I like that this music column runs on Tuesday, because Tuesday is CD release day. And last Tuesday was a good day for CDs. There was a new Dan Bern, Ben Kweller, Indigo Girls, Zutons—even a new Barenaked Ladies album, for those of us who still enjoy reliving our nostalgic middle school days. Anyway, all of these new releases got me thinking about other bands and artists I like, so I did what any college student who wants information does—I went to Wikipedia.
I found a few things—Apples in Stereo finally got signed to a new label and have an album due out in early '07, and Radiohead is STILL nowhere near announcing a release date for their new album—but when I found no new information on Cake, I went straight to their website. I found that they had no news about anything other than the environment going to hell in a hand basket. Not that I'm against awareness of global warming, but I was in ""Dragnet"" mode (""Just the facts, ma'am"") and, to be honest, I got frustrated. Very frustrated.
Now, I really, really like Cake. But waiting for a Cake album is like waiting for your name to come up on a donor transplant list. However, when they finally do produce something, it's fantastic. Really. I've never met a Cake song I didn't like. That being said, I always feel kind of depressed after I get a new Cake release. They're consistently 35 minutes long, and I know that after those 35 minutes are up I now have about four years until the next 35 minutes.
Lots of bands take a while to put out an album—and certainly prolificacy isn't the only measure of any kind of artist—but you know Cake didn't spend four years writing and recording 10 three-and-a-half minute songs. What else were they doing? Spending time with their families? Come on—there are rabid fans a-waiting!
Of course, an argument can be made for the other side, too. A lot of critics accused Ryan Adams of recording too much in 2005, in which he released three full-length albums (and one of them was a double-disc!). The argument was that if he had selected the best songs from each of the recording sessions, he could have put together one really great CD rather than three mediocre ones. (Being a Ryan fanatic I couldn't disagree more, but for the sake of this conversation I'll eschew my pro-Adams rhetoric).
I don't think the Adams Argument holds true, despite my bias. Part of the Beatles lore is that they released an album a year (sometimes two!) from 1963 through 1970, and every one of them is a true-and-through classic. But if five years had passed from Rubber Soul to Revolver to The White Album, etc., would the whole of the Beatles' catalog still be held in such high regard?
I've decided to come up with a solution to these questions and frustrations. We need a unified stand on the frequency-of-output to quality-of-output ratio. So here it is: Every band has two years to put together a quality album (it must score at least 3-5 stars in a critical analysis) lasting no less than 45 minutes and no more than 70.
Being an English major, my math skills are on par with an eighth grader's (words like ""vector"" and ""gradient"" terrify me in the way sharks or clowns terrify others), but if any math majors want to write out the above equation with actual numbers and symbols and variables, please e-mail it to me so I can publish it in next week's paper.
Oh, but Dylan is exempt from this rule. He can give us whatever he wants whenever he wants. He's earned it. And Neil Young. And Lou Reed. And I wouldn't say no to a new Radiohead. Or Wilco. Hmm. This theory might need a bit more work. I'll get back to you. Eventually.
