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Bands Upset That People Aren't Forced Into Buying Their Bad Songs Too
from the get-a-grip dept
Now that Apple's iTunes has been getting lots of publicity from some who think it's the "right way" to offer music downloads (something I don't really agree with, but that's an unnecessary tangent), some musical acts are complaining that they don't want their songs sold individually. They're demanding that if their tunes go up on something like iTunes, they can only be sold if people buy the entire album. Of course, what they're really saying is that they know they can't come up with enough good songs that people would want to buy them all. I would have a lot more support for a band that gave their fans enough credit to let them buy songs on an individual basis - and believe that their music is good enough to entice people to download all their songs. In the meantime, what's probably happening is that any of the bands who require "full album only" are going to make less money than they would have otherwise. The folks who have no interest in their full-length album, are likely to just turn to the free file sharing systems to get the one or two songs they like (or simply not buy at all), keeping the money away from the musicians entirely.
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It's all about the publishing bucks
One of the reasons for this is the publishing money. The people that write the songs get as much or sometimes more than the performers of the songs. And a lot of times the "hit" songs on an album are written by pro writers, not by the band.
So it makes sense that the band is pissed that aren't getting as much money from sales of the hits -- at least the ones that aren't written by them.
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No Subject Given
Personally, I'm a strong proponent of the single. I think the days of the "album" concept are (thankfully) gone. The album was really a product of the recording technology of the time - a wax or vinyl double-sided disc with about 40 minutes of available time.
Because the vinyl record was the primary "content delivery platform" (sorry, couldn't resist some 90's marketingspeak), the idea of an "album"- that all the work contained on the disc was somehow related - felt very natural to both artists and listeners.
8-track technology jarred most people, because they weren't used to the idea of skipping around without being able to control the needle. Also, the linear nature of tape made it harder for some people to find a song on the album because they had to alter the way they related to the order of the songs.
The idea of producing an "album" began to change as singles became more and more prevalent as a marketing tool. Record companies hired hotshot producers to make a single for a record. Often, another producer would make the record, and the specailist would create a single that would drive sales. This created some rather schizophrenic work, and (IMHO) began turning off music consumers who felt the record they'd just bought was (literally) less than advertised.
I've ranted about all this before on my site. As an artist, I'd never require listeners to shell out for a complete "album" when all they want is a single. It also frees me as a composer in that I'm not locked into created 65-minute masterworks, only to discover that people only really care about 5 minutes of it.
/rant.
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