As this article at Freakonomics points out, the music industry is struggling in the face of the digital era. File sharing is rampant, and record companies are losing money to illegal downloading.
But aside from all the illegal stuff, Freadonomics brings up an interesting point about albums vs singles. How many people, when they buy a cd, absolutely love every song? I know that even on the cds that I enjoy the most, there is always at least one song that I feel compelled to skip.
Somehow, the music industry doesn't seem to understand the importance of making more singles available so that their customers are not forced to purchase whole albums, half of which they don't want. We discussed in class about the "long tail," in which people are perhaps more willing to spend money on singles than whole albums--and consequently spend more money in the long run.
As a musician, I totally understand that every song a band produces is not necessarily good--and everyone eventually makes a flop. By producing singles, a band doesn't have to release all its bad songs (as it might with an album) and instead can spend its energy on the good stuff.
While the "delivery technology" of the music industry will continue to change, I don't think that the music industry will die out. After all, people are still buying musical instruments (like the harp...which isn't cheap!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
RE: albums vs. singles. Like Laura, I too often skip over one or two tracks on even my favorite albums. So I think the move back towards single song sales is completely understandable. And I don't doubt that bands will be able to make just as much money form selling single songs if they release more singles per year than they normally would because they aren't constrained by the album form. But I am going to miss all the ancillary stuff that used to come packaged with albums: liner notes, cool cover art, etc. Is any one else out there nostalgic for that sort of thing?
ReplyDelete