{"id":555,"date":"2007-05-11T08:56:44","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T12:56:44","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-05-11T10:11:34","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T10:11:34","slug":"this-week-s-music-industry-scapegoat-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/this-week-s-music-industry-scapegoat-the\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week&#8217;s Music Industry Scapegoat: The Digital Single"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/czL8wc79vWY?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nSo this week the music industry is back to bashing the digitally downloaded single for the continued dropoff in album sales.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Consumers no longer need to buy an album if they want that cool jam they heard on the radio \u2014 and in growing numbers, they&#8217;re choosing 99-cent downloads over $15 CDs.<\/p>\n<p>Some worry this trend is worsening the quality of albums as a cohesive musical work, and that label executives are more and more interested in quick hits than lasting music or artists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Am I really to believe that Nickleback, Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani, <strong>Nas<\/strong>, et al are really concerned with the cohesiveness of their 15-song, 70-minute releases? If so, who do they think they are? Not even the Beatles and the Stones could stay cohesive over the course of an oldtime double album. What kind of drugs do you need to be on to stay through the 11th track on a Nas album, or are you expected to be a glutton for the &#8220;N Word&#8221;?<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nBut maybe I&#8217;m too cynical. This article contains this passage ripe with optimism over the future of modern album making!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The question remains whether consumers are as interested in completing the albums as they used to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ciara<\/strong> hopes so. The 21-year-old&#8217;s latest platinum album, &#8220;Ciara: The Evolution,&#8221; on La Face\/Jive Records (a unit of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture between Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE &#8211; news). and Bertelsmann AG <em>[Ed. &#8211; Not that&#8217;s an inspiring parenthetical bit of information we haven&#8217;t seen on Rock Town Hall since the days when Berlyant was in his prime! Someone get me a link, fast!]<\/em>) wasn&#8217;t designed to provide just hits, but as an entire experience about <strong>her development into a woman<\/strong>, complete with interludes between the tracks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For me growing up, there was nothing like listening to an album that you could literally sit down and listen to from the beginning to the end,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It can&#8217;t just be about singles. That&#8217;s the purpose of an album, it&#8217;s almost like a story within itself.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good point, Ciara, but who&#8217;s sitting through a complete reading of <em>Ulysses<\/em>? And I&#8217;ve never heard this blossoming woman&#8217;s music, but is it really the kind of music meant to be listened to while sitting? Do I have her confused with some dance-pop artist?<\/p>\n<p>Leave it to my girl <strong>Avril Lavigne<\/strong> to put things into perspective:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so all about going to the store and buy a CD.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(But) times are changing,&#8221; she added. Someday &#8220;people aren&#8217;t going to do records, they&#8217;re just going to do singles, probably.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By all accounts, she was not lip-synching while quoted for this piece!<\/p>\n<p>Why shouldn&#8217;t people stop making albums? In a digitally downloadable age, who&#8217;s going to download the penultimate song on &#8220;side 2,&#8221; also known as the <strong>Safe Haven for an Album&#8217;s Turd<\/strong>? Unless downloading an entire album was offered at a cheaper price than downloading each track individually, why download the likely turds? You&#8217;re given a 30-second sample of each song. If the song doesn&#8217;t do it for you in 30 seconds, maybe it doesn&#8217;t deserve your time. Maybe artists will stop wasting time with minute-long, finger-picked intros and get down to business.<\/p>\n<p>Beside, most people seem to like carrying their entire music collection on a device that fits in the palm of their hand and can be set to shuffle songs without repeating the same song for 17 years. Let it be, music industry. Enjoy the money you&#8217;re raking in. Make more of it. Do more coke. I mean, it&#8217;s like, so whatever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So this week the music industry is back to bashing the digitally downloaded single for the continued dropoff in album sales. Consumers no longer need to buy an album if they want that cool jam they heard on the radio \u2014 and in growing numbers, they&#8217;re choosing 99-cent downloads over $15 CDs. Some worry this <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/this-week-s-music-industry-scapegoat-the\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}