Full Spectrum
I read last week that Weezer has another album coming out, this one at the end of October. I was glad to hear it, but thought, “Didn’t Weezer just put out an album last year?”
They did. Their third self-titled album, The Red Album, was released June 3, 2008.
That a band, any band, has it within themselves in this modern age to put out albums in consecutive calendar years kinda blows my mind a little bit.
I’m clearly surprised because, and here’s a blanket statement for ya, bands nowadays typically wait three years between album releases, if not more than that, even.
If I’m to believe advertising, and I am, I now live in a world that’s moving faster than it ever has before. Must be why I feel like I’m aging so quickly. In this new, faster world, media content is at a premium. Think, with more tv channels, there need to be more shows, not because we need more shows but because there are more channels. So with iPods and iPhones in the pockets and hearts of the next generation, and with recording technology as efficient as it has ever been, I’d suppose that bands would put out more music, more often.
I’d suppose that, but I know there’s at least good reason why bands don’t, despite whatever demand there might be: There are armored truckloads of money to be made in touring, with all the trimmings.
Say Typical Successful Band spends about six months writing and recording their newest album. TSB then hits the road for a national, if not world tour, for the next year, year and a half, two years. Six months off to spend with their families or to go on benders, or to go to college, and TSB starts the process anew. Nants ingonyama bagithi baba, the Circle of Life.
It’s absolutely worth it to tour the shit out of an album, for musicians and their fans.
But what gets lost on the road? Subtlety. Some of the intermediate shades, for lack of a less pretentious metaphor, in the spectrum of a band’s sound.
Think of the Beatles, ‘cause I always do. Their situation was unique in many ways, but not in this one. They put out 13 albums between late 1963 and early 1970 – about two a year. Dylan released 9 in roughly the same timeframe.
Maybe those geniuses set too high a standard, but what can we make of it? How much pressure was put on them to create more music? For the Beatles, I do know quite a bit. But when pressed, didn’t they turn out to have so much to say? And good stuff, too; there wasn’t a lot of filler in any of those mid-60s albums.
Intention aside, a lasting benefit of their constant rate of production is the listener’s delight in the in-between. I’ll explain: I’m not a big guy on context, I normally like songs, albums, books, to be taken as their own deal. When I really got into the Beatles, though, I noticed more and more the trajectory of their sound – wasn’t hard, as it wouldn’t be for anyone, but I enjoyed seeing how the pieces fit together, how influences can be heard distinctly. Conceits pop up, are developed, and are dismissed almost as quickly in favor of a new sound, not out of boredom but out of curiosity.
The last paragraph there was fucking dense – I’m still digging through it myself. There are marked differences, and similarities, from Beatles for Sale to Help! to Rubber Soul to Revolver, for example. The shift from Beatles for Sale to Revolver would be a stark one if those other albums weren’t written and recorded in between. We get the nuances that wouldn’t otherwise be noticeable. I think that’s a good thing.
I believe that was all just to say that when bands write and record with an eye towards evolving their sound, they can get to vastly different places, but only through hitting those intermediate steps.
Yes, bands put out EPs from time to time. More of them have side projects. But both of those seem to be more about pure expression, releasing a backlog of material and emotion, more or less for its own sake. And I think that’s fantastic! You might say that’s all art is. But I do know that EPs generally don’t have the band’s best material on them. That gets put on the album. And this is why I most often care not for Band X’s rarities and b-sides and unreleased tracks. If they were any fucking good to begin with, they’d be on the album, plain and simple. (Same is true for deleted scenes on DVDs, repackaged as if they make the product better, but really it’s to create and then allay a desire in OCD completists, not unlike myself.)
It might not get any more general than this: the more you do something, the better you get at it. Bands that tour likely become better performers than they would otherwise, and make more money. But if it’s about the music, if it’s about developing your sound or yourself, or finding new ideas to express or colors to try, remember this ain’t the Olympics; you can do this as often as you’d like.
Or you could be Woody Allen, and with few exceptions make the same movie every single year. Whatever works.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
So true- I wish more bands wouldn’t worry too much about quality control and get more playful in the studio. “The White Album” has a handful of my least favorite Beatles tunes, but it’s my favorite of their albums because of all the variety. I almost can’t believe George Martin (or was it George Harrison?) when he said The White Album should have been a single record.
Same deal with The Clash’s “Sandinista!” – there’s some tracks on there I would never want to listen to again, but overall you can practically hear how much fun they’re having just playing around in the studio and trying new things. That kind of spirit elevates the mediocre songs to pretty good, and makes the great songs kind of transcendent.
Of course, both The Beatles and The Clash self-destructed just a couple years after their Big Experimental Albums…maybe that kind of thing is a harbinger of creative burnout…