Music's decision

A music obsessive like myself looks for experience in music. I look for a collection of music that comes from an artist's labor and sweat in order to bring their grand vision to fruition. Almost everything about our culture is eroding the enormous potential for music's transcendence and power. "Pitchforkmedia" labels OK Computer as the last successful "true album." Meaning this is the last LP to be collectively experienced as a whole because of its place in history and it's artfulness in creating a world in which one tracks cannot and should not exist without the ones surrounding it. What I mean by "it's place in history" is that this record came out right before the advent of the mp3 or at least the revolution marked by it. I agree with Pitchfork's stance that that was the last of it and it's near impossible that it will happen again.

We are at a place now where music simply isn't being experienced like it once was. There are a million different ways to obtain one piece of music, both free and bought. The release of the latest coldplay album, for example, has been received by fans and casual listeners in many questionable ways. When you get someone's opinion on this particular LP, something to the effect of: "man, they're just trying to be the next U2," they very well may have bought it at their local record store, brought it home, sat down, and listened to it through once or twice...probably not though. It's more likely that they A) only listened to the 30 second samples on itunes; B) downloaded lossy mp3's off bittorrent; or C) overheard it at a friend's house. The point is that a listener who sat down and listened to this album as it was intended to be heard and the listener described above are basically listening to different records. On the other hand, if this record were released 10 or so years ago, it is more likely that these two people would listen to identical physical copies of the record: same sound quality, same track order, etc...

So this state of affairs leaves music with a decision: do we fight the trend and cater towards the dwindling population of "album lovers"- those people who are now reverting to buying vinyl for its forced patience and experience?; or do we accept the industry's movement towards a pre-Beatles market where albums are seen as a collection of singles? This split in musical schools of the thought is not a new issue. At the turn of the century, classical composers noticed the general populace turning towards the immediacy of popular music and in return gave up on the idea of a "popular audience" shifting their focuses towards a more challenging, academic sound that would serve the "high-art" crowd that still attended their concerts.

The happy medium, which I believe Coldplay has mastered, is to make a record in which each song is amplified by their context but also engaging by themselves. Viva La Vida is a very well composed record in that it moves sequentially in such a way that is respectful and rewarding to the listener, but you also have songs like the title track, which can live outside of the record in, for example, an ipod commercial with great success.