The BBC recently ran a series of programmes on BBC 4 TV on the vinyl album When The Album Ruled The World. In essence through a number of talking heads it was emphasising that individual songs have taken over as people self select and download individual tracks via i tunes or other platforms. Clearly we all have our favourite songs and all have selected our eight Desert Island Discs (or is that just me) but when an artist has laboured and deliberated on what tracks to include and what order they sohuld feature one should feel obliged to purchase and listen in that format.
Anyone who has seen the Bruce Springsteen documentary The Promise will remember the huge amount of songs rejected to go on Darkness on The Edge of Town (many of which found there way onto The River) as they didn't suit the tone and feel of the album. Blue by Joni Mitchell has many great songs but has to heard in its entirety to appreciate the full impact of lost love, the sames applies to Tapestry by Carole King.
A great album reflects that artist at that time of their life and their development as a songwriter. That is why you have albums for particular times and moods as they reflect how you feel or want to feel at that particular time.
So at Fish Records we don't sell digital downloads. Art should not be a 'pick & mix' - you don't read individual chapters of a book - celebrate the album as a whole in the way it was created to be listened to.
