In season five of “Mad Men,” an AMC drama set in the 1960s, there’s a scene where Don Draper — a sexy, suit-wearing ad executive, as portrayed by Jon Hamm — is given a copy of the Beatles’ “Revolver” record. In his sprawling living room overlooking the Manhattan skyline, he puts the record on the player, turns up the stereo and sits in an armchair. The trippy opening bars of “Tomorrow Never Knows” play over the speakers as Draper sips a glass of scotch and listens.
To viewers in 2013, it’s a snapshot of a time when sitting down and listening to a record was an experience that engaged all the senses. You sat in your living room, you poured a drink and you listened to an album.
When the Beatles wrote “Revolver,” they weren’t attempting to effect cultural change or produce hits. Lennon, McCartney and the producers were experimenting with new sounds and an Indian influence. While we’re not condoning heavy drug use — LSD was instrumental in the song-writing process for the album — the Beatles weren’t operating under pressure from the record label to churn out a stream of No. 1 iTunes songs.
These days, the art of crafting an album has been overshadowed by the music industry’s thirst for hits.
This week, The New Yorker published a profile of Lukasz Gottwald, a 40-year-old white guy responsible for co-writing and co-producing more than 30 top-10 singles since 2004 — including Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” and Katy Perry’s “Roar.”
According to the profile, New Yorker writer John Seabrook spoke to Gottwald about his technique for producing No. 1 songs.
“(Gottwald said) ‘It’s a combination of artists, producers, top-liners, beatmakers, melody people, vibe people.’ Vibe people ‘know how to make a song happen, understand energy, and where music is going, even if they can’t play a chord or sing a note.’”
The album business has collapsed, Seabrook wrote, with album sales falling to a record low over the summer.
While this isn’t bad news for established bands — if Radiohead, for example, produced a new album and uploaded it to iTunes tomorrow, it would undoubtedly sell big — the death of the album is bad news for up-and-comers. Now, the secret to musical success for new bands lies in music publishing, or landing a song in a commercial, TV show or movie.
Luckily, the resurgence of independent record stores’ popularity gives us hope for the fate of the album as an institution. Listeners can do their part by supporting local music stores — for example, Hear Again Music and Movies and Arrow’s Aim Records in Gainesville.
After all, wouldn’t you rather support an indie band rather than a middle-aged white guy who goes by the moniker “Dr. Luke”?
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 10/8/2013 under the headline "Death of the album: Science of hitmaking is ruining the industry"
