BPI/ERA Insight Session for National Album Day

11 October 2018 - News

BPI's Geoff Taylor - opening remarks (lightly edited)
I’m delighted to welcome you all to this wonderful YouTube Space for the latest in our series of BPI/ERA Insight Sessions, which today is held in association with MIDiA Research.

These Sessions explore the impact that music and technology have on each other in shaping music discovery and consumption.

And with the first-ever National Album Day now just days away and this year marking 70 years of the vinyl LP, we thought it was a a good time to consider the role of the album in the changing tech landscape.

It may seem a little incongruous to be here at YouTube celebrating albums, since YouTube isn’t particularly known as an albums platform. But of course YouTube has recently launched YouTube Music and on that platform albums take their place alongside playlists, videos and live performances as one of the key ways in which music is presented to the consumer.

As we celebrate the fantastic contribution the album has made to the enjoyment of music, we often get asked, what does the album mean when fans can listen online instantly to any track that they want? Indeed, some commentators have been quick to consign the album to the Great Format Graveyard in the Sky alongside the 8-track and the Laserdisc. But that point of view misses that the album is not a fixed, physical thing - it’s an idea, a concept that is used both by artists and fans to provide a richer experience of music and that as such it evolves over time in response to changing technology.

So while the album has lots of important attributes in the physical world that give it value - including artwork, lyrics, collectability - more fundamentally the album is a canvas that the artist can use to tell a story or communicate an idea that is deeper and more complex than can realised in a single song; and it’s a format that is valued by fans as a way to capture the artist, and the artist’s work, in their journey through time.

When looked at in this light, there is a lot of flexibility for the album to be redefined in the streaming era. Potentially an album could be serialised on a streaming platform in the way that Charles Dickens use to publish his great novels – sequentially, as chapters to be appreciated individually, but forming part of a work that is richer and more meaningful when considered as a whole.

The notion that an album evolves through time, when combined with the on-demand nature of digital platforms, raises the intriguing possibility that the elements of an album are not fixed, but can be added to/remixed by the artist so that the album becomes an ever-changing, organic body of work.  

Kanye West’s Life of Pablo was first published on a streaming service (Tidal) ahead its physical release and since then Ye has made a series of changes to the track listing, calling it “living art”. If this is good enough for Kanye, we may see more artists adopting this approach in future.

This conversation doesn’t diminish in any way the increasing relevance of playlists in the streaming environment. These allow users and services to create their own narratives and moods, compiling the music of multiple artists into new combinations that bring new context and meaning.

This democratisation of the compilation LP is arguably pushing the album into new frontiers, aiding discovery and encouraging more fans to engage actively in sharing music, while accommodating those who want a “lean-back”, radio-like experience.

Yet for some fans this “snacking experience”, mixing tracks from multiple artists, may not satisfy their desire to go beyond just enjoying some music, and to connect deeply with the identity and message of the artists that they love.

For such fans, the album is an essential prism through which to see the different tones of colour that in an artist’s palette, and to experience the light and shade that give a true picture of the artist.

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ERA's Kim Bayley - closing comments (lightly edited)
•ERA represents not just every significant physical retailer of music in the UK, but virtually every streaming service as well
•The questions we have heard raised about the role of the album have primarily been caused by our members and the services they have developed. I don’t need to apologise for that as it’s these new services that offer so much opportunity for everyone
•We have heard a wide range of views from across the industry today, and I’d like you to give a big round of applause to thank all our speakers today.  I’d also like to especially thank YouTube for hosting us. A special thanks also have to go to Gennaro at the BPI and Megan at ERA who have worked tirelessly on National Album Day itself.
•There are two voices, however, I think we should pay particular attention to as we approach this weekend’s National Album Day
•Firstly we need to listen to our customers, the music fans
•As we heard earlier, music fans still love albums
•For all the talk about the importance of tracks, a  majority of teenagers are still listening to albums on a weekly basis
•The other voice is the voice of the artist