Why Albums Still Matter to Me

I go back and forth on whether I should release more singles, release singles that later become part of an album, or simply wait and release everything together.

Singles have a place

There are good reasons to put a song out on its own. A single can stand up by itself and find its own audience. I have released songs that way, and they have always ended up as part of an album later.

But I feel my music is better as a collection.

I have never finished a song and decided it did not belong on an album. There are a few partly finished ideas I may return to someday, but once a song becomes a completed piece of music, I want it to find its place in a release.

Sometimes I begin a project with a clear vision of what I want it to be. Other times that vision does not arrive until the first song or two makes its case. Either way, the album becomes more than its individual tracks. The songs make more sense sitting beside each other.

The order of the songs

The order depends on the story I am trying to tell. Some albums are looser than others, but the sequencing still matters.

Modern Retroism is the clearest example. It is a concept album, and the order of the songs is part of the story from beginning to end. If you moved them around, it would be a different album.

When someone listens straight through, I want them to hear sound and emotion that were paced on purpose. A change in energy can set up what comes next.

The idea of a journey keeps turning up in my music because each album is one. Creating it, producing it, listening to it and experiencing it are all part of that journey.

I like playlists. I enjoy seeing which songs listeners pull out as favourites and add to their own collections. But playlists can also mean people miss songs they might have loved if they had heard the album as it was meant to be heard.

It is a bit like making only some of the stops on a trip.

The artwork is part of the release

For me, album artwork is never just words on a cover. I want it to be part of the story, or at least a story of its own.

Each of my releases has had a lot of thought put into the visual side. The front cover, back cover, disc art and any extra panels are all part of the project. I want the artwork to feel nearly as important as the music itself.

I also like putting small things into the design that many people may never notice. A listener may not consciously notice every detail, but I think they can still feel when it belongs there.

Modern Retroism is a good example. Its front cover idea came from a silk-screening project I did in high school, which is part of why it has that retro feel. The album tells a full story, and some of the videos for its songs offer vague clues to it. There is also a map hidden in the cover artwork that most people will probably never notice, but it is part of the larger picture.

Something a Little Different works differently. Its front cover is only a small part of an entire scene I created. During the initial marketing, I used different timelines from that scene in the visuals. Every little piece has a meaning or a purpose. The more someone knows me personally, the more of those details they may recognize.

Even the track numbers on the back of As Seen on TV are meant to resemble channels from an old TV guide. There is another, nerdier detail built into that design, but I am keeping that one to myself.

I enjoy that part of the process.

What a thumbnail cannot show

Streaming is useful. It makes music easy to find, easy to share and easy to carry around. But the artwork is reduced to a thumbnail. It becomes a visual reference, not something people look at closely.

It is only the front cover, too. There is no back cover and no disc art. A physical CD, even in a cardboard sleeve, is something a person can hold, study and admire. They can see the work that went into the whole release instead of a small square beside a song title.

I use cardboard sleeves to help keep shipping and production costs down. They are not elaborate box sets, but that does not mean they are treated casually. The sleeve, the disc, the front and back artwork, and the credits are all part of the finished release.

Buying a CD supports the artist, and that matters. I also hope it gives the listener something worth keeping in return.

I do not tour, so I do not have a merch table after a show or many chances to put an album directly into someone’s hands. A CD is one of the few ways I can share the complete project that way. The music comes first, but the sleeve, disc and credits are part of how I share it. I wrote more about that in Why the Studio Became My Stage.

The whole journey

The individual songs matter, of course, and people should listen to them however they want. Singles and playlists can help someone find music they might not have found otherwise.

But I want a complete project to be there for anyone who wants to spend more than three minutes with the music.

An album gives the songs a home, gives the artwork room to say something, and lets someone experience the whole journey instead of only one stop.