Hot 20: Sheryl Crow Says Her Album Days Are Over

by alison bonaguro 4/27/2019

These are Sheryl Crow’s words, not mine.

“I’m a dinosaur in my own business.”

In a brand new interview with CMT’s Hot 20, Crow gets brutally honest about the whole album issue. The issue being, in a singles-driven and streaming-driven world, does we really need albums anymore?

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know even know how I would follow this up as a statement,” Crow said of what may or may not come next after releasing a re-imagined take on her “Redemption Day” from her 1996 self-titled sophomore album. The new one features a new piano arrangement and vocals from the late Johnny Cash.

“I’ve loved making albums,” she admits, “I’ve loved the process of creating a story and a timeline and a beginning, and a middle and an end.

“But those days are practically obsolete. I’m a dinosaur in my own business. I can actually remember picking up the needle. It’s time to move on. I’ll continue to make songs and put them out, but it seems silly to make a whole newspaper when by the time it comes out, nobody’s gonna read it.”

Probably 'cuz nobodies checking for Sheryl Crow in 2019!

No one is checking for albums in 2019 from the looks of it. Why buy the cow, I suppose.

StrangeButTrue said:

No one is checking for albums in 2019 from the looks of it. Why buy the cow, I suppose.

That's simply not true. Great artists/bands will always have an audience. It may be a far cry from the multi-million album sales of the 80s-90s, but the only reason why artists like Sheryl Crow are saying this is because she hasn't made music good enough to warrant a fanbase rabidly awaiting her new material. Mediocrity doesn't last.

MattyJam said:

StrangeButTrue said:

No one is checking for albums in 2019 from the looks of it. Why buy the cow, I suppose.

That's simply not true. Great artists/bands will always have an audience. It may be a far cry from the multi-million album sales of the 80s-90s, but the only reason why artists like Sheryl Crow are saying this is because she hasn't made music good enough to warrant a fanbase rabidly awaiting her new material. Mediocrity doesn't last.

.

I understand where you are coming from but rinsing out new material to a rabin fanbase every two years may not be the goal/gold standard for artists like Crow. Just my opinion. She has several classic albums under her belt and some unique accolades/career milestones that are all her own.

Here's a fun one for devil's advocate, considering the source and where we are.

If Sheryl were to "re-work" Prince's version of her classic Everyday Is A Winding Road, similar to her recent re-working of Johnny Cash's version of her Redemption Day, would you be down? Alot of people gave P flack for going so far from Sheryl's original. I kinda dig how he turned it into a funky congregation number, personally.

Fleetwood Mac feels the same way.They said something about "there's no point in releasing an album these days when no one's gonna buy it" fortunately for them,they still make lots of money on tour,so that's their bread and butter.

SoulAlive said:

Glindathegood said:

SoulAlive said:

Fleetwood Mac feels the same way.They said something about "there's no point in releasing an album these days when no one's gonna buy it" fortunately for them,they still make lots of money on tour,so that's their bread and butter.

So they only make music for money? Sad.

No,I think what they meant was....why go through all the hard work and effort to do something when it won't really reach a huge audience? People just don't buy albums anymore.Even some of the so-called "hot" artists might have a big,popular single,but lackluster album sales.Fleetwood Mac figured out that,these days,it's probably best to just focus on touring.

here's Stevie Nicks explaining why there won't be a new Fleetwood Mac album....

Stevie Nicks said there will probably never be another Fleetwood Mac album.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the singer and songwriter said, "I don't think there's any reason to spend a year and an amazing amount of money on a record that, even if it has great things, isn't going to sell."

"I don't think we'll do another record. If the music business were different, I might feel different," she added. "What we do is go on the road, do a ton of shows and make lots of money. We have a lot of fun. Making a record isn't all that much fun."

She has her fanbase, clearly it's just not big enough for her ego. It's kind of the same for all artists though, unless they fluke into a hit (e.g. Graceland) again there's always going to be diminishing returns from their peak, at a certain point they have to be doing it for themselves. It's not like HitnRun 1 and 2 were doing big numbers before Prince passed.

[Edited 5/1/19 3:02am]

Tha money is in touring.

The EP strategy is catching on, it seems. A young artist was on the local news and she was talking about how she was putting out an EP because people's tastes change so quickly. She also didn't know what EP meant when the newscaster asked her I will say I was most impressed by how Robyn utilized it and made 3 EP releases for "Body Talk" that eventually comprised the entire album. Clever strategy.

The facts are that Sheryl's albums diminished in quality in recent years, not just in terms of commercial success. They charted poorly, so many other albums were selling better than hers. I really liked her first four albums, and I would be first in line if she made an album I wanted to hear again.

I do agree that there needs to be a more flexible approach to music than just albums to fit the times. However, there are some albums that really are greater than the sum of the parts. This doesn't happen as often now, but I sure hope the achievement of a great longplay is not going to become extinct. One thing that gives me hope is that Billy Ellish, one of the artists who has almost completely used streaming as her mode to releasing music, recently sold well over 100,000 physical and digital albums in her album's debut week. This didn't account for streaming numbers. I think as long as people occasionally can achieve this, there is no reason to stop making them.

I also think plenty of people stream an entire album if it is really good. I know I do. I recently went to a Kaycee Musgraves concert where almost the entire audience sang every word of every song (she played them all)of her award winning Golden Hour album despite the modest numbers it sold. In other words, people didn't just select a couple of the songs to stream for their playlists. The entire album was good and served as a great playlist by itself.

[Edited 5/4/19 12:14pm]

SoulAlive said:

Glindathegood said:

SoulAlive said: So they only make music for money? Sad.

No,I think what they meant was....why go through all the hard work and effort to do something when it won't really reach a huge audience? People just don't buy albums anymore.Even some of the so-called "hot" artists might have a big,popular single,but lackluster album sales.Fleetwood Mac figured out that,these days,it's probably best to just focus on touring.

Truth. I have not bought a cd since 2017. Who am I gonna buy?

Nobody left 2 f**k and/or f**k over in the Business!!!

Jazz, symphony, and indie artists of all stripes have to fend a living from their particular fanbases, which I would guess are niche (and whatever otherwise merchandising of their compositions they can deal,) so I guess those groups are more adept at finding ways to finance and record albums to reach their buying audience. I'd say that having a buying audience identified to guarantee an investment payback makes conducting a recording project worthwhile, as is having a story musically and/or narratively suitable for packaging specifically in the album format. Those abovementioned brands of performers may lend better today to recording an album.

>

I've enjoyed a few of Sheryl's earlier albums. Even though her sales may be waning today due to some career-slump, perhaps she's just adjusting to the new busniess mode for the pop artist, because that stuff isn't just selling in the old way with all of the streaming happening now.

SoulAlive said:

She does have a point.Sadly,we may get to a point where some artists stop making albums.

Agreed. No one in pop ,usic pushing units in 2019 outside of the same 10 artists over and over. Every dog has its day, and I think Crow realizes her time for pushing fully grown albums are done. The public simply isn't buying as they used to. I'll admit that even as old as I am, even I cherry pick singles I like off a record over buying the endtire record (now that we have the choice).