James, Stevie, Prince, etc releases at least one album each year, sometimes more. Why younger artist like Maxwell (8 years hiatus and now it's been 4 years since his last album), Remy Shand (11 years hiatus and counting) and of course D'angelo (13 years and counting), to name but a few, are not as productive as their seniors? Can you name one or two artists of our generation who consistently releases one album every year?

Seriously there is a thread on this topic like once a week man

And as for once a year even though i don't like her Rihanna releases an album once a year but there not good.

Just cause someone makes an album once a year doesn't always mean it will be good or great... just could mean they want money or more hit singles.

Gunsnhalen said:

Seriously there is a thread on this topic like once a week man

And as for once a year even though i don't like her Rihanna releases an album once a year but there not good.

Just cause someone makes an album once a year doesn't always mean it will be good or great... just could mean they want money or more hit singles.

Ah..I didn't know that . Btw, I'm not talking about Rihanna, Miley, Bieber and the gang, I'm talking about potential artists like Max, D, and Remy, etc . They could and should've been more productive considering their talent.

Michael Jackson's Thriller was the main album that started the labels milking an album for multiple years. So it wasn't really as required for acts to release an album every year. Then acts like Basia, George Michael, & Sade started taking long breaks between albums. Although in Sade's case the band has released side albums as Sweetback and done session work while Sade Adu was not interested in show business and performing.

[Edited 8/24/13 9:01am]

katamari said:

It costs more money to make albums than it does to tour and promote, i.e., things that SELL albums. Simple.

It costs less to make ringtone songs with software. Sampling is not cheap either. Since a lot of people get free music today, it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend money to record albums that don't sell much. That is an easy way for acts to get in debt with record labels, since an advance is really a loan.

[Edited 8/24/13 13:27pm]

They're still lazy though

It's amazing how quickly artists recorded and released new albums in the 70s.You never had to wait very long for a new album from your favorites.Back then,It was common for artists to release two albums in the same year.

Lazy?

I'd say they lack creative talent.

I think it is the MAIN reason u see so many collaborations.

Some acts release a lot of mixtapes, which are generally self-released.

They care only of money and fame, music means nothing to them. They care more about their image than their sound, music has become nothing.

TheScouser said:

They care only of money and fame, music means nothing to them. They care more about their image than their sound, music has become nothing.

Well it seems they would put out more product and not less. You can't make money without something to sell.

MickyDolenz said:

TheScouser said:

They care only of money and fame, music means nothing to them. They care more about their image than their sound, music has become nothing.

Well it seems they would put out more product and not less. You can't make money without something to sell.

They don't make their money from record sales. I think what they ultimately mostly want is just attention and use the whole concept of being an "artist" as a means for it.

also why bother to cut a record you can't make any money from?

...you might as well start a thread asking "why apples are not oranges?".

The music business has changed. The world has changed.

One old-timer in the recording business told me one of the biggest changes in the music biz, as relates to quality, was when album/ tour cycles starting going longer than a year. In the sixties a major artist was expected to produce a new album about every 9 months. In the seventies it was every year or 18 months.

That constant, never-ending demand, the feeling that the studio deadline was going to creep up any moment, fueled a lot of creativity, people were working on new stuff constantly. You could never not be thinking ahead. People stepped up because they had no choice.

Now the cycle is, the album comes out and you don't get to make another one until you have squeezed every last drop of juice in it.

bobzilla77 said:

bobzilla77 said:

One old-timer in the recording business told me one of the biggest changes in the music biz, as relates to quality, was when album/ tour cycles starting going longer than a year. In the sixties a major artist was expected to produce a new album about every 9 months. In the seventies it was every year or 18 months.

That constant, never-ending demand, the feeling that the studio deadline was going to creep up any moment, fueled a lot of creativity, people were working on new stuff constantly. You could never not be thinking ahead. People stepped up because they had no choice.

Now the cycle is, the album comes out and you don't get to make another one until you have squeezed every last drop of juice in it.

^^^This.

Graycap23 said:

bobzilla77 said:

One old-timer in the recording business told me one of the biggest changes in the music biz, as relates to quality, was when album/ tour cycles starting going longer than a year. In the sixties a major artist was expected to produce a new album about every 9 months. In the seventies it was every year or 18 months.

That constant, never-ending demand, the feeling that the studio deadline was going to creep up any moment, fueled a lot of creativity, people were working on new stuff constantly. You could never not be thinking ahead. People stepped up because they had no choice.

Now the cycle is, the album comes out and you don't get to make another one until you have squeezed every last drop of juice in it.

The Michael Jackson effect.

That's an interesting way to put it but I think you're right. I remember singles from that album still on the charts almost 2 years after its release.

bobzilla77 said:

Graycap23 said:

bobzilla77 said: The Michael Jackson effect.

That's an interesting way to put it but I think you're right. I remember singles from that album still on the charts almost 2 years after its release.

lol...in a way,I can see why Michael Jackson did this.His albums had major 'staying power'.Thriller was released in December 1982 and it was still "hot" as 1984 began.In the early months of '84,the seventh single (title track) was enjoying massive airplay.This album could have easily had an eighth single ("Baby Be Mine") and it would have done well on the charts,too! This kind of success was unheard of.

Nobody buys music anymore. There is no incentive, as Zannaloaf pointed out. Even if there were, there is a machine in place that has formatted the industry. Its not about any specific artist. Its about how corporate processes have changed the industry. Tours must be done, t-shirts and merch must be sold. Promotion must be done to generate potential ticket sales. Pop stars especially have a guideline to follow. The bigger the artist, the more cities they have to cover and the more time they have to spend on the road. Also, nowadays there is a process of recording a lot of songs and then choosing from them rather than just dropping 10-15 songs. You could call it the "Tupac effect" since we are labeling now and blaming artists.

Everybody wants to have an abundance of material to choose from and technology has made that easier than ever. An artist nowadays will record a bunch of songs and the label will reject the ones they don't like or want on the record. The other songs either get put away or end up on mixtapes which get released to help promote an artist's tour of the main CD.