A lot of folks have been saying it for a while now.  The unimaginable. The unspeakable.

“The album is dead.”

Nope.

The music industry as we know it is dead. Radio is dead. And considering last year’s top-selling albums, I’d venture to say that even taste is dead. But the album? Hell no.

The problem is this. The music industry machine STILL squanders endless energy marketing music that is the very antithesis of “classic” to tweens and 18 to 24-year-olds… all the while virtually ignoring the very people who grew up on rock ‘n roll; and by this I mean adults. Even Columbia’s would-be, golden-eared savior is banking on college student focus groups for answers. Meanwhile, EMI’s courting teens. It doesn’t make sense.

In 2000, the success of O Brother Where Art Thou was considered a “phenomenon.”

In 2007, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Springsteen, the Eagles, Zeppelin… bona fide top-selling albums. Also “phenomenon?”

What about transcendent Long-Tail-troubadours like Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Steve Earle, Ryan Adams, Feist, Amy Winehouse… whose 2007 albums lit up best-of lists and whose core audience is undoubtedly adult.

I’m not saying that adults are impervious to iPods and $.99 songs. But if you have an industry that’s based on the sale of albums, why not target the audience who’s most likely to buy them?

Let’s face it, if you take great music that appeals to adults and actually spend time marketing it, guess what? Adults will buy it. After all, they are a third of the population, wielding approximately $1 trillion in disposable income. 

What’s more is that having lived through what was arguably the most groundbreaking music era in history, adults are uber-receptive to new music. They get the album… they embrace the collective idea that a group of songs, purposely arranged, comprises a greater product… an all-encompassing audio art-form that is, by its very essence, the bare-bones magnificence of music: a wondrous, sonically shared experience. And they don’t expect it to be free.

Shamefully, the music industry, with all of its research and dissecting and god-awful, dumbed-down, pigeonholed formats has all but ruined this shared experience… to the point where music — beautiful music, the one universal language of mankind — has been beaten own into a thoughtless, bubblegum, buzz-of-the-moment, disposable commodity.

Here’s a secret: there actually are countless knock you-on-your-ass full-length albums out there… and I mean new music that’s relevant today. But how do you find it?

Hence, the problem is twofold. Not only is the monster marketing demographic of people 35 to 65 all but abandoned (or worse, written off as “lame” and consequently spoonfed unremarkable, soul-less schmaltz) but radio compounds the situation by not doing its job. The answer is simple. Screw Arbitron. Find great albums. And for the love of God, play them.

Miraculously, a handful of radio stations actually do this and substantially impact adult album-buying trends in their respective areas. The thing is, these heroic stations are, for the most part, shamefully under-marketed. No one knows about them.

So. You are 50+/- years old and although the Beatles hold a dear place in your heart, they do kind of make you feel, well, old. You want something new, a musical-elixir of sorts that’s hip and cool and decidedly grown-up. A full-fledged, 12-15 song compendium of sonic bliss. And lots of them.

I’m talking about an emphatic rebirth of the album.

Coming right up.

© Outlandos Music^TM2008

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According to most of the music industry, if you’re an adult, if you’re a decade or two or three or four or more (God forbid!) on the high side of that precious 18 to 24 bracket, your coolfactor is zero. You have no pulse. Those Josh Groban CDs in the impulse-buy rack at Barnes & Noble? FYI. Those are for you.

If you’re over 50 and you have one of those little cards that reminds you of this fact every day, good news: musically, you’re the new dead.

Case in point. Have you been to the AARP’s site lately? They launched a music feature last May under the mantra Music for Grownups. Don’t bother looking for a menu item labeled Music. It’s been relegated as a subheading under Fun and Games*. Your music, the essential soundtrack to your life, your audio calling-card, is, according to the AARP merely “Fun and Games.”

With the goal of providing “exclusive entertainment content geared towards the preferences of baby boomers and 50+ Americans,” the site boasts sponsorship of Tony Bennett’s recent tour (note: it seems as though the content hasn’t been updated since last year). Don’t get me wrong, I love Tony. But when you think of the music that defines your life, is that it? Is that the music that makes you feel like the young, hip, and cool grownup that you most certainly are?

Elsewhere on the site, there are a string of recent blog posts regarding music that is supposedly right up your alley. Like this one (note accompanying disclaimer) titled Glee Club:

The University of Indiana’s men’s a cappella group, Straight No Chaser sings the best version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” you’ll hear all year.

Um, okay. But decidedly, not cool.

I don’t mean to pick on the AARP but as our national umbrella group, representing so many adults, I wonder, doesn’t anyone there friggin’ rock?? My stepmom is a member and she’s cranking the AC/DC on a regular basis. She was front and center at a recent Damnwells‘ show. Bowie and Yes fit her bill. Beck? Check.

To be fair, the AARP does sport a Joss Stone Artist Connection (I’m not really sure what this is, seems mostly like an advertisement). Not bad. I’m not much of a fan but I get that other people are. That soulful groovy thing she has going on is sexy, and hence, cool. And there’s a Paul McCartney Timeline. Props for Paul = always cool.

I’m just saying, I think they can do better.

*since this post, the AARP’s website has undergone a makeover.  “Fun and Games” is now “Leisure,” although, sadly, there is still no designated menu heading for “Music.”

© Outlandos Music^TM2008

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