Jump to content

💓 DAWN OF CHROMATICA 💓

Follow Gaga Daily on Telegram
question

How were albums released in the past?


Phoebe Buffay

Featured Posts

Glamourpuss
8 minutes ago, JustAnother said:

To be fair, the fact that music is so accessible now is good becuase people can pick and chose what they like. You also have to consider many people on GGD make music for fun and although it may not be your taste it’s nice for them to have an outlet to share their music.

Don't get me wrong I'm not criticising that, I think everybody should be free to make art. What I mean is, it seems like there's a rise in the stuff the youth like such as Drake. But there's nothing else for people who aren't into that stuff if that makes sense. I feel like Gaga is the only artist I can rely on to give me the music I like otherwise I just listen to rock and heavy metal. Madonna seems to make music she thinks the youth will like. I don't like Beyonce's newer style like Lemonade and didn't like Rihanna's Anti. Joanne and ASIB were what I've been wanting for years but nobody else is really catering to those musical tastes if you know what I mean. 

I liked when Gaga said she made Joanne because she wanted to make an album that she herself would listen to. I'm a similar age to Gaga and I totally get what she means because I'm over party tunes now. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Replies 40
  • Created
  • Last Reply
JustAnother
6 minutes ago, Glamourpuss said:

Don't get me wrong I'm not criticising that, I think everybody should be free to make art. What I mean is, it seems like there's a rise in the stuff the youth like such as Drake. But there's nothing else for people who aren't into that stuff if that makes sense. I feel like Gaga is the only artist I can rely on to give me the music I like otherwise I just listen to rock and heavy metal. Madonna seems to make music she thinks the youth will like. I don't like Beyonce's newer style like Lemonade and didn't like Rihanna's Anti. Joanne and ASIB were what I've been wanting for years but nobody else is really catering to those musical tastes if you know what I mean. 

I liked when Gaga said she made Joanne because she wanted to make an album that she herself would listen to. I'm a similar age to Gaga and I totally get what she means because I'm over party tunes now. 

Off topic but I agree, Gaga is much better at story telling songs and raw instruments/vocals. I love her synth pop dance songs but when it comes to more country/rock songs those really shine. Gaga is a rock artist at heart and I truely belive that’s what she’s best at. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Cavadour

Way back before CDs and MTV (before 1980 that is), the main source besides radio was record shops. I remember spending hours browsing boxes of vinyls during my almost daily visits.  In some shops you could listen to the music in a booth but most of the time through headphones at the main desk. It was just a thrill to suddenly stumble on your favorite artist last album. Just like that, out of nowhere, a gorgeous vinyl sleeve was in your hands ! There was no other ways to get pictures or posters than magazines. Many artists or albums you just found their existence through people or friends around, in the local café juke box or some night club... " What the hell is that song ? " It was not always easy to find out...

Let's just say there was usually weeks but mostly months beween a release of an album and the moment you could finally own a copy. I sometimes feel nostalgic of that strong sense of search, wait and surprise find that doesn't exist anymore nowadays.  Coming back home with that new album and listening to it for the first time on your stereo was such a thrill !

Late to the party but I got a diamond heart
Link to post
Share on other sites

Glamourpuss
34 minutes ago, Cavadour said:

Way back before CDs and MTV (before 1980 that is), the main source besides radio was record shops. I remember spending hours browsing boxes of vinyls during my almost daily visits.  In some shops you could listen to the music in a booth but most of the time through headphones at the main desk. It was just a thrill to suddenly stumble on your favorite artist last album. Just like that, out of nowhere, a gorgeous vinyl sleeve was in your hands ! There was no other ways to get pictures or posters than magazines. Many artists or albums you just found their existence through people or friends around, in the local café juke box or some night club... " What the hell is that song ? " It was not always easy to find out...

