[Music] Is the album dead?

[Deleted]

Interesting piece on this morning's Today program. (source:-http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9751533.stm)

This is from the UK prospective.....

Last month for the first time in history, the number one album sold fewer than 10,000 copies.

Arts correspondent Colin Paterson went to the announcement of this year's 12-strong Mercury Prize shortlist to ask why anyone should care about what appears to be a dying format.

Simon Frith, who chairs the judges at the Mercury Music Prize, said there is "an interesting divergence between musicians continuing commitment to album making and audience reluctance to buy albums".

He explained that people listen to music in a way which is now "more mobile and more distracted" and single tracks therefore "make sense".

I personally only buy tracks that I like, not really interested in any filler

So what do you guys think?

[Deleted]

Interesting piece on this morning's Today program. (source:-http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9751533.stm)

This is from the UK prospective.....



I personally only buy tracks that I like, not really interested in any filler

So what do you guys think?

Two words:

Mainstream music.

[tankbug]

It's different from album to album. Sometimes the artist just throws a bunch of random songs into the album, but other times the album is like a symphony with different parts, and combined they can be a master piece that will always have a special place in your heart, much more than any single song.

[Anakso]

I only buy the albums of the bands I really like (See: Signature ) other than that, it's single songs.

One thing they do often with kpop though is release mini albums rather than albums, most bands still release albums but they release mini albums with 4-6ish songs on it more frequently than they release albums. I think this might be a good way to go. They're cheaper than full albums, and rather than getting say 12 songs all at once, you'd get say 6 songs at a time but more frequently.

And I've definitely noticed mini albums by these groups even adding two together, have less songs I don't like than one full album, usually.

[Skippy88]

Problem is they want about $15-$20 per album and it's very hit and miss if the album is good or not. I only like buying albums from artists that I know puts out music I like or I know the album is good.

[Shinzai]

I think that the major problem is, in the UK, people don't really buy albums in shops any more. As far as I'm aware, the sales figures are only based on physical purchases, not digital formats. Not to mention that the UK hasn't been flogging LP's in the hundreds of thousands consistently for years now. Mix-tapes and compilations have always sold far more than single artist albums.

[Deleted]

I think that the major problem is, in the UK, people don't really buy albums in shops any more. As far as I'm aware, the sales figures are only based on physical purchases, not digital formats.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Albums_Chart

The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom

[Orby]

I live int he Uk and I hardly buy music thats in the chart, most of the music I listen to never charts. The british music scene is god awful right now especially commercially :P

I do still buy albums (from Amazon). Hell I still buy CD's only because I prefer something physical. I do download also but only if its music I am iffy on.

[mechleader]

No the album is not dead, however the means for distributing it is because it's archaic for our technology. My car still has a CD player with no AUX ports, until I replace the car or stereo, I will buy/burn cds. People still love to show support for the artists, just look at iTunes' sales increasing by 8% and physical sales decreasing by 8.7%. Long story short, media distribution as a whole is an outdated system for societies technological capabilities. They're dying because they're dinosaurs, clunky, easy to scratch, and difficult to actually use. Why go out, buy a CD, upload it to my computer, search for the file <on itunes, move it over to my ipod> transfer it to my player; when you can just go on your player, and click purchase, download it and listen to it without going anywhere specific or using any effort at all?

All this whining by the record companies makes me sad. They just want money in their pockets, I'm sure if a band released a digital album on their website for free, with the offer to donate for it, they would be reimbursed for their work. Plus most of their money comes from touring. So as the physical media dies out, bands will tour more and ease of listening for the end user will go up.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.c...s-one-wee.html
http://exclaim.ca/News/sales_stats_r..._radioheads_in

[Deleted]

Plus most of their money comes from touring. So as the physical media dies out, bands will tour more and ease of listening for the end user will go up.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.c...s-one-wee.html

That is true however, especially for smaller/more underground bands the amount of sales you do early on around the release of an album determines how much support you get for touring.

As for what else you said, it is true but I still love it when I can hold the booklet/digipack in my hands, it feels much more like "having" an album than it being incarnated in a bunch of files on my hard drive.

[Poppincaps]

Is that referring to actual physical albums? Or albums you can buy on itunes? I think 10,000 combining both physical and digital sales is a little far-fetched. As for the album being dead, well I personally prefer buy albums as opposed to singles. It feels weird if I don't have the entire album in my collection.

[WaitingforMoP]

Whole albums is practically the only way I buy music

Also, I don't know about the other people in the world but I think album sales being so low can be heavily attributed to piracy....... sure alleged #1 album sold under 10,000 copies.... but I'm sure like 990k+ probably pirated whatever album that was

People are just disrespectful thieves and jackasses...

Also it's terribly ironic how music is marketed, the music primarily shoved down the publics throat (Mostly pop and pop-rap) are not the sort of music with diehard musicians as fans, they don't give a flying fuck. They listen to the shoved down the throat pop songs when they come on the radio, and leave it at that. The people who like mainstream music generally have no interest in full albums in the 1st place. They aren't discerning nor caring enough to give 2 shits about a full album.

[Gandrake]

sounds like a lot of baloney to me

edit: wait, i am confused... are we talking about physical copies of albums being sold or singles being more popular than albums? Because I thought it was the latter.

[Shinzai]

The chart is supposed to cover digital sales in the UK as well, but it still just doesn't seem right to me. Even on a bad year, Rhianna is going to sell at least a hundred thousand albums in the UK.