The term was first applied to a colection of 78 r.p.m. discs used to record a long work, such as a symphony, that would not fit onto a single disc; these collections were presented in a format resembling a family album, although containing sleeves for discs rather than pages for photographs. The term was later adopted for long-playing records of over 30 minutes of music, and later again also denoted the aesthetic qualitites of the music contained within. In the mid-1960s albums were often a collection of songs organized around one central theme; thus artists such as the Small Faces, the Mothers of Invention, the Moody Blues, the Who and the Beatles were described as making ‘concept’ albums. These consisted of a selection of songs either unified by one pivotal idea, for example the work of the Moody Blues, which centred around eastern mysticism and spirituality, or built around a narrative sequence, as in the cases of the Who’s Tommy and Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Album-based music invited admiration for its technical excellence and studio craft. The album as a portfolio or representative selection of work is shown in the popularity of ‘Best Of’ and ‘Greatest Hits’ compilations. Certain big-selling acts such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, who seldom, or never, released single material, were thought of as ‘album artists’, and the late 1960s saw the rise of progressive rock labels such as Deram, Harvest, Virgin and Charisma, which depended predominantly on album sales for their success. The importance of cover art work and packaging to this market is shown by Hipgnosis’ designs for Pink Floyd.
Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) was used as a marketing term by the industry to describe American stadium acts such as the Eagles, Toto, Foreigner and Styx, who made music designed to cater for those in their 20s and 30s. This music became the staple of American FM radio in the 1970s and was one of the standards new wave artists were to react against later in the decade. With the rise of the compact disc in the early 1980s the term album was often used interchangeably with CD. Musicians would record a ‘new album’, even if the resulting phonograph was almost exclusively disseminated via the media of the compact disc. The album remains the most lucrative format within the music business, as record labels target those over 25, whose spending power ensures a high demand for both old products in the form of reissues and new.
DAVID BUCKLEY