Tag: theory

I have a theory for why people don’t listen to albums all the way through. Anthony Fantano recently addressed the ongoing “death of the album” discussion—he argues that albums have in fact saturated the market, but people rarely listen to them cover to cover because they rely too much on the strength of their singles or repeat monotonous formulas song by song. Nevertheless, artists still need more than singles to support tours, and labels ultimately can’t decide which song ends up a hit—so the album persists.