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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.
Oh wait...
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
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.
It seems to me that they went out of their way to kill the album. You can select almost any album from the Big Four[Sony BMG, EMI, Universal, Warner] these days and pick out which 2-3 songs they will release on radio and make videos for, and which 10 are utter crap just there to fill the CD.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Over exposed, radio played acts are the only ones who need to sign two song contracts and make it into the top twenty. I still enjoy entire albums, from REAL artists. Of course, I'm a fan of concept albums... Maybe if more musicians made their albums one cohesive piece of art we wouldn't have these problems. Oh wait, our short attention span guarantee that we would.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Yeah they are in Dire Straights. They need to Rush and abandon their Cheap Tricks and keep their Doors open to a new Genesis, or get crushed under the Rolling Stones of progress. One day when you mention the RIAA, your buddy will respond, "The Who?"
Who'd pay $10 - $15 for a CD of third rate material with effects and dynamic range compression 'compensating' for lack of artist talent?
That sounds pretty cool, I would! But.. I'm afraid of viruses. CD-s are scary...
With all songs costing about the same, there's no reason to buy the album.
If the "hit" costs $8 and you like 3 other songs for $1 each, you'll gladly pay $10 for the album.
If record stores want to make money, put the album out for purchase before releasing singles, and price the album and individual tracks at whatever the market will bear.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Maybe the music industry should bring back the 45 records from yesteryear? Retro tech is always cool...
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
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The music industry used to be BUILT on the sales of singles. It really wasn't until the mid-to-late 80s that they started focusing on trying to sell entire albums.
It was the CD that did it. The "coolness" of CDs made everyone kind-of forget about singles, and how handy they were. And they were more expensive, which the record companies obviously loved. Yeah, they did/do sell CD singles, but it's obvious that they don't want anyone to buy them. They're overpriced, and there aren't many of them available.
But at this point, CDs are NOT cool. They're old and busted, and dull. And they're STILL expensive. More expensive.
The record companies just can't give it up, though. They had this 20-year-run of making WAY more money than they had any right to (thanks to the CD revolution), but now it's over, and they're trying to freeze the clock.
I guess what I'm saying is this: if this industry collapses and the "artists" starve to death, I won't give a shit, because they're not artists. I know real artists and they have my love and support, and yes, that's financial support, because their CDs kick ass.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Record some music and I'll at least give it a listen. Too much of the stuff nowadays is fake plastic over-hyped crap. Who needs talent anyway?
Is it any wonder nobody is buying it?
My latest musical purchase was a genuine old-fashioned CD, and the entire album (Bailando con Lola by Azucar Moreno) holds up just fine. My Spanish-English dictionary says "clavame" means "nail me", but after seeing the video I assume it has a metaphorical meaning not unlike what it means in English...
...laura
What do you expect, they raised the prices when they brought out CDs with the promise that once the technology get efficient the price would come down. Then later. They kept raising the price (even for older tunes, try to buy something good form a pop band in the 80s, usually still $17).
So people are limited to choose either:
- an inflated new album price ($17+)
- a reasonable priced album if bought used ($10 or less, but no added profit to music biz)
- buying only the (good) songs people want on-line ($2 to $4 depending on artist, sometimes only $1)
- Of course this is very limited people have to have the right computer, OS, listening devices, etc.
- tape off the air ($0, low quality) digitize etc.
- piracy ($0 low karma)
The obvious would be to actually make the albums more affordable, but that seems way beyond the concept of the music industry.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I'm kind of tired of hearing these discourses on old business models, thinkoftheartists, and other old school crap. Sure, perhaps that doesn't make a lot of sense point blank, but lets face it, the CD and DVD and now other media types give artists and the **AA member businesses the method to create art that is truly worth $18. The fact that they don't get it is reason enough for them to slowly die off.
Has anyone else caught wind of the NIN viral marketing that they are doing right now for a new album? They "GET IT" with how to use the new media and Internet. If the **AA actually got it we would not be having news stories like this. The **AA is losing, they are luddites of the new age, they are consciously killing themselves. If they would simply get on with it, create content that people would want to pay for, we could all rest easier.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Most bands that are interested in the art of music, rather than the business of music, make albums that are greater than the sum of their parts. The album has a theme and this changes from album to album - this can't be appreciated if one listens only to the singles.
So yeah, the mas-produced teeny-pop bands and their labels move towards the single de jour, but real bands will continue to make albums.
