Themed Collections - the album as art
Most musicians look at the individual song as a piece of art and the album as a means of distributing a collection of songs conveniently. But the album can be so much more than a means of mass distribution! It requires a small shift in viewpoint, but if you learn to see the album itself as a work of cohesive art, made up of songs that form a larger whole just like words form sentences, you can create something more powerful for the listener and fulfilling for you.
This is done by theming your albums and collections. If you start with songs, you end up with a mish-mash by the end, but if you determine the theme of your album and then work on songwriting and repertoire, you’ll have formed the basis for that cohesive themed work.
Begin by shifting viewpoint and seeing the album as the work of art, and then you can take the next step - determining the theme that’ll work best for you.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Good article. Like to know more about how you’d go about selecting and crafting a theme. Can you expand on this idea?
September 28th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
[...] Collections - choosing thematic subjects by Joel Falconer Building on yesterday’s post about themed collections, it’s important to choose strong themes that you know you believe [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
[...] portrays each posse member in concert. Fascinating reading! This is also an iinteresting 451 Press post on themed music collections, such as [...]
November 27th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Definitely like to know more about how you decide on and create material on a theme.
What are some of the things you need to consider?
How do you get the band to buy in thos this idea of the concept album?
What are some of the liabilities of concepts and themes, and how do you go about offsetting those? What are the pros?