There once was a time when the release date of an album was exciting. For our favorite artists we knew when the last album came out and when the next album was due. If you loved the artist you bought it. If you didn't you either bought the single or you listened to the album with your friends and then decided.
As the price of records and then CDs increased year by year, spending 20 bucks for a CD became a purchase you needed to be sure of rather than a no brainer or impulse buy.
Then free became an option.
Then aggregating almost unlimited free music on a PC and then an IPOD became easy.
So here we are in 2008 and the only given in the music industry is that CD sales have and will fall. And fall. And fall.
Reading last weeks billboard, something interesting popped out at me. The song Low Rider by Flo Rida sold 467,000 units in a single week. There were 27 digital singles that sold more than 100k units in that week. The obvious trend continues that people are ready, willing and able to buy singles of songs they like.
So the question arises, why don't artists serialize the release of songs ? Why not create a "season" of release of songs, much like the fall TV season and promise fans that Flo Rida is going to release a new single every week or 2 weeks for the next 10 weeks ?
Sure, its not easy to come up with a great song every 2 weeks. But isnt that exactly the same problem you have with an album ? Maybe thats not the "creative process" for certain artists. That's a problem for them.
What we do know is that music fans will spend 99c and that its easier to ask them for 99c a week than it is to get 9.99 at one time from them for 10 songs.
Serializing the release of music also allows for the marketing arms to be in constant touch with sales and radio outlets. Rather than having to initiate marketing plans and hope to reinvigorate the interest in an artist, it becomes a digital tour that never ends.
If an artist commits to release music on a weekly or bi weekly basis, then consumers can make a commitment knowing they are going to get something new and hopefully exciting for their 99c. If the commitment is strong enough its feasible that artists could sell subscriptions to their serialized releases. My guess is that consumers will feel better about subscribing to an artist and getting a song a week or every 2 than dropping 10 dollars at a time for an album.
In reality thats exactly how I buy my music right now. I dont do it by artist. I go to ITunes and I go through the top 10 lists and listen to samples and thats how I determine what music im going to buy.
If there was an option when I bought a single to subscribe to an RSS feed that would send me a sample of that artists song when they released a single, I would add that RSS feed to my browser. Add a 1 click to buy, and chances are Im going to buy a lot more music.
Is this idea so great Im going to start a music label ? No chance. I wouldnt get in the music industry if you paid me. However, as a customer and a buyer of music , if I knew that my favorite artists were releasing music weekly, i would certainly check by every week or listen to what was in my RSS aggregator to see what new stuff they had for me.
Consumser are buying music 1 track at a time. I think people will pay 99c to get a single rather than steal it. I think people would rather steal a full album rather than pay 10 dollars or more for it.
Labels need to make the effort to get artists to deliver in a manner that realizes these perspectives.
The album is dead
The Album is Dead...
Reader Comments
(Page 2)22. I haven't bought an album in 5 years. In fact I haven't bought music at all in 5 years. Music should be free. Artists should make their money with concerts not selling the music. Look at prince, as far as I know the last time someone bought his music is was a cassette tape, yet he makes more money than 99% of musicians because he tours all year and puts on an awesome show.
23. Mark, you're dead on here. I wrote an article relating to this a little while back. Record Labels used be the "savior" for musicians. They just wanted to get "signed". Then it just became a necessary evil to comply. The music business is just as broken as Health Care, though not as many people know it, or care.
The model of the "record" or CD, will change. Bands hit the studios trying to refine 3 hits and 7 "fillers". That makes up a CD. Consumers have been buying the package deal for a long time. The future is a-la-carte music, smaller label influence, less pressure on full 10-song CDs. Personally I would like to see the labels and RIAA vanish completely, and see a new industry emerge of Concert Production companies that work directly with the bands for putting tours together. Bands could then write, record and distribute music on their own (digitally), and then when the demand is there, put a tour together.
Posted at 10:42AM on Jan 18th 2008 by Matt Murph
25. the big music corps don't produce albums anymore.. they produce singles.. and those singles are filled with empty calories.. nothing worth nurturing. true story.
Posted at 12:26PM on Jan 18th 2008 by cliff notes
26. Check out Japan, most of their major artist release singles on a quarterly basis. Then a CD / DVD is released with additional tracks, videos and extras. All adding value to previous single releases.
