Did the Music Industry Kill the Album, or Did We? (Plus 5 New Songs That Don’t Suck)
Lately, I haven’t been able to shake this thought about what it actually means to listen to an album anymore. You’ve probably seen the same articles and debates popping up all over your feeds, everybody asking: Is the album dead?
Honestly, I can see both sides. Technology has completely rewritten our listening habits, regardless of how old you are—unless you’re someone who exclusively touches physical vinyl and tapes.
Take The Lemon Twigs, for example. They just dropped Look For Your Mind!, and during the whole runway leading up to release day, we got exactly two singles. Two. That’s it. When a band does that now, it feels like a genuine invitation. It feels like 1973 or 1991, where an artist gives you a knowing handshake, lets you peek into a couple of cool rooms in their house, and says, “If you want to see the rest, you’ve gotta walk through the front door on Friday.”
Compare that to the standard corporate rollout we get hit with every week. You get single after single after single. By the time Friday actually rolls around, you realize you’ve already heard 60% of the record on various Spotify editorial playlists. The “album launch” isn’t a cultural event anymore; it’s just a cleanup crew sweeping up the leftovers of a four-month marketing campaign.
It makes you wonder: Did the album die because our collective attention spans shattered, or did it die because the industry stopped trusting us to sit through a surprise?
An album used to be a self-sustaining ecosystem. You don’t pull a single brick out of the foundation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and play it out of context between a TikTok trend and a fast-food commercial. If you skip a track on Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime, the entire narrative collapse of Nikki and Sister Mary completely falls apart. These weren’t just random collections of songs; they were movies for your ears. When you start treating music like a utility to fill the silence while you fold your laundry, you lose the whole plot. The Lemon Twigs get this, and they proved it with this new record. They’re still building cohesive, sonic worlds on tape.
Now, the cynic in me looks back at history. You could easily argue that records like Led Zeppelin II or Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction were just single-delivery systems—at least until you actually sat down and listened to them. Sure, “Whole Lotta Love” or “Welcome to the Jungle” hits you like a freight train right out of the gate. But back then, even if you bought Appetite just to hear “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” you were physically forced to flip the tape. And once you flipped to Side B, you stumbled right into the dark, greasy underbelly of a track like “Rocket Queen.” The format and the sequencing protected the deep cuts. Today’s streaming ecosystem does the exact opposite—it isolates the hits and leaves the deep cuts to starve in the dark.
I like to think the album isn’t entirely dead, but it’s definitely on life support, occasionally gaining consciousness whenever an artist dares to go against the grain. Maybe the entire musical landscape right now is just a litmus test for how much you actually care about art. If you just want a quick hit of dopamine, the singles are right there to feed you. But if you want a destination—an actual experience—you need the whole record.
The Lemon Twigs are holding the line with their two-single rollout while everyone else drops half their album before release day. Are we losing the thrill of the “blind buy,” where you didn’t know what track four sounded like until the needle actually hit the wax? Maybe “buy” isn’t even the right word anymore, but you know what I mean. Seriously, if Dark Side or Appetite came out for the first time today under modern streaming rules, would they even survive the algorithm?
Let me know what you think over on Patreon. Let’s get a conversation going in the comments.
Alright, let’s get into the new music that needs to be on your radar this week.
1. “Thinking of Me” by The Gnomes
Kicking things off with some high-energy indie rock, we have the latest from Australia’s own The Gnomes. Musically, this is just classic songwriting—straight-ahead, guitar-forward, and moving at a breakneck pace for what is essentially a pop or alternative rock tune. It’s got a beautiful rawness to it because it isn’t overproduced. You get a killer guitar solo, a massive hook, and a groove that just forces you to move.
2. “She Calls Me Love” by Banda AL9
Next up is Brazil’s Banda AL9. This is actually a remix of a track they put out in 2024, and I’m incredibly glad they remixed it, otherwise it might have completely slipped past me. The Beatles influence here is undeniable. I mentioned recently that Paul and Ringo had put out a song, and it made me wonder what The Beatles would sound like if they were coming up today. This track is probably a pretty accurate representation of that. The guitar tone, the driving hook, the tight vocal harmonies—it’s all there, and it rules.
3. “It’s For The Kids” by Anthrax
Hell yes, Anthrax. I love this band. Someone over on Threads tipped me off that they had new music dropping, and it does not disappoint. I’ve been an Anthrax fan for over 30 years now, tracing all the way back to discovering them on Headbangers Ball. This track picks up right around where For All Kings left off a decade ago—and man, it is wild to realize it’s been 10 years since we got a new record from them. Joey Belladonna sounds incredible, and the band is as tight as they’ve ever been. My big hope is that with a new album on the horizon, we get a full tour, because they still put on one of the best live shows you will ever see. Strap in for this one.
4. “Box for Buddy, Box for Star” by This is Lorelei
My buddy Seymour sent this one over to me, and it has completely grown on me. It uses these keyboard tones that almost sound like an old-school video game, set over a loose, shuffling drum foundation. Musically, the vocal harmonies give off a distinct Beach Boys vibe. There’s a little bit of slide guitar buried deep in the mix that adds a really cool texture to the whole thing. But the real kicker is after this beautiful, folky shuffle plays out, the song suddenly pivots—classic “Layla” style—into a gorgeous piano outro. It’s a fascinating track, and it makes me want to dive into the rest of the album.
5. “one’n a million” by Arcy Drive
Arcy Drive is back on the podcast. The last time we saw them was back on episode 95 near the end of Season 2. This specific track reminds me a lot of Cage the Elephant, both in the vocal delivery and the overall production style. Like I said the last time they were on, their music has this genuine “recorded live” feel to it. I love that. You can really feel the human element in a room together versus a track that was meticulously pieced together by an engineer on a computer screen. There’s a beautiful looseness to the performance, but the energy is massive.
And that is going to do it for this week. Thank you so much for listening, and as always, go out and support these artists.
