How do you buy your music?

The Monday New York Times had an article about the changes in the music business resulting from declining album sales due to iTunization. Albums will cease to be the label's primary form of revenue, instead shifting to singles.

Many music executives dispute the idea that the album will disappear. In particular, they say, fans of jazz, classical, opera and certain rock will demand album-length listening experiences for many years to come. But for other genres... where sales success is seen as closely tied to radio air play of singles, the album may be entering its twilight.

“For some genres and some artists, having an album-centric plan will be a thing of the past,” said Jeff Kempler, chief operating officer of EMI’s Capitol Music Group. While the traditional album provides value to fans, he said, “perpetuating a business model that fixates on a particular packaged product configuration is inimical to what the Internet enables, and it’s inimical to what many consumers have clearly voted for.”

But is this sustainable? And how is this good for the artists? A female trio is discussed in the article, saying they'll get a two song tryout that will be distributed via iTunes and other formats... to see if they are popular enough for an ALBUM!

Daniel Gross of Slate responds:

What we are witnessing is not so much the imminent death of CDs but the death of the old methods of selling CDs. It's still possible to make money in the CD business—any business with more than $7 billion in retail sales should allow someone, somewhere, to make a profit. The incumbents are getting killed, but upstarts are thriving, using different methods.

At any rate, the coverage of the music industry focuses on the labels primarily and how the consumer wants different means of getting their music. But what does the shift in marketing style mean for the listener?

I like shiny media. I do have an iPod. If given the choice between the two, I'd easily choose the former, largely as a result of me already having a lot of them, my desire (but not the auditory acuity) to be an audiophile, the tangible ownership and me being album oriented.

If you look at our cd rack, Joanne & I would be considered loyal listers--for the most part, if we have more than 1 cd of a band/group/artist, we have all/almost all of their studio material.

To me the ideal new band is not a new band, but a band that is new to me and has 3 or more CDs in their back catalogue. I'm more interested in establishing a listening relationship with a musical entity, than an individual song. If I don't like a song enough to get an album, then what's the point? It's a 4-5 minute experience, rather than an hour-plus.

But I digress...

A large shift to a song-based model i think is bad for music, particularly the artist. It creates less loyalty, so lower concert turnout, which for smaller bands is where they make their money. There are a lot more songs than artists (naturally), so i think would make it more difficult to find an audience with less material. (Joanne points out that iTunes doesn't stop the production of the album; similar to Gross's point that the issue isn't albums, but marketing).

From a listener perspective, the economies of scale of producing an album, i would think, lend themselves to high quality/more thoughtful productions, than one or two songs here or there. Of course, a lot of terrible albums get made, so I may be off base there. There's also the experience of listening to full album, as opposed to getting a single song.