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IN PRAISE OF THE THREE-MINUTE DITTY

In response to my post about Radiohead's decision to concentrate on crafting singles over albums ("An epitaph for the album?"), Brett McCallon, our online gaming columnist, e-mailed the following rebuttal:

Ok, you have a point about the value of long-playing musical formats, but you have to consider that the basic unit of popular music is the 3-4 minute song. Always has been.  Also, keep in mind the paltry number of albums that have come out in the post-Napster era that are truly *designed* to be considered as a singular, thematic whole. Even Radiohead has moved away from that idea with their last couple of albums ("Thief" and "In Rainbows").  Whereas discs like "OK" and "Kid A" were truly thematically unified, their latter-day output is considerably less so.

I also feel there are very few albums worthy of the full, no-skip album listening treatment, even among my favorites and acknowledged classics. "Sergeant Peppers"--tell me you don't skip "Within You Without You"; hell, even "OK Computer" has "Fitter, Happier", and "Kid A" has "Treefingers", neither of which demand a listen every time you make your way through the tracklist. Or to take another tack: Does listening to classic hip-hop albums require listening to each and every interstitial skit, every time? Really?

Also, recall that some of the greatest artists of the rock era have been singles artists. Especially soul and R&B. I think the album is a format that has its place, has been much abused, and is falling in a darwinian struggle for survival right now.  Simply put, there's more good (and bad) music than ever before being released right now. Focusing on the best that each artist has to offer, even if that means selectively skipping around albums, or even (horrors) downloading only one or two tracks, that's just the way things are. And in many ways, I think it might be better.

Fair enough (harumph). Now would be a good time for readers to submit examples of stellar albums that have been released in the last decade or so. What do you listen to all the way through on your Victrola? (Alas, perhaps such folks aren't the type to read blogs.)

~ EMILY BOBROW