Vinyl records, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, C Ds...what's next?

What will recording artists be putting their albums on next? Also, will the larger size constraints mean longer albums? Earlier media required artists to fit their albums inside of 25-or-so minutes per side, and with the CD it increased to one side, 70+ minutes. Do you think they'll be making more and/or longer songs as the media changes?

Well, as for popular music, the album length will probably remain the same. Simply out of habit.

As for more fringe types of music, there are already mp3's of pieces that last hours.

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

Well, DVD audio still hasn't caught on like CD has.

I suspect that, as bandwidth and computer storage capacity increases, music will be predominately digital. As in, the dorks (like me) who are still buying vinyl today will, 20 years from now, be the only ones still using physical media at all. Everyone else will be using mp3 or ogg vorbis or flac or whatever file types replace them.

Habit, and the fact that some people's attention spans can't handle listening to something for more than an hour.

edited 20th Oct '10 7:38:27 PM by MetaFour

*high fives Meta Four for vinyl geekery*

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

"what they're recording on" though... I'm not even a bit of an expert, but I've heard that artists master on tape first before moving it to digital.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

Tzetze: That's true, but again mostly out of force of habit. It is entirely possible to record professionally without ever using tape in the process.

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

There are artists who do their in-studio recordings digitally. My favorite band is one. I don't know how common this is; probably more so among indie musicians than those under the major labels.

Man, if the CD is killed off in favour of entirely digital music distribution, I will seriously want to punch someone. I would hope that the music industry would not be so cold-hearted and short-sighted as to ignore the view still held by a lot of music fans that a physical copy of an album is far more exciting and valuable than a bunch of mp3s. Also, CDs/Vinyl have a more permanent feel to them - if the future of music is entirely digital, than we can expect a continuation of the current trend towards viewing music as a disposable and short-term commodity, and not a long-term work of cultural value.

In terms of album length, I'd imagine more artists will cotton onto the idea of releasing 'digital download only Bonus Tracks' alongside standard album length CDs.

edited 20th Oct '10 7:51:20 PM by Saeglopur

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Wired ran an article a few years ago predicting that downloads would indeed kill the CD format. They didn't think physical copies of music would go away completely, but they said vinyl would fill that niche.

Not many artists fill the 70 minutes on a CD, so I doubt album lengths will change much.

High-fives Spain Sun and Meta Four for vinyl geekery!

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

vinyl woooooo even though i only have one album on vinyl :(

The only problem with Vinyl is its not portable. Tapes, C Ds, even mp3s can be listened to in a car or while walking, that cant really be done with vinyl, therefore it can only be listened to at home or in a place that has a record player.

Oh, the horror of having to stand still while listening to music. -_-

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

It's certainly a point against wide adoption.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I guess.

I never understood why people want to move while listening to music at home, kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me.

Granted, I will say that if you're on a long car ride, an mp3 player is the way to go, but for home listening, vinyl records are unbeatable.

edited 21st Oct '10 6:29:08 PM by SpainSun

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

I live a privileged in this regard, by parents are pretty big music fans, so we have a ton of L Ps, tapes and C Ds, as well as a couple of just recently acquired MP 3 players.

Vinyl's are good but dust causes crackling no matter how much you try to remove it, and you have yo be really careful. They do have an advantage in terms of longevity though, I mean I heard somewhere that while C Ds could last a couple of decades if well cared for, a well-cared-for LP could still be playable half a millenium or more from now. Just think, in 500 years the great relics of the past could be The Iliad, Gilgamesh and The Beatles.

I think C Ds will evolve to a higher-capacity storage disc. It will predominately include a higher bitrate, additional audio channels (e.g. surround), and standard support for lyrics, titles, liner notes, etc. I have the feeling non-physical media will just evolve naturally.