001: Radiohead
OK Computer
[Capitol; 1997]
The end of the 90s will be seen as the end of the album. The rise of MP3 technology and file downloading returned pop music consumption to collective pre-Beatles mindset, where songs are judged as singles. Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac were shallowly criticized as B-side collections because they were downloaded and assembled as such on home computers. "Treefingers" and "Hunting Bears" were torn apart, not a piece of a 60 minute or so record, but as worthwhile 34-minute download times (this, remember, was right before DSL/Cable). The resurgence, and arguable final entrenchment, of manufactured Pop Stars by their handlers over supposedly more artistic fare-- and more importantly the acceptance of such common pleasures by critics-- razed the significance of the complete album. Which is why OK Computer , and it's Best Albums Ever companion Loveless , eternally top these polls: somehow we doubt we'll ever see their like again.
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Sunday, 13 March 2011
MP3 killed the album?
An extract from Pitchfork.com's rundown of the top 100 albums of the 1990s; are they right to say the album is dead ... do YOU still get/listen to whole albums, or listen to single tracks outwith the context of the album they were released in?
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