I do kind of understand the questions at hand, here. I paint, and make my own media. The work I do takes months, but every teenager on deviantart churns this stuff out two or three pieces a day. The people who get hired are those with a firm grasp of overnight photoshopping. The answer I have come up with for myself is that one has to put out random sketches (remixes? Live tracks?) now and then, but fine compositions should not be abandoned altogether. There are people out there who still appreciate the extra effort. Of course, those people might be as happy with a small frame as a mural- since what you're discussing is not an issue of quality but of quantity.

Don't be too alarmed – I'm not talking about the death of the CD, specifically, I'm just talking about the death of the long-form recording. I can certainly hear the difference in an mp3 and, given my druthers, would buy something on CD. The stats, however, show that the market is going increasingly download-able.

But that's only a sidebar, really. Since the music promotion arena is now so heavily saturated with thousands upon thousands of indie artists blogging, twittering, releasing, promoting, etc, can an artist afford to spend 2 years “off the grid” crafting a 12-track album when they could release a 6-track mini-album instead every year?

Certainly for me, it's already been 2 years since I released “Excursions” and a 4th album is nowhere near ready, so I don't have anything “new” to promote – it's why I'm putting out a remix/b-Side collection next month. I'd prefer to put out all-new music but I just don't have a full-length ready yet. But would it be that bad for me to put out an album with 7 tracks of new material instead of 10-12, since I could probably do that by the end of the year?

There's probably an inflation issue, too. I remember getting LP's back in the 70's and 80's that were only 8 songs. An “EP” was 4. Now it seems an EP is 8, a full length is 10-15 songs…

I do kind of understand the questions at hand, here. I paint, and make my own media. The work I do takes months, but every teenager on deviantart churns this stuff out two or three pieces a day. The people who get hired are those with a firm grasp of overnight photoshopping. The answer I have come up with for myself is that one has to put out random sketches (remixes? Live tracks?) now and then, but fine compositions should not be abandoned altogether. There are people out there who still appreciate the extra effort. Of course, those people might be as happy with a small frame as a mural- since what you're discussing is not an issue of quality but of quantity.

Don't be too alarmed – I'm not talking about the death of the CD, specifically, I'm just talking about the death of the long-form recording. I can certainly hear the difference in an mp3 and, given my druthers, would buy something on CD. The stats, however, show that the market is going increasingly download-able.

But that's only a sidebar, really. Since the music promotion arena is now so heavily saturated with thousands upon thousands of indie artists blogging, twittering, releasing, promoting, etc, can an artist afford to spend 2 years “off the grid” crafting a 12-track album when they could release a 6-track mini-album instead every year?

Certainly for me, it's already been 2 years since I released “Excursions” and a 4th album is nowhere near ready, so I don't have anything “new” to promote – it's why I'm putting out a remix/b-Side collection next month. I'd prefer to put out all-new music but I just don't have a full-length ready yet. But would it be that bad for me to put out an album with 7 tracks of new material instead of 10-12, since I could probably do that by the end of the year?

There's probably an inflation issue, too. I remember getting LP's back in the 70's and 80's that were only 8 songs. An “EP” was 4. Now it seems an EP is 8, a full length is 10-15 songs…