This leads to an idea I had recently. The only distinguishing value of "big" bands is the fame that fans give them - there are plenty of unsigned/indie bands that are just as good/accessible, but are unknown. The value that RIAA attributes to their songs is merely the demand that fans give it - the songs themselves are (generally) not unique or valuable. That's why their lawsuits are so bogus - they're suing fans for the value that fans give songs - not for any value that the songs have.
This is why sites like eMusic (or youtube, etc) are great - they're cheap, and their product is just as good (if not better), but just isn't as well known and hence doesn't have the same "value".
I rarely listen to one entire album. In most, there are a few good songs I like and I'll add those to my playlist, in addition to particular songs from others.
For the one night wonders, maybe - but not for *real* musicians.
Take banks like Jethro Tull or Pink Floyd for example. Listening to one song doesn't really mean anything, you have to listen to entire albums to make sense of things.
Hell, I was just at a G3 concert last night - Joe Satriani, John Petrucci (with Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater) and Paul Gilbert. It was a good three hours of excellent guitar and good music. If you heard any of Satriani's or Steve Vai's albums, you'd realize that listening to the whole thing is very different from listening to just one song.
Now, I really do not know about other genres such as pop/hip-hop/rap/R&B but as far as I know, there are still some good musicians out there whose entire albums are a joy to listen to.
Hell, that's why good bands still have folks buying their music. It's not because I cannot download their songs online, but it's because they make good music and I'd like to support them, even if they are small, local bands.
In fact, the last band that I linked to, Eddie from Ohio, is not signed up with any record label and yet do really well. Shows you what quality can achieve.
Then again, I probably do not make a very good sample of the typical CD-buying demographic.
As I mentioned in another topic, I think this is insane but apparently the RIAA thinks CDs should cost $34 each due to inflation...
Ridiculous. $10 I paid gladly, $12 was ok, but when every album costs $17+, I ain't buying.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
I personally love albums. Even if it's not a "concept" record, it still displays a moderate range of ideas, if it's not a shit band, and can be fun to just put on and lie around and listen to.
But what I HATE more than anything are all these "indie" bands making epic prog-rock or quiet folk albums of boring, repetitive music as a reaction to the death of the album. Dear sweet lord, I know that the idea of singles isn't that great, but an entire album without any single songs on it is even worse.
I'm looking at you, Mars Volta. And you two, Bright Eyes. Putting people to sleep is not entertainment or art.
I think it's the advertising that stymies people.
You're right: actually producing a fairly good "album" (which, in today's world, means a few songs, sometimes related in some way, generally involving the same principal musicians) really isn't that hard, if you have talent. It's a few thousand dollar ordeal at most, and you could probably do a passable job -- equal to professional job a few decades ago -- with equipment most people have plus a few hundred bucks. (Again, assuming talent. But there are a lot of talented amateurs out there.)
But where I've seen band after band falter, is in the advertising and promotion. It's getting the songs and the name of the band out to potential listeners in the first place -- that's the one place where the labels still have an advantage over most independent efforts. They pick a few bands that they think match what people want to hear, and promote them aggressively, pushing them on the radio, on MTV, on shows like Saturday Night Live, and get the songs into advertisements and movies where they get exposure.
Online and 'viral' marketing have helped some bands, but viral marketing is tough to "do" effectively. There's no real recipe that you can run through and have it work. In contrast, as the 90's "manufactured pop" demonstrated, you can get people to listen to anything if you just promote the living hell out of it, day in and day out.
In time, I think the labels are going to fade, but it's going to take a long time and they're not going to go quietly. Technology -- cheap DAW software, CD burners, and inexpensive ADC interfaces -- have lowered the barrier to entry involved in actually recording music. But letting people know that you exist as a band, and getting your songs out to the people who might want to pay for it (or come to a concert, buy a t-shirt, etc.), is still tough, and the labels have some advantages left.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
2nd-rate movies tend to move to the cheap houses a LOT quicker than quality movies, if they don't fall off the silver screen altogether.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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.
Some people like bands that do concept albums, some people don't.
They're two entirely different styles of music. It's like the difference between a symphony written for full orchestra and something written for a four-part chamber ensemble. I don't think that many people would really argue that the orchestral piece is inherently 'superior,' in any sort of quantifiable way besides personal taste, to the chamber piece, they're just different. (And, more to the point, many composers have written for both.) It's as bizarre as saying that novelists are inherently "better" writers than essayists, because they produce longer stories. It doesn't make sense.
