Where Have All The Albums Gone

EXILED ON THE AIR A detail of an album conceptualization 

IT'S SO WEIRD TO TALK about record albums these days; it is even a joke to mention one. 

But back in the day, people clamor to get the latest album of Guns & Roses or Metallica or Michael Jackson for that matter. And if you don’t have their albums with you during their heydays, you are more or less an outsider, you don’t really belong. You’ll be bullied to death until you scrambled to get at least one, eventually tucking up that cassette tape or CD with you wherever you go.

That all changed immediately after Y2K. All you need to do now, even at this moment, is to find that link online so you can start downloading the entire collection. The idea of owning, let alone buying an album, is already a prehistoric egg that has gone stale. That sounds old. 

You may not notice it but many of today’s artists rely heavily on revenues out of clicking their respective songs on the web. That didn’t sound right, however, to some of our composers and musicians. They always viewed it as a kind of robbery. Its utter accessibility online somehow runs counter to that of generating that big payday out of what they have conceived and created, which was the staple behind the making and the marketing of an album.

It used to be so cool displaying that album to your friends. I remember one time when I bought this debut album of the Counting Crows, following their cool MTV music video of “Mr. Jones” that my friends look at it as if I just purchased the latest iPhone around. And at that time, the group was yet to be considered mainstream, so how much more if you own one from some of the big acts back then.  

There’s that magical feeling going on if you have that popular album with you, like all of a sudden you are a part of that cool cultural milieu. You don’t just listen to what your resident DJ wants you to hear, you get to relish the rest of the menu also, and you can’t have that until you buy that damn, great album. Hell, that was once an investment move some 30 years ago! Now, it has contributed to the toxicity of our cities. 

And I don’t know how long these artists can keep up with it; no wonder the production of original materials has had its fair share of disappointments over the years. 

All I know is that I get to hear a lot of covers lately. It is already sickening to a point where you don’t listen to the original rendition anymore. I hope, though, you don’t follow my lead by simply ignoring them as soon as they fret the first note of their copycat tunes. There’s no concept, no thought-out lyrics, no musicality even, just a barrage of noise and a load of bull crap, squeaking and shrieking the rest of the way.  

So bring back the Lonely Hearts Club Band right now! I want to hear them on a Sunday afternoon on a lousy couch and some P2.50 coffee to go along with. That would be my idea of a good time, the kind of trip I always cash into before I go to hell on a Monday morning.   


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