A theory

[thejuice]

A good album must have more ambitious songs in the second half you cannot try to write 12 hits otherwise the second half is just the first half with diminishing returns.

 

[Fino]

Michael Jackson's album, "Thriller," had the incredible achievement of having nearly all hits!

 

[thejuice]

I think you're right, although I don't like 'The girl is mine'. It's not a bad song but I don't think it fits on the album..

 

[Mr. Stevens]

I would argue not every great song can be a single. There are also many good albums from the 60s which never had that mentality. Releasing 5 or so singles from an album started with albums like Thriller and Springsteen's Born in the USA, if I'm not mistaken. It was more normal, then, by the time something like Nevermind came out. The Beatles only pulled singles from an album after its release, and put out non-album tracks before. The idea of pulling tons of singles from an album wouldn't have been on their mind, despite their popularity.

I'm assuming by hit you mean single, so I hope I'm not misunderstanding you. There's always Led Zeppelin, who had hits but released few singles.

 

[Outdated]

The making of albums seems to be a bit of a lost art. They weren't just a random collection of hits, every song was deliberately chosen to complement all the other songs so that the whole 40 minutes was pleasant to listen to.

Pink Floyd were masters at this. So were The Beatles in their earlier years - Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. And although they dropped off the radar as quickly as they appeared, this album is an absolute classic:

 

[Forest Cat]

Weezers's blue album from 1994 was one hit after another. It just kept going. The Sweater Song, Buddy Holly, Only In Dreams and on and on it went, great album.

I would say the Jane's Addiction album "Ritual de lo Habitual" did the same thing, but many would probably disagree.

 

[Tom]

I don't know. I don't really listen to albums unless I have to for some reason, like back in the old days when you would so you didn't have to get up every 5 minutes and change the record on the turntable.

I'd be quite happy if folks only released songs. Usually I only like 1-2 songs anyway off albums of the type musics I like and I listen to them over and over and over and over...

There are exceptions. I am not sure how popuar 'concept albums' were/are. But I liked quite a few and would then listen all thru as the songs were connected and usually told a story.

 

[Judge]

Frankly the recording industry keeps evolving at a pace I no longer choose to follow. Between advances in technology and aggressive business practices it all makes my head spin. Though like so many others, I came to bitterly resent having to pay for a full album just to get a couple of really good hits to listen to. Not surprising I had so many "greatest hits" albums. Whether they lived up to that title or not.

Small wonder I had a collection of 45s. Yet even then there was a flip side to that equation....lol. That you got one hit on one side, and one dud on the other. Oops. They got me again. And again....eventually migrating to cassette tapes and then onto CDs.

These days I'm just glad to have every piece of music I ever wanted on MP3s. Something I could never achieve in the times of all those earlier forms of audio recordings.