The three- to four-minute "song" has proved to be an incredibly popular format for popular music over the last century, and I don't think you can chalk that up entirely to the machinations of the RIAA (which, let's face it, was a pretty benign organization until fairly recently) or the "music industry." Probably a lot of credit goes to radio, but if people really hated individual songs, there's no way they'd be as popular as they are.
It's a format people enjoy, and there's nothing inherently better or worse about it than a long album. To be honest, I'd argue that an artist that could communicate effectively in either format was probably better at their trade than one who's mostly restricted themselves to either 70-minute concept albums or 3-minute ditties, but it's really an academic point.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I wouldn't know about that....
:P
I always download whatever album that catches my eye. If I listen to it, and I find that I like the songs, I'd go and buy the CD. It's my way of showing appreciation for the artist, and I have a CD collection. If the songs are crap - as most are - I would delete it anyway, so no problem.
I have always hated the fact that I couldn't listen to the whole album before making a decision on whether or not to buy the album. I'd buy it based on one hit single, and find that the rest of the songs suck, and end up not listening to it at all.
I would honestly say that being able to download music actually made me buy MORE cds than before, because now I get to listen to a lot more artists and find which ones I like. Before bittorrent, I would just avoid CDs, assuming most of them are crap, as they normally are.
Good, or bad? And posting anonymously for very good reason
Not a politically correct thing to ask - but has anyone else ever wondered if the labels deliberately promote genres of music that are less appealing to the majority of file sharers ie. white young men?
It's the only explanation I can think of for R&B
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
Bingo. For a large portion of the population, and probably for a majority of the dollars being spent on music, a song's quality is a function of the frequency with which they're hearing it and the places they're hearing it from. Being a part of a niche market is no good because few people go out of their way to find good music, they wait for it to come to them.
On the other hand the blunt force trauma method of assaulting the listener via repetitive radio plays, television promos, etc, conveys to the listener that this is "the new song" from "the new band", and instantly adds a level of perceived quality to the music because certainly it is impossible that everybody would be going crazy about this new band unless they were pretty good...right? And if this unknown band was any good they'd be heard on a mainstream source by now...right?
No one gives a second thought that a musician might not want to alter their art to suit the "lowest common denominator" market that popular music must appeal to. Luckily we are quickly moving to a system where good music can find you on the Internet even if you're hardly trying, and the public will inadvertently relieve the RIAA of its stranglehold and abusive domination of not an industry, but a form of art and human expression.
audioLibre - freedom of music
First, if your standard for new, good albums is really that low, you have probably been listening to nothing but what the major labels try to shove down your throat. There are plenty of new concept albums out there, and even more that lack an overarching story or theme but still stand out as fantastic works when taken as a whole. You can certainly find dozens of new albums that are more than just a couple good songs and some filler. You just have to look elsewhere than the latest Justin Timberlake or Gwen Stephani disc.
But mainly I wanted to comment on your statements about marketing. It seems that bands can make a decent living without advertising, but they have to have something pretty unique. Then with a little time and some well placed live shows, they tend to develop a following with no major advertising of their own. I know the last five or six new bands I've found have all been through word of mouth. Sure, they're not as big as top 40 bands, but they have a devoted fan base that's far less fickle than the masses that like someone simply because they're the "next new thing".
Maybe it's the music snob in me, but I tend to think that the only bands that really need marketing to survive are those that aren't much good to begin with, or want to be bigger, faster than good music will get you on its own. In the first case the marketing is counterproductive (blocks air-time and brain space that could be used by better bands), and in the second it seems like all the advertisement does is turn a band with potential into a one-hit-wonder that goes on to release a couple mediocre follow-ups and then implode. Even a great band can never match the insane expectations set by a marketing-driven surge of popularity, because 3/4 of the crowd will move on to the next new face, and the label will push for a repeat instead of letting the music mature.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
I disagree. A British punk group named Koopa has made top 40 and is going to release a cd without being signed. Them doing it shows that mass production of CDs isn't the only way of releasing an album. I'd argue that a download/burn at home method is less expensive (and easier on the environment- no fuel spent shipping) anyway.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Bands used to get signed, for example, to a 3-album contract, spanning a few years. But now the music biz wants to/needs to be able to dump artists fast, so now they're switching to contracts for only a couple of songs and a ringtone. I.e. temp workers -- no commitment, no loyalty, no being able to call a company or label your "home". Because no one really wants you, for anything other than just a casual, short-term relationship. Forget "careers" in the recording industry.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
This might work, however, I suspect that people might just listen to the 64kbps version and never buy the high-quality version, because they don't care about (or won't pay for) quality. I've listened to some really dreadful stuff that's originated on P2P networks (compression artifacts, audible clipping, tape rumble, etc.), and a lot of people just don't seem to notice how bad it is, or care. I'm not talking about audiophile-grade differences here, I mean music that literally sounds like it was played out of a AM radio inside a 88-gallon oil drum, as recorded by a Fisher Price tape deck. And people have this on their iPod and think it's just fine.
