Maybe Tommy Lee isn't so crazy after all.....

I'm not a Motley Crue fan at all. Never was never will be. The other day though I came across an interview with Tommy Lee he says:

"I'm thinking more EPs, though – small bodies of work. You know, slaving for a year in the studio to make a whole album when the public only wants one song, it's just smurfing stupid. It makes no sense on any level. That's my opinion for my solo stuff and MÖTLEY CRÜE. It doesn't mean my band will necessarily agree with me. But my attitude is, why not make a four-song EP with absolute bangers on them? I think it makes perfect sense. If you look at the charts and the statistics, it'll show you that people don't buy albums anymore, they buy singles. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out."

I can see what he means and I actually think its not a bad idea all the way around. How many really good songs are on an album with about 12 songs on them nowadays? Sometimes a band will come out and put out something good, but a lot of the times theres about 4 or 5 really great songs and the rest are either ok or just fillers. Think about it, eps are usually only around $6 which right there makes it very affordable, you won't have to wait so long for new albums to come out. The bands could possible make more money on this as well since they will be releasing more than one product a year. I could actually see that working and I think its a pretty good idea. The only down side to that is if you listen to a lot of bands like most of us do here haha.

What do you think?

I think its a smart idea, though there are exceptions as I know of a few albums where I like ALL songs on the album Metric's Fantasies & Garbage's Version 2.0 and the first Foo Fighters albums come to mind for me

I disagree that it's a waste of time, however, he's not completely wrong. I have 17 & 19 year old kids, and a lot of teenage and twenty-something family members. They don't care about albums at all. They don't even care about buying music at all. They have iPods full of stolen music and don't think anything of it. They only care about hits and singles, not albums or music as an art.

However, for me, I'm not part of the MP3 generation that only seems to care about singles. I listen to albums, not hit singles.

I have a briliant ideal for Tommy Lee.....





Using this illustration as a guide.....change the propellar to a drum stick

When he does his drum solo, he can reach up and spin the stick on his beenie.

What has happened with the current music climate mirrors what popular music was like in the early 1960's. Pop/Rock was a singles music, LPs only existed as collections of hit singles. The 45 was king (2 songs) and that's the way most people purchased their music.

The only styles of music that were LP based in that era were jazz and classical.

Once the Beatles released Sgt Peppers and the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds, it swung the pendulum to LP based delivery and that was the format that existed through most or my life.

However, times have changed again and the "short attention span generation" has become the "mobile generation" and they don't care about albums at all.

I don't think releasing EPs is going to make a bit of difference. It's still 5 or 6 songs and the younger kids still aren't going to actually purchase it.

The reason Tommy brings this up is because Motley Crue can't write more than 4 songs at a time.

ultmetal wrote:

I disagree that it's a waste of time, however, he's not completely wrong. I have 17 & 19 year old kids, and a lot of teenage and twenty-something family members. They don't care about albums at all. They don't even care about buying music at all. They have iPods full of stolen music and don't think anything of it. They only care about hits and singles, not albums or music as an art.

However, for me, I'm not part of the MP3 generation that only seems to care about singles. I listen to albums, not hit singles.

I feel the same way but im looking at it as maybe the bands will be more conscience of what the songs sound like before releasing it. The fans can end up with more quality music and possibly more of it. the bands can also tour more instead of being in a studio months or years at a time. It has its pros and cons just like anything. I think this would work though. I would definetly give this a try if I was in a band just getting started especially.

James B. wrote:

I have a briliant ideal for Tommy Lee.....





Using this illustration as a guide.....change the propellar to a drum stick

When he does his drum solo, he can reach up and spin the stick on his beenie.

lol ok......hmm.... lets forget Tommy lee even said this and it was just an idea i had floating in my head.

S.D. wrote:

What has happened with the current music climate mirrors what popular music was like in the early 1960's. Pop/Rock was a singles music, LPs only existed as collections of hit singles. The 45 was king (2 songs) and that's the way most people purchased their music.

The only styles of music that were LP based in that era were jazz and classical.

Once the Beatles released Sgt Peppers and the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds, it swung the pendulum to LP based delivery and that was the format that existed through most or my life.