Posted at 12:44PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Todd Lewis
27. Mark,
Excellent idea, and the applications could spread beyond the music world. For instance, the wonderful land of sequential art, or by it's more common name, comic books. The market for comics will face the same issues as the music industry, as "acquiring" scanned copies of recently released books on the Internet is now quite common. The major publishing companies should pay attention, and perhaps release monthly digital versions at the 99 cent price point. It could quite possibly expand readership and profits in a sagging industry.
Posted at 12:57PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Charles Hopper
28. I love the idea. Admittedly it's not going to work for all artists. However you can also have seasons of Summer tracks from different artists, best of Beethoven, Comedy, etc. This idea has a lot of potential, just needs to be thought through. Now where's my ideas pad...
Posted at 1:15PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Colin Meeks (Indie Launchpad)
29. I buy albums, and pretty much only albums. Rather than assume that people don't want songs, consider most albums are crammed full of filler tracks to push one or two singles. For me, if a artist can't create an "album" and the experience along with it, it's a sign they are just a puppet for a label who is feeding them the material.
Posted at 1:21PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Michael C. Neel
30. what's happening is a return to the music industry of the early 1960's when am radio was the world wide web. the single was THE thing to buy, and if the artist really had something to say you'd buy the album. flash memory is the new vinyl.
as to the subscription model, Todd Rundgren tried it with his Patronet concept. he was the first musician I'd heard say (at Webnoize in 1998 or '99) that in the digital world music is not a product, but a service. you subscribed annually, whenever he finished a song he'd post it for download, and would give you access to his diary blog, older concert recordings, miscellaneous fan stuff, and social networking with other members. theoretically, by aggregating enough artists with modest but loyal followings he thought it could generate enough revenue direct to the artist. Patronet held on for several years, but never realized the dream.
Posted at 1:26PM on Jan 18th 2008 by seth greenstein
31. Radiohead wasn't very successful in getting people to actually pay for their new 'album.' They did get a lot of downloads, but over 60 percent paid nothing and most everybody else paid less than 5 bucks. People don't want to pay for anything anymore, especially when it comes to the web.
A few posters here claim to like albums but also claim to have downloaded some of them for free. Many people these days want everything to be free and then when they start a business or website or blog they expect people to pay them. Go figure.
There really is no such thing as an album anymore. Yeah when muscians wrote and played most of their own stuff and came up with album themes, stories or weird songs that were hidden it was an album. The album actually meant something. You'd go to the local record store or music store to not only buy the album but check out the cover, communicate with others, and have those music and life conversations. Album covers were kind of cool.. Well some sucked, but you get the point. Maybe the album was good, maybe the album sucked, maybe a few songs were good, maybe a few songs were bad. Maybe there was some hidden theme that people talked about. Whatever it was, there was something more than just one song you liked. It was about the music, the musicians, the album, the songs, and the conversations with friends. It was the whole package.
However today it's mostly one or two decent songs and a bunch of fillers. There really are no true albums anymore. It's a bunch of crap thrown together so people might buy it. Heck, every other year we have "Greatest Hits" of a band that's only been around for a few years. It's a bunch of pretty faces or drugged out faces or 'roided bodies putting out songs that half the time make no sense. Half the muscians today don't even write their own stuff anymore. So how can there really be an album when 10 different songwriters spit together 10 different songs for somebody. 10 songs that really never mean anything to anybody.
And people don't talk about the music as much, they just post on forums or download the music for free. The old go to the record store and share your music theories has long passed.. Some people still do it, but it is what it is.
If people actually paid for things, I'd say a new song every other week would be a cool thing and a good business idea. However it seems many people today live in the theory that everything should be free unless of course they are trying to sell something.
32. Interesting idea. From what I've been reading, a lot of bands make a significant amount of money these days by touring. That might be a problem with serial music releases. Do they play the unreleased songs on their tour? If they gradually introduce them into their show it means changing the show every week. That can be a lot of work.
Posted at 2:20PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Bruce McL
34. Just curious, how did the 45RPM single do in sales overall for the industry, compared to the full albums? Do you believe there is any parallel to that and $0.99/track download versus $10 for the album download despite the difference in delivery systems?
