Jul 8
2005
Music Industry doesn’t like iTunes…
I think that the music industry as a whole is freaking out about the emergence of digital download services like iTunes…but wait, before you say, “yeah, and what else is new”, I think I have a new theory. Well, someone somwhere may have already thought this up and posted it on the web, but this realization came to me when I was helping my sister look for a Lindsay Lohan song on iTunes.
She wanted to do a song with me at a talent show and one of the possibilities was the song “Something I Never Had”. The hope was that I’d get the song, make up an acoustic-y version of it and we’d be set. Well, that song never worked out, but I have a legal copy of it on my computer thanks to iTunes. I was curious about my sister’s perception of Ms. Lohan, so I asked her if there were any other songs on the album she likes. “Not really,” was her reply. “Well, maybe Rumors,” she added.
Then it hit me. You see, personally I think Lindsay’s album embodies a lot of things that are wrong with the music industry today. It’s a well recorded, but copycat production of all the other teen sex-idol girls that have come before her. I don’t doubt that Lindsay has talent (not my favorite genre, however). But not many of the songs on her “Speak” album are worth listening to. Several of them seem to say the same thing in, er, slightly different ways. Now, I know that I shouldn’t use my sister’s tastes as a generalization of all young females, but I noticed that Ms. Lohan only sold one song for 99 cents. The usual channels for an artist would be to write a bunch of songs, record a full 10 song album, and then sell the package for $10-$15 bucks. Record Label makes a profit. The problem is, Record Label knows they have only put a lot of effort into 2 or 3 of those songs. As long as people want those, they will buy the whole cd. It seems like that has been the way the system has worked for a long while. There are not many hyped up artists who sing/write a CD full of great stuff. By great stuff, I don’t mean hits, but stuff that’s just good to kick back and listen to.
Digital Distribution companies that offer single songs of albums for downloads change all that. If a band only makes 2 good songs they only reap in $2, for example. Everyone in the industry will have to start coming out with better and more original songs to fill albums with. No more “8-filler-songs-and-2-hits” on the market. I think this has got a lot of people worried. We’ll have to start being creative again. :-)
Hyperbole abounds, so please read this with a grain of salt. I know that some bands are bummed about having their albums broken up into individual songs for good reason. Radiohead is an excellent example. They put a lot of effort into creating a sonic texture that flows from song to song, so a broken up album wouldn’t capture the essence of their art. But these kinds of artists are few and far between. I myself haven’t reached that level of forethought and creativity. My albums are admittedly a hash of stuff, a journal of thoughts from seemingly scattered eras of my life and experience. My most downloaded song off iTunes is by far “Remember Me”. But that’s totally fine with me. It challenges me to write music that connects with people, but to not sacrifice my own “voice” as an artist in the process. This is a lesson that the well-established music industry machine will be forced to relearn sooner than later.
2005
8:14 am
I absolutely agree… by the way, how big of a deal was it to set up WordPress? I’ve looked at this for blogging, but…
2005
11:20 am
Wordpress was sickeningly easy to setup. You just upload it to your server, change 3 lines in a file, browse to a special setup page and U R done! There’s a lot of instructions and such for customizing the templates and things too. I’d definitely recommend it!
2005
2:34 pm
I’ve heard that theory many times since these digital distributors came about, but I always wondered if it was true. Are people really only downloading 1-2 Britney/Christina/Lindsay/Hilary songs, but not the whole album?
Then, one day, I stumbled upon what I think is the proof of that hypothesis. In the iTunes Music Store, on the right-hand side of the home page, is the Top 100 songs downloaded today, and the Top 100 albums downloaded today. First, take a look at the songs–you’ll notice they’re aren’t many surprises. There’s your Gwen Stefani’s, your Hilary Duff’s, your Pussycat Dolls. Now take a look at the top album downloads. You’ll notice bands that you’ve maybe never heard of in the top 10! You’ll see some of my favorite bands: Weezer, Ben Folds, in the list. So, it seems that the record companies fears maybe HAVE come true. People *are* downloading only the tracks worth listening to from high-profile artists, then spending their hard-earned money on more obscure (but possibly more talented) artists by purchasing the whole album. That was enough to prove it to me.
2005
8:01 am
Yeah Jonathan–
What iTunes will unwittingly do is force the art to get better in a weird “survival of the fittest” sort of way. I’m ok with that. The artists as I understand it need tour dates to make their money, not album sales so much. Labels take the burden of producing the music, but why not be ok with producing less music if the quality goes up? A paradigm shift in the music world lables aren’t ready to accept.
Brian
2005
8:47 am
Hi, I found your blog via a link from Eric’s and this post got my attention.
There are some albums on iTunes that you are not allowed to download individual songs from. I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but instead of a “buy now” button, it has “album only” listed. So, to get most of the songs on an album, you’re forced to buy the entire album.
In this way, artists who prefer to present their work in an album format can force people to download the entire album. Greedy executives who know you’ll pay $10 just to hear 2 songs could do the same.
However, it could be that the total profits gained from 2,000,000 people downloading one or two tracks exceeds the profits gained from 200,000 people downloading the entire album. So, in that way, they’ve made more money because more people are willing to just buy a few songs.
2005
10:08 pm
[...] Remember my little observation about the Music industry’s fear of iTunes? Remember that it’s because people can choose to purchase the one good song off a generally bad album they’d usually have to pay a whole $14 for? Well, it looks like Apple is freaking out the television industry by wanting to offer shows for download. It’s not that $1.99 is too little. It actually works out to be quite a bit for a single episode, however the network TV stations hope that you’ll stick around for the bad show sandwiched in between two good ones. Sounds familiar, eh? You can read the scoop at endgadget.com. [...]