As noted, today you have to release an album to promote your tour, that is how artists make money. I feel like that has narrowed the artist choices available to us, and also has narrowed the complexity of the music available to us, certainly for more "popular" music.
I think growing up, all the local bands that sort of defined our lives, could release an album and sell enough to put food on their tables and a roof over their head, and keep crafting new music. Maybe they only released 2 or 3 albums, but often those albums hold a special spot for us, and we would go see them on the local tour that was not overly expensive. My "kids" would have a hard time identifying more than a 1 or 2 local artists who have not reached some level of international recognition.
One of the reasons a lot of the later Beatle's music is interesting is they decided to stop touring, and concentrated on creating music unconstrained by the limits of an eventual live performance. That is not possible today, though today, it would probably be acceptable to play mix a live performance mixed with recorded material, but personally I don't really see the point, especially at the cost of a concert today.
I think growing up, all the local bands that sort of defined our lives, could release an album and sell enough to put food on their tables and a roof over their head, and keep crafting new music. Maybe they only released 2 or 3 albums, but often those albums hold a special spot for us, and we would go see them on the local tour that was not overly expensive. My "kids" would have a hard time identifying more than a 1 or 2 local artists who have not reached some level of international recognition.
One of the reasons a lot of the later Beatle's music is interesting is they decided to stop touring, and concentrated on creating music unconstrained by the limits of an eventual live performance. That is not possible today, though today, it would probably be acceptable to play mix a live performance mixed with recorded material, but personally I don't really see the point, especially at the cost of a concert today.