On an undisclosed and unremarkable day in the winter of 1999 an unremarkable spotty teenage semi-professional masturbator made an early morning Saturday trip into the centre of the entirely unremarkable town of Doncaster, South Yorkshire. I had but two objectives:


OBJECTIVE THE FIRST: Proceed to The Music Zone and procure The Masterplan by Oasis and return home as quickly as possible.


OBJECTIVE THE SECOND: Buy this month’s FHM to facilitate a particularly studious wanking expedition.


It was one of those soon to be forgotten instances before th’interweb took over, where the release date of an album was a distant dream etched onto a wall calendar and every preceding day was eliminated with a shaky ‘X’, each one seemingly infinite in the time it took to materialise and inch past. Music fans tend to ‘come out’ in their teenage years and I had recently sprouted forth proudly with all requisite ‘long greasy hair’, ‘Nirvana T-shirt’ and ‘cheap Strat copy’ boxes ceremoniously ticked and for some reason this album, despite its contents consisting solely of previously released B-sides, was massively important to me. It still is, for that matter, because it’s still ace.


So the day came, I was hugely excited and I went into town to buy it. I slapped my hastily cobbled-together clump of crumpled notes and small change on the counter and rushed home, threw the CD in my stereo, opened the booklet and listened to each song whilst reading the lyrics, before immediately doing so again. It was brilliant.


This began a goldrush of album acquisition with the physical product an intrinsic part of the whole experience. I loved having the lyrics right there as it helped the meaning (some perceived meaning, anyway) sink in and footnotes, artwork and the overall design, when done well, wrung extra poignancy, atmosphere, intent and - on a capitalist base level – value from a release. Without wanting to get too Last of the Summer Wine about it, things were dun diff’rent when I were a lad. I am 24.


The internet is undeniably great, for music as well as social networking plus lots and lots of lovely and varied pornography. Buying single songs instead of full albums is lovely too, eliminating the need to endure album filler tracks or in a try-before-you-buy sense, alleviating the need to have ever bought any full Killers albums, but it came at the profound cost of the traditional album format as it had been known for decades. Now, sticklers for tradition and the maintenance of the status quo are normally the sorts who stall wind farm planning applications because they will be visible from their conservatories, write in to complain about radio programmes they never even heard and indulge in occasional bouts of casual racism and jaunty homophobia. Yet the death of the album should be mourned, not celebrated, and I (a liberal technophile) stand next to the Health and Safety obsessed dog walking bourgeoisie on this particular point.


Not that making any kind of stand will make a jot of difference, despite health and safety concerns that it may at least put back or two out. The cogs have already turned, the horses have duly fecked off and the flailing music industry is whirring with shifting inner machinations of how to learn, adapt and survive: three things it has never had to do before. And unbelievably, in doing so, it may just have saved the album.


Albums as a tangible unit are most certainly on the way out, their clunky cadavers consigned to the annals of quaint human invention along with Commodore 64’s and the monacle/cane combo. The ‘big four’ record companies, however, have joined forces in desperate unison against the ubiquitous monopoly of Steve Jobs, scratched a wobbly chin or two and come up with the very 80’s neon-sounding ‘CDX’. Albums purchased and distributed online via CDX come complete with digitized artwork, lyrics, videos and other extra lovelies for your handheld perusal and, to give credit where it’s due, this really is a bloody good idea, at the worst giving legitimate purchasers of digital music a more rounded package for their hard-earned and at the very best rekindling a love of the album as a complete format. Piracy will still be an issue but then again it always has been, with copied CD’s and, before that, taping songs off the radio both threatening to leave the music industry sleeping on its friend’s couch and the artists themselves cottagging for petty cash and nutritious proteins.


The anticipation felt for new albums released before the dystopian Jetsons inspired 21st Century will never be equaled in an age where an unfinished album can be beamed around the world mere minutes after a laptop is ‘found’ next to a sleeping chump on a train, but hopefully due to CDX and its imminent copycats (Apple are already preparing a similar product) digital age musical lovers will now have instant access to albums that are more than just a lump of songs. They will be complete packages that can transcend their restrictive media and become landmarks, bookmarks and events in the listener’s lives, because this is exactly what great albums can do. In the meantime, why not take a punt on any classic album in its physical form and decide whether you think the concept of an LP is worth saving.







Is the physical album a thing of the past? Is the CDX a good idea? Do you still buy albums? It's HERE, do it

Posted In Features, Aug 14 2009. Words - Luke