However, times have changed again and the "short attention span generation" has become the "mobile generation" and they don't care about albums at all.

I don't think releasing EPs is going to make a bit of difference. It's still 5 or 6 songs and the younger kids still aren't going to actually purchase it.

The reason Tommy brings this up is because Motley Crue can't write more than 4 songs at a time.

Agree completely! The mp3 generation has brought with it an obsession with single songs rather than albums. Whilst this form of art has always had commercial interest driving it, it's now so overt that it has become commodified, rather than being about 'artists' developing their craft. There will always be artists (and audiences) for music as artistic expression, but for an increasing number of people music is just a temporary thing to be enjoyed then discarded when they move onto 'the next big thing'.

I think Tommy Lee is probably right, to the detriment of those of us who enjoy an entire album. I like hearing good songs and while an EP would be ok, an entire album of good songs is better. I do think bands that have a harder time writing good songs should stick to the 9-10 songs on an album though.

The flip side of this though is that this opens the door to the helloween style 'we release the same EP 4 times all with a different track on them' so if you want the music, you have to buy all the EPs.

Albums have been too long since the CD boom hit.

Many current artists are going back to the "50 minute rule", in other words, keep a single album release at 50 minutes or less. Better for the attention span and artists have to really CHOOSE which songs will make up that 50 minutes.

LP length was correct all along. A band should go into the studio with over an hour of material, then DELETE the songs that don't quite measure up.

With CDs, they just dumped ALL the material on there and it wasn't all worthy of being heard in the first place.

If you go back and think about "classic albums", the ones where every song works...they are almost all from the pre-CD era.

I think the 'hit single' mentality has always existed; before ipods and the internet there was MTV. People knew of bands and liked their songs (rather than albums) because they got rotation on MTV. I think the different generations of music listeners have more in common than not - I doubt the many screaming girls at Poison concerts were there because they liked the albums - it was because of the hit singles played on MTV and the iconic image.

What has changed is the pace at which audiences are exposed to music. The internet has made it possible to access in real time and almost simultaneously a vast amount information including music, movies, games etc. Several generations ago this was unimaginable.

Where the conflict lies is in the business model... or models. Itunes has managed to capitalise on this generation's desire for more and its limited span of attention and zero patience. However, this model is also coming into conflict with the traditional institution of promoting music, which at the moment is a sinking ship. The real problem is that in the past, profit and money making was disbursed over an entire hierarchy of middle men. Itunes I think severely threatens the traditional role of this hierarchy, it is unlikely to completely replace it but it is certainly putting enough pressure on it to change it i.e. to take profits from some and place it into the the hands of others.

At the moment neither Apple nor the music industry are prepared to put forward a unitary model of music distribution. The risk would be too high to make one format the standard. If you saw what happened to Toshiba's HD DVD format, and how it lost to Blu-ray; there the competition was one against the other. I don't think this is the same scenario or the desired scenario in the music industry.

Rather I think the focus is on having a balancing act - satisfy the needs and desires of as many different types of customers as possible. Of course, because the bulk of music listeners are made up of those who only pay attention to top 10 and 20 hits - Apple / Itunes are likely to have the widest consumer coverage; however, when it comes to promoting artists (including top 10 and 20s) the music industry is likely to have the advantage due to experience/expertise and a bigger pool of resources.
To that end, we have both downloadable content and music on various physical formats.

To add further to my post,

Personally I do not feel at all affected by the current state of the music industry. All my favorite, past and present, artists continue to have their music available on CD (which not being of the vinyl generation, is my format of choice). The artwork and all the bells and whistles that come with a physical format continue to be there and in some cases have been enhanced by various styles of packaging available nowadays.

Overall, as a consumer I am not feeling like what I want is disappearing or at any time going to become extinct. If anything, vinyl has made a comeback and several years ago I doubt anyone would have thought it had any life left in it. Yet here we are - it is 2011 and ironically enough people much younger than me are now starting their music collections with vinyl as a choice format.

As I said, I don't believe we are experiencing a war of formats. It's not even the situation we had over 20 years ago of the CD vs the Vinyl.

We have enough variety these days to satisfy the needs of many when it comes to music formats. Of course today's generation is likely to prefer ipods and purchase mp3s - they are growing in a technological world. I doubt any of you would have chosen a gramophone over a record player and a snazzy hi-fi back in the 80s or 90s.

