On November 19, 2021, the megastar soloist from England, Adele, caused a stir worldwide. Adele released her fourth album entitled 30. This release caused a stir (read: controversy) in the music world.
How come? Three days after its release, 30 was recorded as the best-selling album in Uncle Sam’s music chart. On Spotify and other streaming music channels, Adele’s album overtook Red (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift, released some time before.
There are at least two controversies surrounding the release of this album: First, Adele and 30 are tearing up the fabric of the vinyl industry. Since the pandemic, vinyl production worldwide has been disrupted due to supply chain problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In essence, if a musician wants to release an album on vinyl, they must wait a long time because the supply chain is disrupted.
Adele was accused of contributing to worsening this condition because Adele was not half-hearted in ordering 500,000 plates from the vinyl manufacturer for the album 30. Of course, this is bad news for musicians with limited capital who don’t have as much privilege as Adele. They might have to release an album on vinyl two years later because they must queue and struggle with Adele at vinyl manufacturers, which are already very few.
Second, on the release of 30, Adele shows her power as a pop music megastar with extraordinary power and effective privilege. So, the story is that to release this new album containing 12 songs, Adele asked Spotify, one of the most famous music streaming services, to change their policy. Adele asked Spotify to remove the shuffle feature or play music randomly. So, listeners won’t be able to tune the album randomly and will have to listen to the album in order according to the song list provided by Adele.
Reflecting on the two cases surrounding the release of Adele’s new album, I came to think about this: First, about Adele’s extraordinary power. As a musician whose name is very famous and widespread worldwide, Adele can have so much privilege and power and can order Spotify, the streaming giant, to change its features. With that much power, Adele should be able to have the initiative to encourage Spotify—and other streaming services—to rethink a fairer mechanism for paying royalties to other musicians, especially independent musicians.
Second, Adele should consider how her monopoly on vinyl production makes it difficult for other musicians who want to release albums on vinyl. The movement to release and listen to physical releases has been booming in recent years. Amid the dominance of streaming as a method of listening to music, this physical release movement is a breath of fresh air because, finally, music lovers can enjoy and appreciate music as well as possible and not be dictated by software algorithms.
Adele’s ditching of the shuffle feature is good. Adele wants listeners of her music to be able to enjoy her releases in full and in sequence. Amidst a culture of listening to music controlled by the Spotify algorithm and a culture of listening to playlists with mixed song content, listening to an entire album in sequence feels like a sporadic habit. This raises a question: for a musician, is creating a whole concept album with the narrative of each song laid out in such a way still relevant and vital?
Musicians often think of an album full of concepts arranged in such a way. They are not haphazard and randomly arrange the order of the songs in their whole album. Why? Because of the order of the songs in the entire album, the usual narrative continues from the first to the last.
Take, for example, a Rock band from Yogyakarta, Majelis Lidah Berduri. In their two full albums, Balada Joni dan Susi (The Ballad of Joni and Susi) and NKKBS Bagian Pertama (NKKBS Part One), they composed music that had the same theme, then arranged the song sequence in the whole album as a coherent storyline.
In The Balada Joni dan Susi, Majelis Lidah Berduri tells many things and issues in its songs about the socio-political conditions of Indonesia. However, everything is arranged nicely in the love story of two young couples: Joni and Susi. The narrative is sequenced from the first song, in which Joni and Susi are in love with romance, to the music at the album’s end, in which Joni and Susi must deal with the police.
Meanwhile, on the album NKKBS Bagian Pertama, Majelis Lidah Berduri is still discussing truly political issues. However, the order of the songs is arranged into a kind of rock opera, which is a good idea to listen to sequentially from the first song to the last song to get the full context of the narrative about how authoritarian the nation called Indonesia was during the New Order era.
Of course, there are many other examples. For example, legendary folk-rock group Kelompok Kampungan nicely put together the album Mencari Tuhan (Looking for God). They tell stories about the figures of the Indonesian freedom fighters in their songs, plus songs about the meaning of spirituality. I can’t imagine if I only listened to the song half-heartedly or the songs were separated, and I listened to just one song mixed up with Raisa or Pee Wee Gaskins songs on a random playlist. The political music context of the Kampungan Group feels like it will be castrated and forced to match with other songs that are not as topical as the album Mencari Tuhan.
This list of full albums worth listening to would be very long to mention them all, and this short article will not be able to accommodate them. Take two more examples. Isyana Sarasvati for example. The soloist initially released a very ‘pop-commerce’ album because she was under a mainstream music label. Suddenly, Isyana released the album LEXICON. It is a rare, powerful album in Indonesia, a rock opera album that sounds very mature and well-arranged.
Isyana has put much energy and thought into composing the entire album so that the narrative or red thread is connected from the first track to the last track. She certainly hopes that listeners to her music can thoroughly enjoy the rock opera treat from start to finish. Imagine if only one or two songs were sampled and mixed with songs from other musicians whose genres and concepts differed significantly from LEXICON?
Another example is Sinestesia (Synesthesia), owned by Efek Rumah Kaca. This album, which was released in 2015, is also genuinely phenomenal. Efek Rumah Kaca, whose previous albums sound like a minimalist pop band with a minimal number of instruments, with songs lasting around a maximum of five minutes. Suddenly, they created a concept album by choosing song titles, choosing lots of musical instruments, and even having long song durations. It would be a shame if you couldn’t listen to the album in its entirety, from the first song, “Merah (Ilmu Politik)” (Red: Political Science), to the last song, “Kuning (Keberagaman)” (Yellow: Diversity).
So, what’s the conclusion? In the contemporary era, when most people like listening to music more mixed up in this music playlist on Spotify, the existence of the whole album is still important. Despite the controversy surrounding the release of Adele’s 30, we can still agree with her. There are times when instead of listening to music on the playlist that we have compiled or even just listening to music on the daily mix provided by Spotify, occasionally, we should start listening to an entire album in its entirety, from the first song to the last song.
This habit will make us more sensitive when interpreting a piece of music. For example, this will make us wonder why this song was placed first on the entire album. Why did Hursa release the album Katarsis (Catharsis)? What he offers is not just a piece of rock music but an outlet for emotional outbursts and resistance. But contemplative rock is a bright spot for the chaos that has been overcome.
Despite Adele’s controversy showing how power relations are natural and exist in the music industry, we still must thank her. Thanks to Adele’s power over Spotify, we have been reflecting again on the creative process of creating an album full of music. This is a reminder that musicians have worked hard to compile an album full of well-thought-out concepts and narratives.
Yes, full albums (LPs) are still influential. So, outside of our habit of listening to music randomly, it’s a good idea to listen to a whole album of music in sequence occasionally to understand the meaning and message the musician wants to convey in this entirely conceptual album.
Ignore the shuffle button in your favorite music player! And listen to full albums of music in their entirety. Undoubtedly, we will get a different and more enjoyable experience.
Aris Setyawan 