Let's just say there was usually weeks but mostly months beween a release of an album and the moment you could finally own a copy. I sometimes feel nostalgic of that strong sense of search, wait and surprise find that doesn't exist anymore nowadays.  Coming back home with that new album and listening to it for the first time on your stereo was such a thrill !

I remember that thrill. I would give anything to be able to experience it again. 

And I totally forgot about the headphones in shops where you could listen to the music before buying.

Link to post
Share on other sites

imnotyourbabe10

Wonderful thread/topic, OP!

I recall bothering the employees at Best Buy or Circuit City to pull out their binders to look for release dates. 

Shops like Sam Goody or Virgin were places to peruse, too.  Borders also had "listening stations" near their CDs.  I often found new artists that way.

90's were cassettes -- recording on them from the radio like some mentioned above. 

My car is relatively old, ya'll.  So I still make mix CDs to listen to (yes, the laptop still has a CD/DVD drive built in lol).  Hell, I still make mix CDs for friends and my boyfriend.  (Holidays, for the heck of it, etc).  Playlists on iTunes, yes please!

I love the convenience of wireless and iPods/iPhone/Spotify (no longer lugging around CDs and walkman players) but I do long for the 90s/00s music industry days.  (I am not old enough to speak to vinyls or 8-Tracks, though).  I do chuckle at the notion that people are going back into cassettes again -- silly Urban Outfitter hipsters. No shade, just amusement at trends.

EDIT: And when VH1 and MTV were still those things...TRL like the post above mentioned, too!

Link to post
Share on other sites

StrawberryBlond

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned was fan clubs. "Sign up to my fan club" is a phrase so old it's basically non-existent now but back then, it was the closest thing you got to Twitter announcements. I don't even know how you'd sign up as most people didn't have the internet, so I assume through the mail or the phone? Then you'd get put on the mailing list and you'd get a letter every so often telling you about upcoming releases as well as geographically relevant information for your location regarding live performances in your area, from big to small. That was how the super fans stayed on top of things. But if you didn't do this, it all came down to browsing through record shops to find it, it was a common past-time. If you were a big name, there would be crazy promotion around you in the same way it is now, though, just without the online factor. It's no surprise that debut sales weeks didn't become huge until about 1999 because of this model.

22 hours ago, Glamourpuss said:

Come to think about it, music was a much bigger deal in the past. Quality has declined alot and anybody can be famous these days, it doesn't require talent anymore. Streaming has ruined the magic as well. It seems like now we have fast food music and it's awful. The youth of today don't know anything of what it was like in the past hence why this thread was created and the question asked.  The decline in the quality of music is a good example of why older people don't like Millennials and they don't seem to realise that what they listen to is garbage, no offence. (I'm not a millennial hater btw although I do blame them for The Kardashians grrr). :ladyhaha:

Thing is, as much as I can definitely say that music is so disposible now (purely because it can) and can certainly be terrible, that bad music has always existed. As a 1989-born millenial, I can say that I remember hearing a lot of bad music growing up and while it may be worse today (or maybe my taste has just improved and my standards have got higher), when I hear music from the past, I'm shocked at how bad some of it is. I looked through the complete range of Billboard #1's since the 50's and was blown away by how awful some of this stuff was but people listened to it because that's all there was, so with nothing to compare it to, they thought it was good. What I found when I heard a lot of old albums as well was that the singles were amazing but the album tracks were pretty forgettable and mediocre...yet this album sold millions because there was no "try before you buy" way of finding out if you liked it first like you can now. I honestly think a lot of musicians took the public for all they were worth back then because of that. They'd try super hard for the singles and then supplement it with 8 or so filler tracks and despite that, they were rolling in money. And this is legendary albums I'm talking about, so my delve into the past which was called the best time of music was rather disappointing, to say the least. I also think a lot of people have on rose-tinted glasses when they talk about the amazing albums of the past simply because they're nostalgic. I ask these people if they've actually listened to this album recently and most of them say they haven't listened in years (yeah, best album ever, but haven't listened to it in years, that makes sense). Then when they do listen, they realise it's not as good as they remembered and very dated. Bad music has always existed, it's just we're a lot of more aware of the current age of it more than anything.