Today's generation is no different - it will go for whatever is 'in' rather than on its way out.

S.D. wrote:

Albums have been too long since the CD boom hit.

Many current artists are going back to the "50 minute rule", in other words, keep a single album release at 50 minutes or less. Better for the attention span and artists have to really CHOOSE which songs will make up that 50 minutes.

LP length was correct all along. A band should go into the studio with over an hour of material, then DELETE the songs that don't quite measure up.

With CDs, they just dumped ALL the material on there and it wasn't all worthy of being heard in the first place.

If you go back and think about "classic albums", the ones where every song works...they are almost all from the pre-CD era.

Great post, and I agree %100. I think alot of these new/retro thrash bands should follow this format. I think alot of them were going for that 10 song rule. I've found the ones I enjoy more are shorter in songs and overall length (probably 35-40 minutes).

S.D. wrote:

Albums have been too long since the CD boom hit.

Many current artists are going back to the "50 minute rule", in other words, keep a single album release at 50 minutes or less. Better for the attention span and artists have to really CHOOSE which songs will make up that 50 minutes.

LP length was correct all along. A band should go into the studio with over an hour of material, then DELETE the songs that don't quite measure up.

With CDs, they just dumped ALL the material on there and it wasn't all worthy of being heard in the first place.

If you go back and think about "classic albums", the ones where every song works...they are almost all from the pre-CD era.

Yep. Albums became much too long and loaded with filler. 40-50 minutes is plenty and left me wanting more. I find with albums that are 13 songs long I become bored as I get to the last couple of tracks.

In response to Alex Dee's post (which was great by the way), the one thing I would mention is that "HD-DVD" died because they couldn't get all the movie studios on board.

Anytime you try a "format war" one of them is going to lose. Happened with VHS/BETA, happend again with HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

The first format to get support from all studios/labels always wins.

DVD didn't take off immediately either, because a couple movie studios held out for quite awhile before signing on.

The market is really just different now. The people buying the physical mediums tend to be older and the music/film industry isn't used to promoting to people over 30...they are only really concerned with the teenagers. And the teenagers aren't buying anything but singles...and they are stealing much more than they are buying.

I think what makes a financial difference to bands is touring more than writing and recording these days. And this kinda goes back to what Tommy Lee was going on about.

For a band like Motley Crue it is counter-productive to spend a year or two in the studio to write and record a full album of songs when all people really want to hear is: (1) the classic hits that define the band; (2) the latest hit single.

Motley Crue's time is in the past - they will always be seen as an 80s band and all their albums that are known and loved come from that era. Anything new they release may be good but at best it will just be nostalgia for what the band used to sound like or were about.

There is also no expectation from the band to progress beyond what they are known for - it's not like with Opeth where fans really do expect the band to release a cohesive body of work that is different from the previous album; where there's an expectation of the band doing something new rather than repeating the same ol' formula.

I don't think the model Tommy Lee has in mind can work for every type of metal band - hence my example with Opeth but even more generally other types of metal genres like thrash metal or power metal, there is always the expectation of hearing a complete body of work that will stand together with the band's past works.

Whereas I think bands like KISS, Motley Crue, RATT and so on are all about a slice of time. They all capture the essence of a certain decade or time in our lives. We listen to them (or at least I do) because they rock and bring back good time memories. Not because they are taking me to the next level of musical enlightenment.

Ironically, even more 'serious' bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest have had a very difficult time convincing fans (older and newer) that they are still as relevant as they were in their earlier years. This is because their newer albums are either compared to older works where there is an expectation of hearing Powerslave No. 2 and Painkiller No. 2, or are simply dismissed as falling short in every way of living up to the band's glory days. In their cases, their timing was both good and bad all at the same time. Good because they rode atop of heavy metal's popularity game, but bad because they are viewed with a certain hindsight - as 80s metal bands.

copyright infringement (downloading music) isnt theft---it is illegal based on the imaginary concept of intellectual property, which is simply idea commoditization, a capitalistic approach to thinking that is obviously not univerally valid. free music doesnt have to kill the arts, and it doesnt even have to kill the industry. people just need to get their heads of their asses and work towards a system that provides for the needs of artists and art consumers. capitalism fails as a means to supporting art, especially music, and insuring posterity is provided with a rich and genuine music experience.