So I think that you might find your market narrowed only to people who care about sound quality, which is small (for pop music, anyway, based on my unscientific observations).
Furthermore, if the quality of the free version was degraded enough to cause a large number of people to think that the high-quality version was a significant improvement, then the people who are going to pirate, are just going to pirate the HQ version.
So overall, I'm not sure that you've really deterred any piracy. If your "LQ" version is too good, people -- pirates and honest folks alike -- won't buy the HQ version and just stick with what's free; if it's too crappy, then it'll be ignored by people who are going to pirate, and they'll just trade the HQ version instead, as if the LQ one hadn't existed. Now, given those two scenarios, it's the latter one that's more desirable, since it really doesn't hurt you (versus not releasing a free version at all), plus maybe some people (who won't pirate) will hear the song from the LQ version and go on to purchase legit copies. But there's danger in providing a LQ version that might compete with the version you make money from, because it will cut into legitimate sales.
I think, overall, the 'solution' to the 'piracy problem' is not to view it as a problem. If you don't try to sell your music as a product, but instead view it as an advertising vehicle that gets people to come to your shows and buy your merchandise, then suddenly someone who puts your band's tracks up on Bittorrent is doing you a favor rather than harm. (And, you can even turn CDs from a simple can of easily-pirated bits, into non-duplicable merchandise, just by signing it and marketing it as an "autographed copy.")
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
About 30 years ago, Boston self produced their first album and it was a huge hit. In those days, the state of the art was still reel to reel tape recorders.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Buried in the article was an interesting idea from the record companies themselves: instead of being the channel, they'd morph into more of a fan club model.
That's a great idea, but they should go one step further.
The main problem for record companies is that the record company, for the most part, is not the brand - the artist is. The artist is what's promoted, etc. What would be better, from the record company point of view, is if they had a whole bunch of sub-labels, all of which have their own genre/style/sound/whatever.
Then, you'd know that you like the stuff coming out of a label, because all their stuff was the style you like.
It used to be like this in the old days, where a label like Blue Note would have a whole lot of good jazz, or Elektra Nonesuch had good classical. I knew people that would buy everything that EN put out.
Combine that with a subscription service (or music club, cd-by-mail thing I guess) and suddenly you not only have a business model, you have a core group of consumers that are committed to your label - not your artitst. That subscriber base is a guaranteed revenue stream that you can use to hunt down more stuff that your subscribers want.
Will it lead to the homogenization of the music industry? Who cares? It's already freaking homogenized!
It might make smaller players more viable because as a botique subscription music company you have a guaranteed revenue stream with no distribution overhead (except for the overhead you want). You can budget, plan, and not worry as much about the next payroll.
Ideally you'd have a third-party doing the fulfillment, so all you have to do is find acts that your subscribers might like.
It's interesting to think about, but finding that much talent would be difficult. No matter what people say, there isn't that much talent out there.
+Raider of the lost BBS
it's unfortunately rare to find an LP that really follows through
Ridiculous. Get out of the current mainstream and there are literally thousands of such LPs, if not tens of thousands.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
"If your "LQ" version is too good, people -- pirates and honest folks alike -- won't buy the HQ version and just stick with what's free; if it's too crappy"
So turn it into advertising. Have a DJ put bumpers around it. At the beginning have a voice announce it like a DJ, talking over the record, and as the song ends, have the same voice announce the artists again, tell the listener the record label, and even spell the name of the band.
It worked in radio, why not online?