Link to post
Share on other sites

GypsyBabe

The fact that this is a legitimate question makes me feel so old I- :air:

New albums were promoted on TV through commercial spots and on MTV or VH1. There were countdowns to new music videos and artists did a very heavy amount of press on TV to promote. Also, if you went into a CD store then you could scan the barcodes of CD’s and it would play clips of the songs and would tell you the dates of future releases. We used to spend a very long time in CD stores too, and there were posters everywhere that told you when stuff was coming. 

Do y’all remember the countdown on MTV for the MTN video? :diane:

⚯͛
Link to post
Share on other sites

Gracious Gaga

There was things call RECORDS.  Then CASSETTE TAPES.  Then CDs.  Then MP3s.  Then finally, your fav, STREAMING :toofunny:

♥ Kindness Police.
Link to post
Share on other sites

NewUsername
23 hours ago, Glamourpuss said:

I was a child in the nineties and it seemed that everybody listened to the radio more, still bought vinyl records and it was a common thing to go shopping at the weekend and buy a new casette tape. People paid attention to the charts more and the Christmas number 1 was a big deal back then. I remember when CD's were new and became more popular and to own a new cd was so special, it was like a deluxe product compared to a casette (God, I feel ancient writing this). 

I also remember when MJ released Earth song and the album to go with it, he was EVERYWHERE. I'd never seen promo like it before. I remember walking down the high street and there were posters everywhere in shop windows and sides of bus shelters, shops were playing his new music and he was all over TV. 

Friday and Saturday night TV in the UK was a big deal. We had Top of the Pops on a Friday where stars would perform their hit songs so people would tune into that to stay up to date. I remember The Spice Girls had a one off Saturday night special where they performed songs and spoke to the audience. I also remember buying their video tape which was a collection of their videos and behind the scenes footage as well as the making of the videos. I miss those days when artists would release stuff like that. 

But it seems that they all tried much harder back then with promo whereas now we are in the internet age, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube is all they need. It's taken the magic out of it. 

Oh yeah, and sometimes when you couldn't afford to buy the song we had to wait for it to come on the radio and quickly record it to casette tape and hope the DJ didn't talk over it. :ladyhaha:

Those were the days :legend: 

Link to post
Share on other sites

FentyGa

omg I was thinking about this. Like, with no youtube, itunes (let alone apple music and spotify), social media, how would they announce singles and albums and music videos? Maybe that's why number one debuts were so hard to get back then? This thread is really fascinating for someone who's always been around the internet.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Reject False Icons

Great thread, wow how it only has 2 pages.

Though I'm from the '00s, I still can recall some things But reading your stories has left me amused :firega: even if i didn't experienced those times I'm absolutely emotional for them and ofc i would give everything to experience them.

I wanted to ask this question to my older relatives but they weren't into music (tragic) and they didn't have anything to say. So Thank you so much for sharing stories of those golden times :heart:

Link to post
Share on other sites

GagaUnderYou

Same as they do now, but with the social media/streaming aspect. 

Radio & Television were the biggest sources of information especially for music. I'm sure street promo was heavy as well. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

old sanuk

Radio.  It was all about radio.  The local AM stations had their weekly top 40 song countdown for listeners, and issued weekly paper lists to the local record shops selling 45s and albums.  We all bought 45s to bring to school dances and house parties.  Once a song was off the chart, it’s 45 was no longer stocked and the song would only be available on an album.  New releases were displayed on the store walls & front racks.  There was also the jukeboxes in the soda shops, and of course, The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday night might have a new top 40 talent amongst the jugglers, comedians, Broadway or circus acts, e.g. Elvis Presley, The Beatles.  Yep, Happy Days! for sure....

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...