35. Serializing albums seems like a good idea. After all, a band tends to be associated with a stream of similar music. Yet Mark writes, "I dont do it by artist. I go to ITunes and I go through the top 10 lists and listen to samples and thats how I determine what music im going to buy." If that's the way most persons will buy music, serialization won't work.
Posted at 6:37PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Douglas Galbi
36. RSS feeds of your favorite artists, producing new music on a regular basis sounds awesome! 1-click purchase, "People who bought this song also purchased", it all sounds like a no-brainer. Where do I sign up?
http://lamorindarealestateblog.com
Posted at 7:06PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Bob Wegener
37. Here is Canada we have lost some of the Greatest Canadian Music store you could have shopped at. This is due to the constant decline of purchase of CD,s etc... So anything that helps get the music out there and the artists are still able to make their money is a great idea.
38. It is time the music industry figures out a new business model. As is, they seem intent on trying to sue to keep the old model in place. But I think a large part of their problem is of their own doing.
In short, CD prices never dropped. They were expensive when they came out, mid-teens per album. My dad is an audiophile, so he had an early CD player, and my first CD was "Thriller", when there were about 12 available. The talking point was that when CDs became more popular, manufacturing costs would drop, and thus CD prices. The manufacturing of CDs dropped to pennies, yet the price never dropped. I think the companies were happy at the time to keep the increasing profit. So, when it became easy and cheap to download music at no cost, they were selling a product above where people were really happy paying.
One problem is they have a virtual monopoly. A Hannah Montana song is not the same as the MP3 player it is played on. A company can make an MP3 player, but someone else can come out with a new one cheaper or smaller or more features, anything that makes it a better buy for the consumer. There is competition. But for Hannah Montana, if you want her music, you have to pay that company what they say. Some other label could have a similar artist, but it is not the same. We don't shop for music the same way we do our players, and as such, there is no price competition, and as a result, the mentality at the record companies is not towards offering cheaper product.
One note for the comment about Prince: he sells plenty of CDs, and also makes a lot of money as a songwriter (which is where the real money is, especially with other forms like ringtones, TV shows, etc.). In fact, a couple years ago, he toured and had a new album out. The ticket was a little more expensive than the average concert, but when you showed up, you got his new CD. They made sure each album was recorded as a sale for the Billboard charts - so even if you didn't really want it, but wanted to hear him play his "Purple Rain" era songs, you still were recorded as buying the album. So even he seems concerned about CD sales.
Posted at 8:00PM on Jan 18th 2008 by John
39. I bet that the persistence of the album format has to do with studio time, engineer expense, and touring. The first two are probably still way more economical per song when done for 10 or 12 songs rather than 1 at a time. Bands still try to get a consistent sound out of an album, too, which may be artistically easier when creativity is done in batch. If you discover a neat effect for the 4th song on the album, you can go back and inject into the first. That sorta thing...
All that said, smaller bands are using the power of iTunes to release EPs with just a few songs on them. Two of my favorite bands, Madside and Eve to Adam, have done that kind of thing in the past couple years. But you've got an interesting idea Mark.
Posted at 8:52PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Brad Hutchings
40. mark, you are a frickin genius. i love this idea. i search for new tracks that way too on my iphone.
Posted at 9:10PM on Jan 18th 2008 by Ryan Schwebel
21. mark--obviously you dont have much appreciation for what an "album" actually is...or at least what it is to some artists...a cohesive collection of songs that go together...that are written during the same time in their lives, that are put together in the order they feel they need to be in. singles are fine if you're a singles artist but you're pretty much screwed if you're sticking to a craft that you feel you best express yourself with...according to you of course.
couple of ways to see this...think of an art installation where in order to make money you need to only make some throwaway crap people will buy for a month then completely forget about.
or...since people only want to see slam dunks...maybe you should tell avery to only have the guys do that. people dont want to see complex offenses or tenacious d(efense), just slams from here on out.
what it all boils down to is all entertainment is expendable and when you overcook it's value and start charging too much for it people will find a way to undercut it and render whatever business model they're using useless. instead of it being a problem for the artist...it's a problem for fat rich dudes like you who sit in offices all day with nothing better to do than figure out how to squeeze more pennies out of a nickel.
Posted at 10:13AM on Jan 18th 2008 by matt