The (best ever) Beatles released albums with 14 or so songs...sometimes twice a year! If you're a great and prolific band or artist, why not include as much material as possible, especially now that CDs can hold almost 80 minutes worth? A band such as U2 may be talented, but releasing an album every five years doesn't impress me. 13 (mostly exceptional) albums in about 8 years DOES. Studio time is expensive, to be sure, but too many artists these days fuss with fancy 24-track (or more?) sound gadgets; George Martin worked miracles, quickly and professionally, with (at most, as I recall) 8 recording tracks, often less. That being said, I won't name them here, but there certainly are many fine contemporary (adult alternative) bands that release albums containing more than a dozen songs and 40-60 minutes of music. What top-forty groups/artists are doing these days, I cannot say. Now in my late 30s, I've turned away from pop music and embraced classical, which offers far more God-inspired beauty...but that's a different topic.
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