MUSE: No more albums?

According to BBC, MUSE may no longer release albums in favor of releasing songs every few months. Singer/Guitarist Matt Bellamy stated: “I don’t think we’re going to approach the next album like we’re making an album… we’re just gonna make a load of music.” Is this a good idea?

Personally, I believe that music is best in album form, and I judge whether a band is decent or not on the basis of whether or not they can create a quality album rather than one good song. This was really weird to be coming from MUSE, since they have succeeded in recording great albums: listen to Black Holes and Revelations, it’s borderline concept, and best listened to all together.

Lately there has been talk from technology people about the death of the album, due to the rise of digital media. All throughout the past 100 years, albums have been the way to buy music (except singles online and occasionally on vinyl) and legends have been formed because of it. From the mainstream beginnings of the concept album, the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a cohesive album has separated the mediocre from the great. Many modern bands have perfected the concept, as well, with bands like My Chemical Romance who have a distinct sound for each album. Music is an experience, and full-length albums make that experience more meaningful. But hey, maybe MUSE is either just trying some different or trying to make more money this way.

So, all that in mind, can MUSE pull off this idea? Also, would anyone be as excited to say “hey, the new MUSE song comes out tomorrow!” as they would be to say “hey, the new MUSE album comes out tomorrow!”? And would a song like “Take A Bow” even sound right out of context?

Vampire WEAKend

Some bands are born by the blog, and so may they hopefully die by the blog. Vampire Weekend is one of the most recent blog children, along with Panic! at the Disco. Oh wait, make that Panic at the Disco- because removing an exclamation point makes you seem so mature and focused on the important issues. But I digress- Vampire Weekend is nothing more than a novelty employing foreign styles of music that would be better experienced by listening to authentic representations of the cultures. Their eclectic mix of styles ends up being repetitive on many tracks, and never really reaches the fullest potential of any one style, making them an average band that hit gold on the internet.

What truly boggles the mind is that a respected and established magazine such as SPIN would tout the band on its front cover with the caption “The Year’s Best New Band…Already!?” I don’t know about you, but that is a pretty tall order with nine months ahead, especially for a band that has minimal, if any, radio play in my area and no hit single as of yet.

On a broader scale, Vampire Weekend represents an ongoing problem in the music industry, namely the creation of a band through corporately constructed hype based on the recommendation of a few bloggers who heard a recording. The result is a band that releases an overproduced record that they are completely unable to replicate live (I saw Panic live, it wasn’t pretty). It also compresses the development period of the band itself from the traditional years to mere months, not long enough to “weed out” bands that have no potential longevity.

The real test for blog bands will come with the release of “Pretty. Odd.”, though I personally found Panic’s first release much more worthwhile than Vampire’s.