response 27 of 87:

Oct 10 22:23 UTC 2006

Do not take the brown acid, I repeat, do not take the brown acid.

response 29 of 87:

Oct 10 23:52 UTC 2006

Richard is either a closet conservative or a DEVO fan.

response 31 of 87:

Oct 11 17:58 UTC 2006

Actually the proper thing to be eating while staring at an album cover 
and listening to the record is brownies  :)  

Truth is, if you study the history of popular music, the advent of the 
album heralded a glory time for the genre.  For decades, the artists 
didn't write the songs, the songs were written down on TinPan Alley 
(where all the music offices used to be located, here in NYC near 
Chelsea)  The songs were released one at a time, they had to be a 
certain length and no longer and they were kept simple.  Elvis sang 
three minute songs and he didn't write any of them.  He performed what 
he was told to perform. It wasn't until the advent of the album that 
artists started to really break out and expand the genre.  A great 
album is like a book, you listen to it from beginning to end and it 
tells a story.  A collection of singles from the Rolling Stones doesn't 
have the same impact as a great, cohesive album like Exile On Main 
Street-- which is as a whole greater than the individual songs on it.  
Bob Dylan did "Like A Rolling Stone" as a six minute plus song.  In the 
singles era, he'd never have gotten away with that.  You didn't do six 
minute singles.  A song that long only gets recorded when its going on 
an album.  You'd never have seen The Who do "Tommy" in the singles era, 
what, you're going to do a rock opera on a stack of 45's?

I mourn the closing of Tower because it was one of the last big places 
that showcased albums.  It went down because people of younger 
generations don't have the patience for albums anymore.  They don't 
want the entire Mona Lisa painting, they just want the smile in the 
middle of it.  Listening to a song outside the context of the album is 
like reading the reader's digest version of a novel.  Music as art 
suffers when you do this.

response 33 of 87:

Oct 11 18:19 UTC 2006

I agree that the decline in the quality of albums in the last ten years 
played a significant role in what has happened. Some studios started 
realizing that if many people bought albums just for one or two songs, 
that as long as those songs are recorded, why should they pay for the 
artist to take months or years to come up with the rest of the songs 
that would make an album.  Artists are under pressure to get the 
product out now, studios won't give them the time to do their best work 
anymore.  As a result you see songs placed on albums to fill them out 
that were recorded out of context and have nothing to do with each 
other.  Its as if a publisher didn't want to wait for an author to 
write a whole book, so he takes the two great chapters he has done, and 
takes this chapter and that chapter from other books the author's been 
working on, lumps them all together and calls it a "novel", when its 
actually just a mismash of odds and ends that don't fit together into 
an overrall arc.  In the neverending quest to make money, these studios 
sell out the artists. 

response 35 of 87:

Oct 11 18:22 UTC 2006

Not every album is a concept album.

response 37 of 87:

Oct 11 18:30 UTC 2006

What's wrong with Justin Timberlake? His music is so much better than the
boyband's he was in

response 39 of 87:

Oct 11 19:46 UTC 2006

Viseo killed the radio star, then went on to kill the video star and the album
(video, that is) as well.

response 41 of 87:

Oct 11 20:32 UTC 2006

Oooh - what a *great* album.

response 43 of 87:

Oct 11 22:56 UTC 2006

Re: #41. Yes it is!

response 45 of 87:

Oct 12 16:09 UTC 2006

Listen to the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" all the way through and tell me 
if the songs don't mean more collectively than they do individually...

response 47 of 87:

Oct 12 20:28 UTC 2006

Pet Sounds was stupid.  If it was so profound at the time then the Rolling
Stones never would have become the legend that they are.  I also think Dylan's
departure from social commentary lyrics contributed to the Beach Boys
mayonaisse being somewhat a "safe" place for young Kresge shoppers to get
their records without pissing off their parents.
Give me Mahogany Rush and MC5 and I'll show you collective ingenuity.

response 49 of 87:

Oct 12 20:41 UTC 2006

re #48
Yea, I had to listen to the stupid album for a Rock and Roll History class
at South Seattle Community College.  Frankly, I was not impressed.  It would
take a bit of work to convince me the Wilsons with their perfectionist father
were more talented than the Funk Brothers of Motown or the Wall of Sound music
that came out of Harlem.

response 51 of 87:

Oct 12 21:36 UTC 2006

The lyrics were drawn from where? The Hardy Boys books?