Paul Williams, Download sites, such as I-tunes, are transforming the way in which we buy music by allowing consumers to purchase individual tracks rather than shelling out for the whole album. Do you think that artists can survive by making albums where only one or two songs show a financial return? Is this the end of the 'long-player'?
Asked by DonLogan on Nov 02 2007 2:29:12 PM and supported by 32 members
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It will change the business model. Over the last thirty years the money made by record companies has been generated by selling albums. Because ITunes, and other services, allow people to unbundle albums into individual tracks people no longer have to go out and buy an entire album.
I think that the record companies, in a lot of cases, have been guilty of putting out not very good albums, that contain some tracks that people want and a lot of filler. The difficulty record companies have now is this perception that all albums aren’t that good and there are only a few good tracks on them. The seed has been planted in the public’s head that most albums aren’t very good apart from the singles.
However in the early sixties most music was sold as singles, and there would only be certain acts who would successfully sell albums. While we may be going back to that there will always be room for artists to make albums.