Then Vs. Now

Last night I dropped off the guitar at Long & McQuade. We’ll have to see the results to see if it’s worth spending $90 on.

Mike brought up a good point that you have to have a pretty nice (read: expensive) guitar to justify a $90 tune up. One would think you wouldn’t spend that on your $300 guitar. However, I must admit that the old Yamaha has a special place in my heart so maybe it will be the next guitar to get set up.

Today’s topic of conversation revolves around music. Fancy that.

What I would like to discuss are the differences between music releases in the 60s-70s and nowadays. Yes, I am purposely leaving out the 80s.

I am going through the Top 500 Rock Songs of all time and clearly, the majority of them stem from the late 60s – 70s period. I come across many songs by many of the same artists (like Zeppelin, Floyd, etc.) but I noticed a common trend.

Their albums pretty well came out one year after the other. It wasn’t uncommon to see an album come out in ’70, ’71, ’72. Whereas nowadays, I think the norm is every 2 years, give a few extra if you’re an old band who just want to tour every five years (or don’t have enough creative juices).

So, the question is, did they really release a heck of a lot more music for the masses back in the day?

Let’s take a look at the elements of a classic rock album vs. a new album. Mainly – track numbers.

It was very common to see around 8 tracks back in the day on an album, whereas I would think it’s common to see an average of 14 songs nowadays. That’s nearly double, but not quite.

For my thesis here, I will use Led Zeppelin as my classic rock example, and Our Lady Peace as my 90’s example. I will also use a five year span to develop the procedure which will demonstrate the song writing ability of these two bands.

Led Zeppelin I (1969) – 9 songs
Led Zeppelin II (1969 – note that these two albums were released in the SAME year!) – 9 songs
Led Zeppelin III (1970) – 10 songs
Led Zeppelin IV (1971) – 8 songs
House of the Holy (1973) – 8 songs
Total – 44 songs

Naveed (1994) – 11 songs
Clumsy (1997) – 11 songs
Happiness is Not A Fish You Can Catch (1999) – 11 songs
Total – 33 songs

Now, of course, my formula could be off severely. If you take the Smashing Pumpkins against Led Zeppelin, then we are looking at a total of 51 songs being released on albums during a five year period. That’s pretty impressive. Heck, that’s why I like them. Plus, can we say that Led Zeppelin may have been abnormal in that they could create a heck of a lot of songs compared to other bands at the time? Unsure.

On average, if I did a more thorough analysis we would find that there are more songs released by a band in the past than in the present.

Then we get into the whole debate about ‘quality vs. quantity’. I have heard the argument that back in the day, people just released whatever they came up with and some of it was lackluster (aka, not single worthy). So there’s a an argument that you can spend 2 years now and ween through the crap that you would release on album.

However, I disagree with this standpoint as there is still crap coming out on albums, so why don’t you just release everything you enjoy recording at the moment, and if 2 weeks down the line you hate it, so be it. At least you tried. Something tells me this is the point where I will hear from people who just enjoy the singles anyhow and prefer grabbing their favourite tracks off an album instead of listening to the album as a whole.

What am I getting at with my commentary? I want more music from my current artists. An album every year I say! Especially now with the Internet, there’s no reason to wait around until you have 12 songs available. Re-enter the land of singles and then release a few compilation albums every few years.

So my question to all of you is this – do you feel that there was a lot more music being produced in the past? How do you feel about waiting an average of 2 years to hear a new album (which, could be crap)?

This leads into my review of the new Finger Eleven album – Them Vs. You Vs. Me. While it has some alright tunes, it is a different direction. Think ‘One Thing’ but multiply it by 12 and you have their new album. What the heck lads? Disappointment ensues for this gent who has been waiting for a rocking album.

Plus, your album is 30 minutes long. Two years of waiting should at least produce 45 minutes of music.