Is The Album Dead? - 8 comments
Like many of you, I don’t quite buy as many albums as I used. In last six months, there are two albums — Bombay Dub Orchestra’s 3 Cities and Federico Aubele’s Amatoria — that made the cut for me and merited the full download. I fully agreed with Mark Cuban, who declared that the album was dead. He correctly pointed out that iTunes had changed our buying habits – we now buy singles. “Why don’t artists serialize the release of songs ? Why not create a “season” of release of songs, much like the fall TV season,” he wrote. Great idea.
Today when my friend Ethan Diamond, founder of BandCamp (Disclosure: a music start-up that is funded by True Ventures, where I am a Venture Partner) posted his defense, arguing that the album is not dead. At least not in the indie-music circles, the kind of people who often use Bandcamp.
His claim made me think about my own purchasing habits and that is indeed true — of the 20 odd albums I have bought over last year-and-a-half, there is not a single one that has been released by a big label. CéU is an awesome Brazilian singer who is on San Francisco-based Six Degrees Records. Niraj Chag is on a little known no-name label as well. I could go on but the point is that with the exception of Beyonce, who I adore, I don’t have much time for any big label’s musical fare. Ethan also points out that “people are more likely to buy albums when they can actually listen to them beforehand.” I agree — most of these albums came to me through recommendations pushed by Pandora and Last.fm.
Funny how the world of music has changed. The music industry’s old guard cannot seem to come to grips with the quintessential change – the atomization of content. People are not interested in buying music by the bulk, snacking on what they like and sometimes, when they find something tasty, buying the whole entree. I am off to listening to CéU’s new album, Vagarosa.
I find complete musical works or compilations, which I think was the idea behind the album, will still be around, but is it surprising that individual track sales took off compared to sales of the whole album? I don’t think too many analysts were surprised. The technology was there, so it was flaunted. I’ve done it now, too. But if the artists have a good album in mind, who’s to stop them from making it? It’s still being done, it’s just that all the tracks can be made available as singles now.
I know that younger people tend to buy singles on iTunes, but assumed that most of us over 30 still buy albums exclusively. I’ve been all-digital since the dawn of MP3, and in all those years I’ve only bought one or two singles, in contrast with many hundreds of complete albums from emusic, iTunes and mp3.amazon.
Great read.
The album may be being retired, but the visual association needs to be put to rest before I’ll shed a tear.
http://gizmodo.com/5304832/photoshop-contest-design-a-new-itunes-icon
http://www.psfk.com/2009/07/the-itunes-icon-how-do-we-represent-post-disc-media.html
When I visit friends, they still often select music (iTunes) using cover flow (albums).
Om -
The album is no way dead. It’s really more like recording became easier and more piles of uh-hum are released daily into the world. Up until about the year 1997 or so, when digital recording really became affordable, musicians had to go into a real studio to book real hours and lay down real tracks on an analog tape. That cost a lot of money, and also consequently the analog era had some of the better recordings. Take a listen to any album/CD prior to 1997, maybe even 1995.
If you listen – most of the albums pre-1995-97 were chock full of hit potential. Back in the day, musicians didn’t just record stuff because they could, they only recorded stuff that was their best.
That is primarily while you will see less albums, more singles. Back in the day when I was an active musician, and would talk to producers, etc. – they always said – “you need to have at least 25-30 songs before recording your album.” Why of course is the reason why most CD/albums pre-1995-97 are just nothing but 10-12 songs of pure hit machine magic.
While our tastes in music are probably quite different from seeing your 2 album picks above, the story is the same globally.
Wise company (above) to invest in. Anything music that is giving the musician more choices in not being on a big corporate label is a good thing. Not that I’m 100% against the recording industry, there are some good things they do – majority of it is detrimental unfortunately, the change has been here for over a decade.
With digital here to stay, there will probably never be an era again where the album dominates. Singles unfortunately are like fast food, quick satisfaction, leaving you longing for more nutritious morsels from that artist.
Now if you are talking strictly vinyl, well the indie scene does well with 7″ releases,etc… But when it’s all said and done – not many have turntables anymore!
Ok – I’ve rambled enough!
Rex
Used to be, telecommuting, I’d have the TV in the living room turned on most of the day – switching forth-and-back between music videos on MTV or VH1. They stopped playing music videos. I stopped watching and listening. And buying.
With the advent of Maria Schneider – and peers – marketing their music online, I began purchasing CD’s again. After listening to individual tracks at sites like Maria’s – or following the growth of Internet Radio into stations like JAZZ.FM91 and SKY.FM’s Roots Reggae – which found Groundation for me.
The Music “Industry” has abdicated every opportunity they had of selling music to me.
The poor-quality and poor-value album is most definitely dead, and good riddance! Most of my music purchases today are online downloads, primarily via eMusic or the Amazon MP3 store. Where I do purchase stuff on CD (and occasionally on vinyl) it is because I’ve heard at least one or two tracks and liked them, either in the store on on an online service like Last.fm or SomaFM. I stopped listening to music stations on the radio several years ago, and only miss a few shows (including those of the late John Peel on BBC Radio 1), and am blissfully ignorant of what’s in the Top 40.
I’m currently in the process of transferring all of my CD collection into iTunes, and have just purchased a USB cassette deck so I can do the same for my old tape collection from the 80s (or rather those that I’ve not been able to replace with either CDs or MP3s).
You went and did it to me, Om. Listened to several tracks of 3 Cities – ordered the CD from Amazon, yesterday.
What sensitive, complex constructions. Lovely music.
Well…. then the album isn’t quite dead/ I am glad you like the album and its complex beauty. hopefully you will spread the message.