The album, The National and the EP
I was on the plane listening to Alligator by The National. They are unquestionably a quality band. Interesting songs. Interesting arrangements. Thoughtful dark lyrics. They are good. Period.
But after listening for awhile and spacing out for a bit I tuned back in. It felt like I’d been working through these songs for a good amount of time. Some of the arrangements and the sounds and the singer’s intonation tend to run together a little bit so I wasn’t sure exactly where I was on the record but I figured I must have been somewhere around the eighth song. Nearing the end. I’d had a good run with these guys. I was ready for a couple more songs where they’d close it out nicely. And I looked down at my iPod and it was the fifth song and there are 13 on the record and I became a little frustrated.
I am no longer convinced that an album should be the standard of expression for a body of recorded music. This is not new news. Everybody’s talking about the return to the 45 days when a single song ruled the airwaves. When the default format for the distribution of a sound was through a three minute song. That’s true of course.
But I’m not talking about efficiencies and economies of scale around distribution. Although I do recognize that physical and technical limitations are almost ALWAYS the guiding parameters against which artistic constraints are imposed.
And I’m not talking about what the masses are interested in digesting. I understand that casual music fans want songs and always have.
What I mean is that regardless of technical considerations. Irrespective of the whims of the fickle many. Regardless of the existence of iTunes and the ability to download a song more easily than an album. I just don’t think albums are that interesting anymore.
13 songs is too many songs. Am I intended to ingest and digest this in one sitting? Because I don’t have the patience. I’m sorry. There are hardly any artists where I can sit and intake 13 3, 4 and 5 minutes songs at one time. I lose focus on the arrangements. The songs themselves, inevitably, are not good enough to warrant such lengthy inclusion. They blur together. And ultimately, I give the second half of the album short shrift. And I then feel both guilty and annoyed because I’m doing a disservice to the artist whilst I concurrently resent the obligation that the artist has imposed by creating the work in the first place.
I say to the world, let us edit. Let us still create cohesive works of art. Let us create movement. But let us further explore the concept of the EP. Let us celebrate the EP. Let us say what we need to say in under 30 minutes. Let us make a short powerful statement of 4-7 songs the de facto package around which and through we distribute our sound and our music.
Here is why I love a good EP.
1. They are digestible. You can, in one sitting, embrace the entirety of a musical statement.
2. They are powerful. A short forceful expression, falling shy of 30 minutes but possibly encompassing as little as 13 to 15 minutes, means that you’re obligated to be focused and concise.
3. They allow for artistic malleability. You can wear a costume for 4 songs in a way that you can’t for 13. If you try on a genre or a style for 13 songs, that’s your sound. If you try a genre for 4-5 songs, that’s an experiment. You can side step rote genre characterization and stereotyping.
4. They are cheaper. That means you can do more of them. If they’re embraced by the music community, including most notably the press, the defining expression for an artistic work becomes more accessible to a broader segment of musicians, many of whom can afford a short statement but don’t have the resources for a full blown album.
Taking my own advice, I put out a digital EP earlier this year focused on a Leonard Cohen-esque musical style and detailing a painful period in my life. But I also have plans and songs written for a ‘space country’ EP about the revolutionary war and a Peter Bjorn and John-style beat oriented rock EP based on the John Updike book ‘Rabbit Redux’. I like the options and the freedom that an EP provides.
All my grandstanding notwithstanding, I am focused on putting out a new album right now. But, in my defense, these are short concise statements and songs, mostly under 3 minutes actually, and there are only 10 of them. So my focus on brevity and articulation still stands.
Let’s get articulate. Let’s not bore anyone. Let’s make the EP the new LP and let the world, and music fans, thank us.
