Funny how I keep seeing articles from various outlets proclaiming the "age of the Great Album" died in the early 80's.

Meanwhile I'm just here listening to @mastodonmusic 's "Crack The Skye" for the 2nd time this morning and marveling at the layering and storytelling.

Not to mention others like @pelicansong 's "Forever Becoming" and @EITS 's "The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place" and (utterly unfortunate band name, but that's where we are in our history) Boston-based Isis album "Panopticon".

The era of the "Great Album" isn't dead. Never has been.

It's just that in the days of Spotify and iTunes, you have to _WANT_ to listen to an album all the way through and digest it _AS IT'S PRESENTED_, not how the labels want you to consume it (singles, individually).

That's the unfortunate part of the evolution of music in an age increasingly centered around bite-size consumption and rampant consumerism: we're less likely to consume art in any meaningful way.

It's the "smaller pieces, faster consumption, less context/color" method.

Being honest: it's toxic AF. It pushes artists who are genuinely trying to make a full statement rather than a tweet-sized meme (the irony of this thread's living situation is not lost on me) to the periphery if not outright pushing them out of an otherwise deserved space.

But at the end of the day, none of this griping matters--it's screaming into the Maelstrom and hoping someone hears it and can scream back.

If "art" and popular support of expression is dying... we (the consumers of said art) are the only ones to blame.