by Navron » 31 Aug 2012 01:05
Well, with some simple math:
6 albums were in this post. If we assume there are 6 albums featured each week, that gives us a total of 312 albums per year.
An accurate gestimation of how many brony musicians there are according to the Brony Music Director sits somewhere between 405 - 415.
Now, let's assume 2/3 of those are established enough musicians that they would consider putting out an album. That drops the number down to ~ 273 musicians who would potentially submit albums.
With those numbers, the math adds up fairly consistently, but that's talking about an album a year for most of these musicians, with a few doing more than 1.
On average, I'd say a musician/band releases an album every 2-4 years (fair assumption?). So compared to the industry standard, it appears brony musicians are producing albums faster than the norm, which wouldn't be an issue except:
A lot of brony musicians are not at a professional level. If anything, brony musicians should be spending MORE time than the industry standard between releases. I also see one of those "albums" featured, is a 3-track album, with 2 tracks under 5 minutes, and the third just barely over it.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how <15min of music is considered an album.
That comment originally quoted implies this is not the first time people have sent very small albums. Whether this is a loophole in the system for people to get their music featured or not, there's going to be problems down the line if musicians continue to chug out small collections of singles and brand it as an album.
An album should have a theme. A story behind it. Something that makes listening to its entirety more of an experience vs an easier way to download a bundle of tracks. That's why professional musicians spend years working on an album, and that's why when we conduct major MLR albums like the charity albums and Balloon Party, there's such a long period of time for people to work on their single tracks. It's a time to spend perfecting that one song, and a time to tie that song into the theme surrounding the album.
I see a lot of musicians releasing albums more as, "hopping on the bandwagon," than actually trying to innovate something amazing, and it saddens me.
Saddens me because it degrades the impact of future MLR albums, because why would an album seem special if albums are released all the time?
It also saddens me because, if this trend continues, then EqD and the community as a whole are not going to bother giving albums very much thought.
You think it's bad now that your songs get lumped together in a single post? Imagine spending a couple years working to perfect an album only to have it lumped together with a bunch of other albums comprised of 3-5 songs, that the majority of people don't even bother to look at anymore.
So, yes, in the end, I think albums should be held to a much higher level of quality. Track count shouldn't matter though. Overall run time should, and personally, I think 40min is a good minimum required run time.
If people focus more thought and energy into the quality and length of their albums, then there won't be as many albums released. Less albums swarming EqD means a higher chance that each album can have it's own release, such as an, "Album Spotlight," post.
If a musician releases an album once every 2 years (still above the standard), vs more than 1 per year as it stands right now, that means instead of 312 albums, we're talking about 156, which gives EqD the option to feature an album post once every couple weeks with 6 albums, or perhaps feature 2 albums once every 4-5 days.
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