Singles, Not Albums, Define Music Industry Success

athloi writes "Despite the tough times for albums, the music industry is slowly but surely learning the most important lesson of all: give consumers what they want, and they happily open their wallets. Digital music sales are a new business and a new way of thinking about and interacting with content. The industry should be paying closer attention to its meteoric rise and less attention to the dying, arcane album. It should absolutely drop the rhetoric about how piracy is destroying the business, because the sea change in sales patterns shows that something else is is afoot. It means that when users are sitting at a computer and looking for music, more and more each year are turning to legal download services."

Comments

Re:I was worried about this

[BoberFett]

I like albums too. At the same time I realize that most popular "musicians" don't have the ability to create them. There are some excellent musicians who can create a dozen tracks covering 45 or more minutes which form a cohesive message or story. That's a small minority though. Most of the pop bands of today release a CD with a handful singles that are no way relevant to one another, and only two of which are good enough to bother listening to.

High quality artists can continue to create albums. One hit wonders should know their place in the world:

1. Accept the fact that most of their music isn't that good
2. Learn to be grateful that they had one hit song
3. Invest some of the income from their hit single instead of blowing the whole thing on drugs and hookers

Why harder for artists?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Why should it be harder for artists?

Many artists only produce a few great songs, but they need to generate a whole CD full of crap to record an albumn... that nobody wants. This cycle is driven by the labels.

What is much better for the artists is to generate the good songs that they can, on a budget they can afford. This makes it far easier for them to get published and make some money. It reduces the barrier of entry.

If anything a singles-based industry makes it far easier for more artists to participate and make money.

I'm not worried about this.

[Hott of the World]

I don't like albums. I don't like artists. I like music. Particularly, I like catchy singles. The only reason I don't just listen to the radio for my fix is that I enjoy my music on my terms.

I used to by Albums for the Songs. Unfortunately not every song is good. Not every song captures the mood as well as the best one, nor do they capture the same mood. Why am I buying these again?

Some people enjoy the album experience as it is now. Artists, more-so, since most albums aren't done in a single night, nor in the same state of mind. It really lets you explore the different atmospheres that the group goes through when making an album, at least if you don't have it completely remixed and reorganized by some music industry wiz.

the real reason for the Music Industry's slump?

[night_flyer]

here's billboard's Top 10

1) Rihanna "Umbrella"
2) Shop Boyz "Party Like A Rock Star"
3) Fergie "Big Girls Don't Cry"
4) Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah"
5) T-Pain "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')"
6) Maroon 5 "Makes Me Wonder"
7) Avril Lavigne "Girlfriend"
8) Justin Timberlake "Summer Love"
9) Amy Winehouse "Rehab"
10) Fabolous "Make Me Better"

Re:It depends

[Admiral Ag]

That's somewhat true, but I wouldn't change the way iTunes distributes music.

Like you, I prefer albums (and from the look of your post, the same ones you do), but there are a lot of groups that only ever did one or two decent things (like CCS version of "Whole Lotta Love"), and I only want that particular track.

However, I think that iTunes is much more conducive to album sales than people think, especially for new stuff. I've lost count of the number of times I've only wanted 3 or 4 songs off an album and bought them. Then iTunes says that I can complete the album for four or five dollars and get another 7 or 8 tracks. I'm always falling for that. In the old days if I bought the singles, I would have to pay full price for the album and that would discourage me from buying it. With iTunes plus buying an album is even better value, since the single tracks are more expensive and the albums are still the same price.

At least now we have a few months to decide whether we really want the whole thing.

I don't agree about the specialized tastes thing. It seems to me that music is more fragmented than ever. When I was a teenager people either listened to "rock" music, "pop" music, or "punk" music. Now there are all sorts of genres and subgenres and the record charts don't really have the same meaning that they once had. There probably will never be another phenomenon like the Beatles, where virtually every kid bought the record.

The record companies have also been pretty good at putting out a lot of old stuff with added value. I bought the Deluxe edition of "DIsraeli Gears" the other day, and it is superb value (a ton of extra tracks, radio performances, alternate versions, etc.). God knows how many copies that old record will sell. Not many I suspect, but whoever was responsible for putting that package together did an excellent job. Another good example is the box set of Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin. I didn't pay much for that, but you get the whole show, a book and a DVD of the film they made about it.

So, while not wanting to sound like a shill for the record companies, and acknowledging that they do put out quite a lot of crap and that some new stuff is clearly a ripoff, there is a lot of stuff that they take an extreme amount of care over, which probably doesn't make them much cash, and which is a real bargain for anyone who really likes music.