Why not at least try it for a bunch of bands to see?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Promoting a new small business is not a new challenge. Musicians can do what other businesses do; take a small business loan, and use that to pay for marketing and promotion services by a promotion company. That would be much preferable to the current system where all of a band's output is owned by the label, and they get a few pence in the pound back from sales. If they absolutely must tie themselves to a label, there are outfits like magnatune and cdbaby who don't absolutely rape the bands for every penny. Internet promotion is not to be sneezed at either (just look at the Arctic Monkeys) and that's virtually free!
The major label record companies distort so many other markets it's not funny. CD production, concert hall hire, radio play, online radio, DRM in vista, itunes etc; all these areas would be cheaper, more accessible and better value for listeners (or gone entirely when it's DRM) if the major labels and their associate corporate entities like ticketmaster and clearchannel didn't have such a death-grip on the throat of the industry. They currently act as gatekeepers, though that role is disappearing, and they desparately want to hold onto it.
Remember, the RIAA's tactics are just what is demanded by Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner. They are to blame for the piss-poor state of music today. If there's any justice, they will become as hated as the RIAA; and eventually fail and die in the marketplace because of it. Long live the indies!
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Yes, it is the music snob in you. To use an irrefutable example, just look at The Beatles. Just because they were marketed out the ass and probably thrust into the spotlight a little early doesn't make them a poor band. What it did do is expose them to a larger audience. Most people in the US wouldn't have known about The Beatles without marketing, no matter how good they were. Look at a band like The Kinks, who weren't marketed in the US and have almost no name recognition among average people here, even if they were just as good as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, etc. So yes, good bands will probably survive and endure without marketing, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. Most of the great artists of all time were over-marketed. To stay with the British theme, the bands I listed above probably wouldn't have even formed if it wasn't for American blues and rock and roll being sold to them by the record companies. Just because the record companies try and push complete shit a lot of the time doesn't mean that the concept of marketing and selling music itself is bad.
The Hold Steady. The Shins. Gorillaz. The Knife. The White Stripes. Tom Waits. There. All relatively known musicians, all who do way better than a 4:1 filler:rock ratio.
The record companies are suffering because their business plans and practices are increasingly short sighted. It used to be that artists were treated as long term investments, being signed for multi album deals, whereas now artists get deals for a song or two. It's another turn in the downward spiral of disposable culture that Hollywood has sold us, and the cycles keep getting shorter.
It's horribly inefficient to operate this way. Instead of going to the grocery store once a week to buy everything you need for the coming week, you make a separate trip for every single item you need. To be even more extreme, go from buying a sack of rice every week, to a cup of rice every day, to a grain of rice every minute. Spend all your time buying rice, and you'll have no time to eat it, and starve.
(Never mind that you can starve anyway by eating nothing but rice, but I digress.)
That is exactly what eMusic does. Granted they are distributing non-RIAA labels, but for your example, substitute Naxos for EN, and you've got the same thing.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
As someone who was there (I was nine when Please Please me came out) I saw just what they did. Sure, the first two albums were effectively boy band albums but once you get to Rubber Soul and Revolver then they're far, far more than that. It's also difficult from this perspective to understnd the impact of Sgt Pepper, an album you cannot, under any circumstances write off as a 'boy band' album. Suddenly popular music was being treated with respect, reviews in the London Times for example, and the musicians treated as artists.
Whatever you think of their sound they were as ground breaking as Elvis or Sinatra and without them you wouldn't have the music you have today.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
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]
Please, don't insult Tom Waits anymore by putting him along with Gorillaz. Please. :)
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Well, at least Piero Scaruffi (a well known musical critic) seems to disagree with you:
Contemporary musicians never spoke highly of the Beatles, and for a good reason. They could not figure out why the Beatles' songs should be regarded more highly than their own. They knew that the Beatles were simply lucky to become a folk phenomenon (thanks to "Beatlemania", which had nothing to do with their musical merits). THat phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavours to this day. Nothing else grants the Beatles more attention than, say, the Kinks or the Rolling Stones. There was nothing intrinsically better in the Beatles' music. Ray Davies of the Kinks was certainly a far better songwriter than Lennon & McCartney. The Stones were certainly much more skilled musicians than the 'Fab Fours'. And Pete Townshend was a far more accomplished composer, capable of "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia". Not to mention later and far greater British musicians. Not to mention the American musicians who created what the Beatles later sold to the masses.
The Beatles sold a lot of records not because they were the greatest musicians but simply because their music was easy to sell to the masses: it had no difficult content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had not invented "beatlemania" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time to read a page about such a trivial band.
