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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."
I like albums.
Singles exist to catch your attention.. the same way commercials are loud and obnoxious. If there isn't the rest of the album, then the only music will be loud and obnoxious "LISTEN TO ME" stuff. The more subtle music will be sacrificed because it doesn't present well on the radio.
Recorded music started out as singles and is going back to that format. The only reason I can see for the album was to promote and justify the 33 1/3 LP format. With digital music, this concept is totally outdated and destined to die. Let me pick what I want and don't tell me what I have to take to get it. It's like buying a the whole Mu Gu Gai Pan meal when all you want from it is the egg rolls. Michael
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
Dear world,
I like albums and have found time after time that the songs not released as singles are even better. Singles are what you hear for free on the radio and during that one hour on MTV/VH1 when they are actually showing videos. Why pay for what you're likely to hear at any given time. Pay for what you're missing and find like I do that there's so much more good stuff on an album.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
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Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
I'll be very sad to see albums go away and we are left with a bunch of singles. Albums are like a complete work, singles are merely chapters. Would anyone really prefer a world without albums like Sgt. Pepper, What's Goin' On, It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, Electric LadyLand, Dark Side of The Moon, Kind of Blue, Purple Rain, etc, to be replaced by a bunch of singles?
Besides that, I've found that if a single prompts me to listen to the corresponding album, I grow to like the entire album (I know many here say that albums only have one or two good songs, and then filler garbage, but I've not found that to be the case at all; no album that I've ever bought has been like that).
I really don't understand those that celebrate the demise of albums.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
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.
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It really depends on the artist and style of music.
With some artists, like the Beatles for instance, I like their singles. Their good stuff was really good, but their bad stuff was, well, crap.
However, some artists are much more conducive to an album-type experience. I always kind of hate hearing a Pink Floyd song on the radio. Not that I hate Pink Floyd, they're one of my all-time favorite bands. But pulling a song like Comfortably Numb out of the context of The Wall, Brain Damage out of the context of Dark Side of the Moon, and so on, well, it just doesn't do it justice.
It doesn't just have to be concept albums this applies to. A lot of albums have themes that run through them, even though each song stands pretty well on its own. Fleetwood Mac's Rumors is like that. Sure, each song is great, but all of them together are greater than the sum of their parts.
I think that a HUGE problem (in capital letters!) with the music industry today, aside from treating its customers as extortion victims, is that they don't want to aim for specialized tastes any more. They want everyone just to listen to the same pop crap they forcefeed us all, and if you don't like it, well, don't listen to anything at all. There is no room in their business model for people who like x type of music and other people who like y.