Gunsnhalen said:

Timmy84 said:

It's likely the consumers have a presumption that whatever Katy and LMFAO put out, everything else is filler so they barely buy the albums making them singles acts whereas others rely more on albums and you see the response to those. That has always been that way. The Beatles and the like spoiled it for everyone else.

Makes sense!, i think that is probably one of the biggest thing's is they put on all these tracks on these damna lbums

Think of like George Michaels Faith, Purple Rain, The Stranger by Billy Joel etc. All those albums are some of the best selling of all time. And only 9 tracks short, sweet & to the point. Now there is like 13, 14, 15 tracks & bonus tracks

I think the main problem with that is that the songs are so short. Nowadays a long song is 4 and a half minutes. So in order to make a full album they make tons of short songs.

I think there was a wave in the music of the last decade to recover some 70's but mainly 60's soul music aesthetics, great vocal interpretations, big voices, big ballads, misty moods, unplugged instruments, organs, brass section.

There were Amy Winehouse, Duffy (I'm sure I'm forgetting some others). If you comprise a bit, must also be considered a cousin/uncle of r&b, jazz, of which were infusions in some pop mainstream, like the American standard songbooks by Rod Stewart (who is a very capable singer and showed he could also do that) and Norah Jones. I think that from the 90's to the mid 00's, passing from new jack swing to Dr. Dre, then Babyface-Dallas Austin, then Darkchild, Timbaland-Missy Elliott, and last the Neptunes, r&b run out of good trends (perhaps except for Beyoncé, who cotinued a very creative run throughout the decade). So that I think there was a deliberate (and very welcome) rescue of some classic r&b/soul values in music.

Ok, I know that r&b giants like Prince, Stevie and even Ray Charles released stuff in the 00's, but none of them are in the front row of r&b innovations anymore, they stuck to their very own styles, styles that they created.

I think Adele was part of this wave, but I don't think she is the most relevant of them. I think Amy and even Duffy surpass her artistically. Honestly I think she's just ok. The album from this trend that should have gone diamond instead was the way better Back to Black.

But then again, I don't think there's much of an artistic logic in music sales.
That's just my opinion.