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the state of current pop music and the short attention span of a lot of the buying public today. However most classical and jazz listeners will still want to buy albums and collections as opposed to a single pop hit of the day.
Except for classical.....and jazz... and world/ethno... others??
I can totally understand in certain genres like Pop and R&B that consumers want to cherry pick songs rather than buy albums. There are so many groups or artists (and I use that term loosely) out there that don't have the talent to come up with decent material for a consistently good album from start to finish. Plus, once the material grows old in a number of months, they haven't wasted too much money.In other genres, the album is something that will still be desired, IMHO. I certainly don't want Holly Cole's latest single ... I want the whole album. And that's just not isolated to buyers of jazz or classical. I'm not saying that we'll necessarily see other concept albums quite like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" or Roger Water's "Amused to Death", but I sure hope so. The death of the album would be very sad indeed. There are so many gems that can be found on an album that you'd just never see as a single.
I guess there are music lovers and media buyers. Music lovers buy entire albums. They let songs grow on them. They want to hear the whole story. Media buyers are just buying the latest hit because all of their friends have it. I was just in Las Vegas for a conference and the damn ring tones I heard all around me sounded like the latest Top 40. It's all about what's hot now. Throwaway music.The idea of "buying" single songs is not new. The concept of the "mix tape" is as old as tape itself I'm sure. People pick and choose their favorites based on some sort of theme. So I don't know why the labels are surprised.
If the labels and iTunes are smart they could track what songs people buy together and build dynamic "mix tapes" to sell and download effectively as "full" albums. Or allow customers to define their own "mix tapes" for iTunes to sell as "albums." Sort of like Amazon's Lists concept.
As an aside, as "audiophiles" concerned about the quality degradation of music in electronic formats such as MP3, you may appreciate this similarity. As an avid amateur photographer I was surprised to see that the number one type of camera in Las Vegas is the cell phone. Photography for the masses.
I SAID NT!!!
And why might such habits prejudice their potential "album" status?...
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