Killing a fool on a hill

[Two nights ago I started writing a few paragraphs to append to yesterday's music post. Eventually I realized it wouldn't work unless it was shoehorned in as an extended parenthetical aside, something I had already done with a never-quite-satisfying Jefferson Airplane rant that has since been severely cut down. So this gets its own post, a postscript post, completing the transformation from simple playlist essay to seven-thousand-word mess. In two parts!]

There's something about the whole digital revolution that bothers me. I've read enough on the supposed rebirth of an era before 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heats Club Band pushed the two-song single out of fashion. I understand the point being made, that people can now pick and choose their own version of what a band's single might be (predictably I went with "Ulysses" b/w "No You Girls" in place of Franz Ferdinand's Tonight and I was able to steer clear of much of Danger Mouse's irritating contributions to the Black Keys' Attack and Release by choosing "Same Old Thing" b/w "All You Ever Wanted"). But what I hoped the theory would prove to mean is that bands would realize albums don't count for much anymore, and instead of releasing twelve songs every year and a half they would release one or two songs every couple of months. And these would be really good songs. No filler… no place for it!

Unfortunately we're stuck with an outdated process where a record company chooses the lead single (which is all a lot of people will ever hear or care to own) and then the album comes out. Why not? It still works, thanks to radio stations being fine with playing what they're told and to the shiftless rabble who like what they're supposed to. I don't see the 1966 model limiting consumer choice but rather guaranteeing quality, assuming a band is worth a shit in the first place. People won't buy a new song just because it's new, but they will if it's good—and a more focused, immediate purpose could go a long way toward ensuring worth. (If not then Darwin readies ERROR 404, today's answer to the cut-out bin.) And you think it'd be pretty rewarding—artistically as well as financially—if people are excited about your newest release just months after the last one. Right?

Take Sgt. Pepper, for instance. It's a good album but not great, and maybe just OK. But how about this alternative 1967 sequence of Beatles releases? No albums or EPs, just singles:

1A. "Penny Lane"
1B. "Good Morning Good Morning"

2A. "Strawberry Fields Forever"
2B. "Lovely Rita"

3A. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends"
3B. "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"

4A. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
4B. "She's Leaving Home"

5A. "Magical Mystery Tour"
5B. "Within You Without You"

6A. "A Day in the Life"
6B. "It's All Too Much"

7A. "All You Need Is Love"
7B. "Baby, You're a Rich Man"

8A. "I Am the Walrus"
8B. "Blue Jay Way"

Let's compare this to reality. Between the "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" double A-side in February and the Magical Mystery Tour EP in December, I've cut out a handful of songs that either suck ("Hello, Goodbye," "Getting Better") or would work better on a posthumous hodgepodge type of collection ("Fixing a Hole," "Only a Northern Song"). I'm also including one song recorded immediately after the Sgt. Pepper sessions but not released until 1969's Yellow Submarine ("It's All Too Much"). Clearly I'm no fan of Paul and his silly stories, sure, but I'm fair in realistically switching between him and John for who gets the A-side, along with the collective (and regrettable) disrespect for George in tossing him some B-side bones. But how about it? Eight singles spread out over eleven months, and every one a bona fide smash hit—a quality smash hit. (I don't care for "Penny Lane," "With a Little Help From My Friends" or "All You Need Is Love"—Paul's brilliant reprise here of "She Loves You" is his greatest contribution to the group—but I'm in the minority, so they are necessary.) So no filler, just like I said! And it should be noted that "All You Need Is Love"/"Baby, You're a Rich Man" was an actual release and that I've kept the "Sgt. Pepper"/"Friends"/"Lucy" continuity that works pretty well on the album.

("The White Album" is a whole other subject. You can slice it a hundred ways, discarding layers of excess and mediocrity until you're left with a handful of songs that are as good as anything they ever recorded. That's a lot of work and a lot of shit. Lucky for all that Electric Ladyland was released a month earlier.)

The Beatles were unique in many ways, and it's not kosher to assume many bands could succeed where they did. Certainly, record-label Luddites would never let out this amount of rope until it was proven to succeed, nor would increasingly important touring commitments allow for much recording/mixing flexibility. But it's a direction I thought artists might turn toward as the need for albums—in physical, digital or (x) form—gets pushed further behind us. Isn't $2 every four months better than $10 every eighteen? How does the music industry not embrace this? I cannot possibly be this smart all by myself. (I am.)