(Note that I do not agree completely with this, but at least it shows that the status of the Beatles as artistic geniuses is at least debatable)
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Nope. She, for example (disclaimer: a friend of mine) did it for less than 1000$, and now tours Europe and her record has been higlighted by Beck as the second best of 2006. She's not as famous as Missy Elliott, but she makes a good living of her music.
And she doesn't endorse DRM ;)
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
You might (this is just a theory I have ...) be looking at things the wrong way. I wonder - have the music industry hoist themselves on their own petard?
For a long time from the beginning, singles were the lifeblood of the music industry. Songwriters, musicians, and performers were effectively the property of the record studio, indentured to turn out song after song after song after song. Take the next song off the pile from the songwriters, throw the studio musicians at it, and stand the current / next voice and face of the week up front to make the next single. Get enough together, and a studio could rotate them fast enough to have two or more different singles on the go each week - one at its peak, one on the way up, and another waiting behind it.
Young 'ns may not know this, but in the first heyday of the record industry - the 50's and 60's - people didn't have album collections - they had singles collections.
But then, somewhere around the late 50's - early 60's, the industry noticed that people became attached to artists - not songs, and not the studios. Studios took advantage of this, and started releasing whole albums of content - firstly as a compilation of hits, then adding a couple of new songs (which became the new singles for the next couple of weeks). What they didn't forsee was this slowing down the sales of singles. Eventually, to recapture those lost sales, artists - self contained artists, who could write & record their own stuff - were given a slightly longer leash; long enough to do their own thing with whole albums of content and build an even more loyal fanbase.
Loyalty to the artist had replaced loyalty to the studio. And there was much rejoicing...
Slightly later - it started in the mid-late 60's, hitting its stride in the 70's - the music industry realised that, despite the added $$$ they were getting up front from selling whole albums, this actually had the effect of slowing sales revenue. Sure, a top-selling album raked it in big to start with - but, with very few exceptions, there was a huge initial peak followed by a quick decline and long tail. Further causing grief was the fact that by the time they got around to releasing the next lot of singles from an album, most potential purchasers already owned it - and so were lost to the market.
Come the rise of the "2 good songs + 10 tracks of filler" album. This was the best of both worlds for the studios - 2 singles to sell + just enough reason for people to pay the extra for the album = single sales + album sales + a short "hot" time so they could rotate the next "big thing" into place quickly to start the whole cycle again.
Now, quickly ffwd to "modern" times. People are wise to the "2+10" formula of the average album, and are sick of it. Worse still, from the studios POV, they now have an alternative that shortcuts both the "release lots of singles quickly" and "release whole albums" formula - an alternative that started underground with IRC & FTP sites, hit the big time with Napster, was kept alive post-Napster by Kazaa/Limewire/Bearshare/etc, and continues today in the form of BT. The studios are struggling with the loss of singles and the loss of albums.
Where to now?
One obvious niche choice - ringtones. It's almost a new version of the singles formula - take lots of songs with "I want it now!" appeal, whack a top-dollar price on them, make them ridiculously simple to buy without the purchaser seeing the money leave their hands (until the next phone bill), and turn 'em over fast.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
There has been a fairly distinct split in popular music acts for some while. Singles acts, who can knock out a popular 3 minute song, and album acts, who produce longer, more involved, recordings. Both have their place and both have their suitable formats. Those who complain about albums with 1 or 2 decent songs, and then filler need to be slapped around the head. You're buying the wrong act on the wrong format!! The solution to your complaints are obvious and in your own hands!
And I don't need to hear any more moaning about "there's no decent albums any more". Face facts; you're getting older, your tastes will change. You can't expect the same styles of music to mean the same to you. If you want to hear music that you will enjoy you need to stop listening to the same sources you were listening to 10 years ago. There's just as much decent music as there ever was, you're just looking in the wrong places.
European and Japanese releases with extra tracks are very simple, really. Your US-release albums have historically cost a hell of a lot less than our ones, and sometimes even come out earlier. Chucking a couple of tracks not deemed worthy of being used for the 'proper' album, or even single b-sides, is a way of trying to persuade fans to pay the markup. You're not the ones being screwed, we are.
The mark-up isn't much of one at all, really. If you know what the shop pays wholesale for albums, the ratio to what you pay is about what the top up the retail price of the import copy by. And they have to buy those imports retail, because they can't get them wholesale for export without the RIAA, BPI etc. throwing dolls out of their prams and claiming that selling imports is effectively the same as selling pirates, since those discs weren't licensed for sale abroad.
