Ok, wasn't sure how to word this thread so it made sense, but it ocurred to me that when the switch was made from vinyl to cd, what did that do for song placement (if anything) and how and album "flows". Traditionally you'd have to have a strong opener for side #2 of a "record" but with cds, said track might be #5 or #6. what do you all think, did cds alter the way artists placed their songs in the context of an album?

They really didn't have a problem in the mid to late 1980s with it because even though CDs existed, the majority of people still bought vinyl or cassettes because the CD players were too expensive for everyone to afford, not to mention the CDs themselves costed more than the vinyl or cassettes. Even though CDs existed, artists during this time were still making their albums to fit onto a vinyl format.

I noticed when CDs finally did take completely over vinyl in the early 1990s, that the artists started recording more to suit the format of the CD which was one sided all the way through rather than two sided like vinyl was. They just simply started putting more tracks on the album to fill up the CD. They had 80 minutes to work with rather than just 45 minutes like they previously had. They didn't have to switch a mood either because there was no halfway point to flip an album over.

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[Edited 10/15/10 14:31pm]

datdude said:

Ok, wasn't sure how to word this thread so it made sense, but it ocurred to me that when the switch was made from vinyl to cd, what did that do for song placement (if anything) and how and album "flows". Traditionally you'd have to have a strong opener for side #2 of a "record" but with cds, said track might be #5 or #6. what do you all think, did cds alter the way artists placed their songs in the context of an album?

excellent question because i never thought of that, CDS did however run the idea of the album, and not meaning Vinyl just the overall concept of it. CDS forced artists to fill the thing up, example would be almost every hiphop rb album in the 90s and some pop/rock too, it filled records with bsides and skits and comments that should have been left on the cutting room floor, but since people complained about prices the labels thought compensation was a full 80 minute cd, not!

To me in the cd age there havent been any solid albums start to finish that were that long, i mean its hard to go back and pull out a 21 track 80 minute thing and listen to it straight through, i mean back in 1980 as a child i listened to "Glass Houses" by Billy Joel about 3 times a day that whole year, it was about a 35 minute album, 10 tracks, pure perfection, never tired, had it been 80 minutes with 20 tracks, no way. But for your question i think its totally true, many times the single, current one, would kick off the album, now that didnt start with cds, but it was like religion with them, and sometimes with cds, you got hit with the whole "solid" part from track 1-4 then 5-17 was nonsense.

It's very common with a lot of the electronic music I buy for songs to be in a different order on the CD vs the vinyl. It's also common for there to be songs left off of a single vinyl release, or songs added to a double vinyl release of a single CD. There's still a good number of improvised/free jazz/new music releases that this happens with as well.

vainandy said:

They really didn't have a problem in the mid to late 1980s with it because even though CDs existed, the majority of people still bought vinyl or cassettes because the CD players were too expensive for everyone to afford, not to mention the CDs themselves costed more than the vinyl or cassettes. Even though CDs existed, artists during this time were still making their albums to fit onto a vinyl format.

I noticed when CDs finally did take completely over vinyl in the early 1990s, that the artists started recording more to suit the format of the CD which was one sided all the way through rather than two sided like vinyl was. They just simply started putting more tracks on the album to fill up the CD. They had 80 minutes to work with rather than just 45 minutes like they previously had. They didn't have to switch a mood either because there was no halfway point to flip an album over.

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[Edited 10/15/10 14:31pm]

Which can somehow mess up a good cd

I think the album format was better..

It makes the artist put out their best stuff, whereas cd's can have too many fillers

The cd format worked great for compilations and box sets. You can fill that sh*t up.

But new albums really struggle with the 18 song 70+ minute format.

We don't listen to albums now; we listen to collections of songs.

I often notice with vinyl pop albums from "Thriller" onwards that the first track on side 2 was usually uptempo (and ditto for side 1 track 1 but that was usually released as a single).

As for CD's? As vainandy has said, they put more tracks on them to fill them up but also suffered (or gained in a few peoples eyes) from some tracks being too long. They would extend them to 5 or 6 minutes when it wasn't really neccessary to do so. Albums that somewhat suffer from this are Michael Jacksons "Dangerous", Paula Abduls "Spellbound", Daryl Halls "Soul Alone", Bobby Browns "Bobby", Hammers "too legit to quit"....this "extending songs format" only lasted a year or so though really and only seemed to effect pop stars and not so much rnb/rock ones. Sometimes I like the fact they extended them, but it annoys me at times aswell.

But to answer the original question. No I don't think the CD format changed the way songs were placed when compared to vinyl. Minor things like we have discussed were changed, but not really song placement as such. At least, not from what I have seen.

I have a bunch of 8-tracks, and in a lot of cases, the songs are in a different order than the record. That was to fit the songs on each program (4 of them). On prerecorded 8-tracks, sometimes a song would fade out in the middle of a song and then fade back in once it switched to the next program. Occasionally cassettes had a different order than the record too, but in general they were identical to the record.