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Record Labels Struggle With the Album's Demise
Supplying yet more evidence, if more were needed, of the dire straits the music business increasingly finds itself in — reader cphilo sends us a NYTimes article about the death of the album as the mainstay of profit, and the record labels' struggle to adopt to the new realities. The article notes the trend of the labels signing artists for a single song, maybe two, and a ring tone.
Yeah, the LP is pretty much toasted. It's a fairly limited market now, made up of DJs and insane people. Good example!
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The reason why sales are down on albums is cause they were always inflated in the past. They used to sell CD singles at full price (lets say $10), the album that would follow later in time (also priced at $10) with a total sale of $20. Now you can buy the single for a $1 and if you want the full CD for $10, with a difference of $9, thats where alot of the profit has been lost. Those are just made up numbers but it gets the point across.
I'll just start by saying that I'm a musician and a music lover and that an album that is put together as a piece of art is a beautiful thing - but just like any art that's put together for commercial purposes, an album that's designed as a vehicle for a few singles and some filler songs isn't.
Not every artist has the ability to release 50-70 minutes of truly compelling art, and most of the buying public is more than happy to listen to singles. Conversely, some artists seem to be constricted by the 78 minute limit of CDs.
It would be a good thing if the music industry was flexible enough to let artists release what they wanted (or wanted to sell) in whatever format (in terms of single/EP/album) as opposed to this 2-years = new full-length album mentality, some artists might like to release a single every few months, while some release an EP every year and others an album every few years.
"damnit, trolley I want in your signature." - Elburrito
Can't say I pity the RIAA: I used to buy CDs for $11 a piece and kept thinking that the prices would surely come down (market forces, supply and demand, right?) At $17 I think not just twice, but five times about buying a disc because it's obviously been a planned rip-off all these years.
Along comes the internet and a new way of getting the word out and distributing music. Does the RIAA take advantage of lower (read: "nil") media costs? Do they dance with joy at all the chance of ridiculously low advertisement costs? Do they use P2P as a kind-of word of mouth mechanism? No, they sue us. Really f---ing bright idea, that, and then they wonder why I vote with my money and buy absofriggenlutely *nothing* anymore from any artist associated with the RIAA? Sheesh!
Not sure what the IAA stands for but I know the 'R' stands for 'Retarded'.
--Udo.
This is precisely why places like Youtube are full of talentless, amateurish rubbish. The recording industry has, over the years, obliterated any incentive for talent by its corrupt methods. Only half-arsed tunesmiths with "connections" and mediocre musicians are getting work in the music industry, by and large - their work is tweaked, retouched, and canned. If you could taste it, it would taste like imitation Spam. People with real musical talent are frequently not in the business at all. Those that have had some nurturing are not using their abilities in public (no money in it). Instead they are holding day jobs and playing musical instruments/having their jam sessions at home in the evenings to relax.
As a result, the recording industry can't find talent (because it killed it off) and is stuck with ring tones and other crap.
If we kill off their business model (fingers crossed), then maybe people will once again appreciate the value of live performances and music will become an event, an experience, not merely the auditory equivalent of fast food.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
What I find interesting here is that this seems to be largely a self inflicted wound.
As I see it, the problem started with CDs. The record companies want to push CD singles, but no one wanted to play three times the price for two tracks, so the format largely died.
This left DJs as the only people buying singles, so we had charted suddenly dominated by techno dance anthems that probably sound fantastic if you're off your head on a dance floor in Ibiza, but are kind of insane when played on breakfast radio as you're getting ready for work.
So, because the single market is dead, new bands have a harder job breaking into the market. In particular if a band has two good tracks and a couple of bad ones, where once they might have produced a single or maybe two, now they have to make it all into an Album and pad it out with a couple of over-length "dance remix" tracks and hope nobody notices. t.A.T.u spring to mind here.
Making matters worse, the demise of the singles chart as an accurate reflection of public tastes has led to a market increasingly controlled by the labels through channels like MTV. So it isn't like there's a lot of confidence in the quality of these albums, either. The only reason anyone is still buying that, rigged or not there's only one game in town.
Enter the internet. Forget Napster and Kazaar, jsut consider ITunes. People can go and by a track if they like it. Not the whole album. Suddenly hte singles market is back, we have an emerging download chart that looks to again be a reasonable indicator of public interest. We even have good new groups releasing songs under Creative Commons licences, free-to-download and legal.
And the record companies are wondering why no one is interested in albums any more...
[ All the above IMHO based on faulty memory and personal prejudice. Disagreement is welcome; demands for references will be met with mild derision. Thank you for your time ]
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!