along with internet leaks of whole albums, i think the whole "listen to the cd for free" thing takes away a sizable percentage of potential record sales. on AOL/Xm Radio, i've listened, to Justin, Janet, and now listening to Mario vasquez (the guy who quit american idol). while they're not bad albums by any means, none of them have made me run out to the store and go buy them. if anything, it would just make me inclined to download the 2 or 3 songs i like for 99 cents. Maybe i just miss the days when you never knew what an album was gonna sound like until you bought it. FYE has those preview headphones all over their stores, so you might go in there with the intent of buying a cd, but hearing the 30 sec snippets, find that the album isn't for you

I think they probably do. I know it's made an impact on my purchasing habits.

30 second snippets are to brief to get a real feel for a song. Now at least I know what I'm getting or not getting. Especially since I don't get to go the music shops as much and with the high cost of CDs in certain areas, I literally can't afford to buy something that has 3 or 4, sometimes 2 good songs on it.

Overall, I'd say that being able to see/hear samples or entire tracks/videos via various means has caused me to buy things I otherwise wouldn't have.

Personally, I really appreciate being able to check out samples over the internet, such as on Amazon or artist's sites, etc. But that's largely due to my location on the planet (check my profile). I don't have much opportunity to hear new stuff otherwise, and the fact I don't even have a TV doesn't help! I'll give a shout to YouTube as well. It's for the most part not an authorized outlet and the quality is crap but at least I get to see/hear stuff.

Oh, and there are listening stations at the one big record store here (Tower Records in Naha), they're invaluable as well but I don't get there very often. BTW, that's where I first listened to COADF and I was underwhelmed (may have just been that I could hardly hear it over the rap blaring in the store). But I bought it anyway and loved it.

I know 2 sites which play about 1,30 sec. to 2-minute long samples :

www.cdbaby.com and www.juno.co.uk

Problem is that CdBaby does mostly independent artists , but Juno has a little more to offer concerning commercial artists .

Yes, but in a good way. It levels the playing field.
I can't think of how many CD's I've purchased and listened to only once. We now buy CD's we may not have if it weren't for the samples and rule out the ones we shouldn't have purchased in the first place. It's a good thing.

I do wonder, however, if hearing the whole song helps or hurts. With a smaller sample, you know if you like something or not and it gives more incentive to purchase a song or at least purchase it sooner. But then, maybe that's just me. I don't listen to music much when I'm out on the run so I can wait a bit longer to buy something.

Sometimes when I am digging in used records, I get to preview them on the store's turntable or a portable one, and sometimes I don't buy the ones I preview, which is I guess why the stores would rather you take the risk and buy it without hearing it. But I may not buy it anyway, if I don't know what it is.

Internet streams honestly do not do it for me, but generally if a snippet disc or other promo is pushed at me, I will likely buy what I got to preview.

BlaqueKnight said:

Yeah for real.

More to the point, if the new album is somebody I'm already into, I'm gonna cop it regardless. If it's some new buzz or somebody's tryin' to turn me on then the samples might work to their benefit.

The contrast is I have an automatic bias against buying the new Janet, Justin or Fergie. Y'know that kinda pop crap, but if I run across a decent sampler version, it might turn me on. It worked for Mariah's MIMI disc (first heard in strip clubs), but flopped badly for that Hollaback girl crappola.

Who was that>
Oh yeah Stefani.
Gwen Stefani.

BlaqueKnight said:

Exactly, the combination of labels charging so much for cd's when it costs nothing to make, have to led to the public demanding 80 minutes of music on there cd, which leads to 18 tracks and interludes and skits and all that crap. If you notice a trend lately, alot of artists have been going back to 10 tracks 45 minutes. Honestly i dont want 80 minutes out of any artist unless im going to a concert and then i want 2hrs at least, but im sorry 80 minutes is just crazy, especially from a new artist. I worked in music retail for a long time and over the last few years or so the climate of the consumer was all about "looking at what the artist looked like" and "How many tracks", i saw people not buy cds because it was 9-10 tracks.

if the music contained on the cd that's being sampled is good...no, it won't hurt sales. crap music will get crap reception.

blaqueknight is right on point.

sallysassalot said:

But all in all, i just dont feel artists, putting down an 18track 80 minute disc, ever, pull it off without filler, it just doesnt happen, even from the greats. I think this is why back in the day artists, were putting out 1-2 and sometimes 3 cds a year, because they werent forcing themselves into making these epic records.

lastdecember said:

some do and some don't. and part of being a good artist is knowing your limits. if 11 out of 17 tracks are good, leave it at that. regardless, if a cd i'm interested in has 11 or 12 decent tracks out of 17 or 18, i'll still buy it. if a cd with 12 songs, however, only has 2 or 3 good tracks i'll just as soon skip it.

sallysassalot said:

Yeah i understand but i just think even alot of the older artists, would benefit from just putting out 10 tracks, and cutting it down, i think they feel since there are no singles now, everything gets thrown on the disc, the b sides the remixes. I think cds are the biggest cause of this issue, when u had the record u pretty much knew that people were going to just drop the needle so you had to do a solid record, if not, then that was it, now i think with cds, and skipping tracks easily, alot of people get by with so-so albums by just overloading the disc

sallysassalot said:

but why is a lot of crapmusic getting an esteemed reception to the point of major sales? What's up on MTV, BET and the lot is absolutely dreadful.

lastdecember said:

I like this approach: high volume output when the artist is hot instead of stockpiling stuff from a hot period to pad a release on a 2-3 yr cycle.

Nowadays, the paradigm with downloading and ipods is you'll get everyhting from the artist as s/he chooses to stream it. Almost instantaneously and with updates and "fixes"!