Morbid Angel frontman Steve Tucker is feeling the tides change within the music industry. In an interview with Into The Combine, Tucker said he feels that within the next decade the industry will probably shift toward EPs and single releases. Which is nothing new – it's been something that Slipknot percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan recently brought up, and that Chris Jericho feels pretty passionately about.
Tucker cites shortening attention spans from fans for the shift, though he adds that spending less time in the studio creating music might be nice.
"It seems to me that times are changing, dude," said Tucker as transcribed by Metal Injection. "The way an album is done and thing like that may change. I don't know that in the next ten years, people will still be going in and doing ten song albums. I think we're gonna see… EPs and singles and things like that are gonna possibly be the new formats.
"People have short attention spans now, and I think ten songs is almost too many songs for them to take in anymore. Maybe five? Do five and release five songs a year or something. It seems like it would be enough to keep people happy that are looking for new music, enough to keep the creative juices going and not be stuck in the monotony of being in [the studio] for a long time doing a bunch of songs."
Tucker then touches on a problem that's been prevalent within the industry, but doesn't seem to be addressed nearly enough – the fact that music is treated as just a product at this point. Tucker puts it as simply as saying "Music these days doesn't seem to have a very high value to a lot of people," saying the fact that people essentially want entertainment as quickly as they can get it, and in as massive a quantity as possible.
"It's easy to release stuff now. If you can get distribution, if you can get Amazon distribution and digital distribution, it's really easy to release music. You have people who [don't have] record labels involved and they're releasing music constantly. When I go on Facebook, which is not very often, but when I go on there, there's always a couple in my inbox – 'hey man, here's my album. Check it out.'
"It's a lot to filter through and it's like, 'hey man, I recorded this at my house.' I hate to say this but a lot of times I can hear that. I can hear that it's not real drums, I can hear that it's not real amps. I can hear that kind of stuff. I've learned myself through disasters that production means a lot. People expect the very best thing they can possibly get as soon as they can get it, and as much as they can get it and for as little as they can pay. Preferably nothing. It seems like I'm bitching about the world, but I'm really not. We're talking about the music industry, and the music industry is a complete different entity than the rest of the world.
"Music these days doesn't seem to have a very high value to a lot of people. Although people are constantly walking around with headphones in their ears, wanting to be entertained. They just don't wanna exert any effort themselves to get it or [spend] any money to get it these days. Luckily with death metal, a lot of fans want the product. They want that product dude. They want the CD, they wanna hold it in their hand. They want the vinyl. I actually have a cassette of [Morbid Angel's latest record] Kingdoms Disdained and I think it's badass. It's really a shame that this format went away because this looks fantastic, you know? Kingdoms Disdained and I think it's badass. It's really a shame that this format went away because this looks fantastic, you know?"
Despite all this, Tucker recently revealed Morbid Angel is slowly working on new music. So that's good.
