Mourning the death of the Art of making an album

Have you noticed that most albums (or cd's for you youngins) that are released now-a-days are complete shit? The general model seems to be make one or two hit songs that you can blast in clubs and bars (and most of these are over-systhesized as to hide the artist's lack of talent- but I digress as a tangent of my lack of love for most modern music would last forever- perhaps I'll save that topic for a later date) and then spend the rest of the time in the studio making filler-songs that suck. The end result is a tumultuous gathering of mixed-matched ideas that neither flow together, or result in a singular message or intent. This leaves the listener either vastly disapointed or simply confused (as well it should).

Now don't get me wrong, I am all for showing your range, and I am all about being ecclectic and trying different things, but you can do that on one album and still have a linear message/sound/purpose. Remember Alice Cooper? Now HE knows how to make a good album! 'Along came a Spider' and 'Welcome to my Nightmare' are both great examples of albums that have a singular message and a fluid sound from track 1 to the last seconds of the album (although, granted, they are both concept albums) and yet have depth and meaning. Another band that knows how to make a good album is U2, from day one (I'm talking the 'Boy' days and before here kids) their albums had a purpose, their music had direction, and their albums were well constructed and took you on a musical journey that was both technically satisfying as well as musically diverse. This band is also an example of the use of range as their albums tend to be mood driven: the early ones more political, the late nineties more dance-pop driven, and the rest just good old fasioned tunage- but you can see the band evolve and grow and try new things while still managing to maintain a straight line of intent.

I guess the music industry is both loving and hating the rise of music downloading in the age of the ipod. On one hand you have the problem of the industry loosing money hand over fist due to illegal downloading (although perhaps if they marketed TALENT rather than ATTRACTIVENESS they might sell more records) but on the other hand, being able to get songs one a time works great for this new craze of hits and shits- let me explain: you can buy the one or two good tracks on an album and leave the shit songs alone; in this model your ears aren't assaulted by the crap filler tunes and your wallet isn't bitter about spending $20 on an album just to get a few good tracks. This seems to be a great problem solver! But how about this: how about the music industry decides to dedicate time and TALENT to the records they are putting out? Let's go for QUALITY rather than a "right now hit" that will flood the clubs and fade with the last call and die with the hangover. How about that?