i think there is still a somewhat healthy appeal out there for more material rather than less, especially taking into account the fact that teenagers/"generations now"ers, while often a sizable portion of the consumption of music, do not make up tons of what goes on in the world of music consumption. and even among the young there are fans of music, as opposed to fans of hit singles.

looking at it from the point of fans, any band that has more than a couple fans usually has people that love their entire discography. marketability is pretty much moot aside from the unfortunate fact that more money can often mean more music, but in the end, id prefer music that was made out of a love for the art and the scene, even if it means independently financed records that take a bit longer to come out, or digital-only releases.

Black Sabbath had it right with their early records... They were always about 8 songs. Four song EPs are not good enough. You'll just end up wanting the bands to hurry up and release stuff all the time. (that's not realistic if they're touring)

Thanks for the discussion gang, fun to read!

It's not the number of songs as much as the total length of those songs.

It also depends on the style of music. Reign In Blood works because it's 10 songs in 28 minutes, if it was longer it might not have had the same impact. I feel satisfied at the end of those 28 minutes, like I had a full meal in a shorter amount of time.

Conversely, a classic album like "In A Silent Way" by Miles Davis is just 2 songs, but again, it clocks in right around 40 minutes which falls within the "50 minute rule".

I was saying this several years ago, as was Sammy Hagar...not that it matters one bit.

But yeah, it makes sense. Forget about cyclic history, forget about our small microcosm of musical society, it's a good idea. Put out 4 or 5 killer songs and go about your tours...you're only going to play 1 or 2 of those live anyway...

The members of Down are planning on doing the same thing. I just read (either Kirk or Pepper, I forget) that Down is going to release 4 eps, each one different, but with a similiar theme that ties them all together.

They were saying basically all the same things Tommy mentioned. Noones buying albums, it's cheaper, easier, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I guess if that what bands need to do to survive, that's what they gotta do. However my jaded, cynical mind thinks there's another reason for this...

You know after the band releases 4 eps of music and you buy each one seperatly, a little while down the road, the "super-duper-deluxe version, featuring all 4 eps together on 1 disc, with a 2nd bonus disc of 3 new tracks and bonus dvd" will be released, making you want to buy them all over again.

I think it is a sh!t idea, if no one is buying albums, then I donot believe they are going to buy EP's either, Tommy Lee's solo projects and Methods of Mayhem were a tragic waste of magnetic tape and pro tools software and Lee should be encouraged to never record ever again under his own name or band name.

EP's would work maybe as special itune releases etc, but if you have a whole generation of music fans who feel entitled to get their music for free, the unimaginative record company weasels are not going to suddenly convience them to buy EP's, singles or anything else.

Plus pop fans, and modern rock fans got sick of buying albums where the only "good songs" where the singles, so I can't say I blame some of these peps for not wanting to buy entire album made up of filler material.

rawr! wrote:

copyright infringement (downloading music) isnt theft---

Sure it is. You took something that wasn't yours (in this case a MP3 of a song) and put in on your computer without paying for it. That's theft.

I have never been a fan of EPs, they always seemed like a "light snack" and I'm a full course meal type of guy.

Not all bands only perform 1 or 2 songs from their new albums in concert. "Has-Been" bands are the ones that do that because the crowd only wants to hear songs they recorded 20 years previously.

i think that the artists should seriously consider this.

my reasoning is that it allows them less time in the studio and more time where they actually make money. i don't see the labels allowing this though as it would tend to decrease their revenue if artists are no longer putting out full albums.

for instance, if a band puts out a full length every 24 to 36 months and can put out a 4 to 6 song EP in 12 to 18 months, they can tour twice as often selling more tickets.

i don't think however that this would work for all bands though. Dream Theater puts out epic full length albums that never fail to please from track 1 through the end.

bands with extensive catalogs like the big 4, or other 10+ year old bands should have enough music that their favorites can be played over and over while adding only a few songs at a time. RIAA wouldn't be happy, but how much money does an artist really make off of CD sales these days?