having to fork out on an LP. However, the downside has been the slow death of the album as a creative form. 

In recent years, the art of releasing a collection of songs that flow perfectly and make sense as a complete statement has faced a double onslaught. The digital era meant bands were suddenly having to come up with more and often inferior tracks just to pad out the longer CD format. But downloading has had a greater impact. The likes of Radiohead still take great care to release crafted albums, but often bands don’t really record albums any more. They record collections of downloadable tracks.
 
The upside of this is that many albums tend to have less filler; gone are the days of “frontloaded” LPs where a couple of hit singles at the start are followed by a lot of mush. Now, every track has to be good enough to be potentially downloaded. However, where would this approach would have left some of the greatest albums ever made? Would David Bowie’s opus The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars had anything like the same impact if people were able to dip in and out, experiencing the Ziggy character’s rise but avoiding his ultimate fate as a Rock ‘N’ Roll suicide? Granted, many concept albums are ludicrous prog-rock conceits. But it’s equally unthinkable to imagine hearing a non-concept masterpiece like Joy Division’s Closer in bite-sized chunks, rather than experiencing the full, unfolding horror/triumph of the second side’s stunning four-song sequence. 

Joy Division (and, for years, New Order) refused to release album tracks as singles, treating albums and singles as separate entities, a stance recently adopted by MGMT. If you want to hear Pink Floyd tracks as standalones, download the songs they released as singles, like 1967’s psychedelic cross-dressing anthem Arnold Layne (also on compilations like Relics) or 1979’s teacher-baiting Another Brick in the Wall. Or download albums like Wish You Were Here and Meddle to hear as the creators intended. The marketing men might not approve, but it will be good for music and, more importantly, the fate of the album.