Culture
Did Music Formats Get Longer and More Dense This Year?
An article in the New York Times just dubbed 2015 “the year of muchness,” and it certainly seems to have been. The average length of LPs and individual tracks got longer, storytelling in album format became more ornate (Oneohtrix Point Never’s Sticky Drama, Grimes’ Flesh Without Blood, FKA Twigs’ M3LL155X), and artists dropped multiple releases within a short span of time (case in point: Beach House, Prince). What’s this about? Dig into the author’s analysis (which includes mention of apocalyptic anxiety and the Buddhist concept of Tathata) here. And, if you’re in for the long game, be sure to check out the longest album ever made: Terre Thaemlitz’s Soulnessless.
