[Utada Hikaru] ☆ Utada Hikaru: The 46th Thread ☆

[CoriKaru]

I always find it silly and pretentious when people say because all of an Album's songs don't sound like one song sewn together seemlessly like a Remixed Marathon on Saturday Night Radio Suzuki Ami wig snatching style that it has no flow/theme/whatever and fails as an Album.

Nobody thinks like that. Like the songs on an Album? Good Album. Done.

Nobody wants an Album full of the same song. Diversity is key.

That's why you have a slow melodramatic song come in right after you just got done on the floor on your hands and knees to a club banger. It just works. You just get up, cry and get ready to get on them hands and knees again once the next hot track pops off.

[sxesven]

Originally Posted by CoriKaru

Nobody wants an Album full of the same song. Diversity is key.

For pop music this is probably more or less true, but for so much else it doesn't at all apply.

Plus, by coherence, unity etc. most people don't mean that the songs sound like they are 'sewn' together in a sort of megamix fashion but rather that they contribute to an overall mood, feeling, etc the album is trying to capture. Which is why many people, myself included, dislike greatest hits albums or single collections. Dragged out of context, many songs lose the additional power they received in the original (album) context. Sure, a good single can stand alone. But if that is all the song can do, and you throw a bunch of them together, you don't have a good album. Which is also why an album full of 10/10 songs need not be a 10/10 album. And why albums with weaker cuts can be.