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That's how I discovered Blind Guardian, for one. And subsequently bought all their albums (8 and counting).
Same for Nick Cave (13 and counting)...
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
Personally, I always hated CD singles. For one thing, the whole point of the CD format was convenience, that is, being able to easily play the tracks you wanted. Having to change the CD for each 3-minute single was a PITA.
Another thing was that they were generally *way* overpriced and far more expensive than 7" vinyl, or cassette singles. Sometimes you could get them for £2 the first week they were out. But after that they were usually £3 on a good day or £4(!) otherwise. What a ripoff- and that was mid-90s money, taking inflation into account that'll be something like £5.50 (US $11.00) in today's money!!! I often bought the cassette versions, simply because they were much cheaper, despite the CDs probably costing less to produce. Yeah, CD singles often included countless extra tracks; but they were almost always crap or remixes, or whatever.
And I also hated the racks of plasticky, identical and soulless slimline CD cases. With a few exceptions, I made high-quality MP3 transfers of the songs that I still wanted to listen to, and sold most of my CD singles. 7" singles had a tactile romance about them, and fitted into their era. CD singles just smacked of digital overpricing with the pointless physicality of one piece of plastic crap per song, something that now seems really dated just 10 years later. Good riddance.
Back on topic, personally, I'm not bothered about the albums that contain two great hit tracks and ten pieces of filler, but I think that the true "coherent" album will probably survive in some form. Of course, there is always the risk of missing great album tracks, which I'm sure that a lot of us wouldn't have discovered otherwise.
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The Beatles were pretty formulaic in 1963 or 1964.
Their finest hour didn't come until after they stopped touring. Then they wrote good music, every bit as good as The Kinks or the Rolling Stones. They weren't writing catchy 3 minute ditties then (which is perhaps a giveaway this critic wrote this piece in about 1964 or 1965, or perhaps hasn't listened to much Beatles stuff) - they were writing entire albums.
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This argument has become something of a meme in the popular culture. People take for granted that "every album that comes out has only 2 good songs on it, and the rest suck/are filler" without even thinking about it or giving the album a chance and being able to speak with some authority on it. Or perhaps listening to some music critic trash the album and never giving it a chance yourself. As a fan of music in general I am tired of hearing it. It's nothing more than a thinly veiled insult at pop music, often lobbed by Gen X-ers (can I still use that term?) like myself looking back at the music we enjoyed growing up as being somehow better or different. As if back in "my day" we didn't have nearly the same amount of so-called overproduced crap as there is today. Like many people, I grew up listening to pop and then moved on as my tastes expanded.
I guess my point is that if you like a song by a particular artist a lot, you should give their album and/or their wider catalog a good hard look before you decide the other songs are crap. Buy the album, and sit down and give the entire thing a listen. Several times. Not skipping any songs. See what grows on you, if anything. I have listened to full albums by one hit wonders - some of which were actually pretty good, even to the point of lamenting the fact that they were never given a chance. Don't call an album "45 minutes of filler" just because the record companies want you to believe that. They don't want you to enjoy all twelve songs on the album because that means you will savor it a bit longer before buying again. The artist probably takes a different view.
Don't misunderstand, I agree that there is plenty of crap out there written and produced by people without a lot of talent. But there is a lot of legitimately good music out there that never gets a chance because of this old tired argument. Decide for yourself whether the music is any good, not what other people think or want you to believe. How many of us have "guilty pleasures" that we never admit to liking in front of our friends?
Above is nonsense. To historically understand ground breaking music you have to listen to the music before it. There would have been no Kinks, as they sounded, without John Lennon's early rhythm guitar. There would have been no Lennon without Chuck, but the styles are different.
...) and you pass directly through Meet The Beatles.
> it had no difficult content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic
Proving he doesn't play and doesn't know any pop history. Draw a line from Words Of Love (or Johnny B Goode) to Waterloo Sunset (or Quadrophenia or
Above critic snobbery reminds me of some of the (third rate) modern jazz guys dismissing The Hot Fives and Sevens or guitar nerds in the 80s saying Hendrix wasn't 'clean' enough, or JS Bach falling out of fashion. Arguing with a music critic is like arguing sex with a virgin, if he was getting some, he might know something.
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