Raze said:

Exactly. AFAIC, the labels are reaping what they sowed. They foolishly eliminated the physical single because they thought they were cannibalizing album sales (as they were jacking up the album prices). In their greed and stupidity, they caused this situation. When Napster brought file sharing to the masses, people could then acquire singles again, but now they could get any song they wanted from an album. Apple should be praised for making lemonade out of the lemons the record companies gave us.

I am totally behind the idea of the iTunes Store. I've bought a lot of singles from it. When I've enjoyed the songs, I've done more research into the artists. In many cases, I've gone out and purchased whole albums by these artists. In other cases, I haven't. The bottom line is that artists who make good albums don't need to worry.

If the album is dead (and for many people who grew up downloading, it is), the labels killed it (with an assist from Clear Channel, of course).
[Edited 11/21/07 9:39am]

This pure non-sense. That Jay-z cd is trash. There is only one song on the cd worth listening 2. People will purchase either the cd or the single. It is their choice, NOT the artist choice. If they remove the choice, they are going 2 shoot themselves in the foot, yet once again.

AlexdeParis said:

I still cant get into the downloading thing at all, if i like someone that much i stiil have to buy the physical cd and load it onto the iPod if i want. I dont like soundbytes of artists, even back when i bought 45's i really had no choice then because i was young and had no money to buy a full record , or if i really wanted the record i would have to save my allowance for a few weeks. But something is missing, i do feel that its the advancement of Digital, maybe its the sound, maybe its the lack of artwork and liner notes or just that simple feeling you got when you buy someones new record, but that is gone. For a long time i worked in Music Retail and as much as it sucked i loved music and respected, now having left that about 2 years ago, i find myself not giving a shit about music on a whole, even though i still buy it but the enjoyment has really slipped.

Raze said:

Nope, not true...
Illegal downloading started in 1999 with the boom of Napster, while Itunes started in 2003...

But the industry started to suffer in 2001, 2years before Ipods and digital singles were affordable...

And to be even more clear, CD single sales have declined for decades...

In fact the industry started suffering way before the stores stop selling Cd singles...

CrozzaUK said:

Yeah, but is that the case ?
This absolutely not the case. And that's the BIGGEST problem right now. The biggest losers are clearly the artists.

Consumers and Apple are the big winners... People have never had access to so much music while paying little to nothing...

CrozzaUK said:

Are you joking ?
Hell yeah Artists are losing total control now... Tell me what kind of control do they have ? On the left side, artists don't make money from their music and people don't even have to pay anymore... And on the right side Apple forces more and more artists to accept their condition. In these days it's getting worse. Really worse.

Technology was supposed to help the artists in first place not consumers or Apple...

The big losers are the artists and music...

krayzie said:

the industry's ploy worked for a couple of years, when they stopped reliably offering singles in the late 90's (1997-2000) and they had unprecedented sales in those years because people had to buy the albums. but when illegal downloading came along, and people were once again able to obtain "singles," that's when things started to go south on them. i'm not saying illegal downloading didn't hurt the industry. but the fact that they didn't offer a product that there was a demand for contributed largely to the decline in album sales. illegal downloading picked up steam in 1999, and people started talking about it in 2000. but it didn't become a pandemic for the industry, and wasn't put to use in every household in America (if not the entire civilized world) until around 2001, when the labels started bitching and moaning about it on a larger scale, and they saw their numbers eroding.

singles were losing steam for a long time, that is true. but they were a useful tool in promoting an album. they were used as loss-leaders to get people into the stores 1) to browse the albums that were on the shelves and 2) to act as a sampler for the full-length CD.

when they took that product out of the equation, the public replaced it themsleves by more nefarious means. means which meant they didn't have to go into the record store and possibly stumble across other things or replace their single with the whole album.

it's too late to turn back the clock now. but it does seem like they're at least trying. there ARE single releases to buy on digital sites, and nowhere else. but it's too little, too late to reverse the trends without a complete paradigm shift on the part of the labels.

but then, maybe then, that's just an effort to maintain the status quo. the savvy, competitive artists/labels are still making their money and catering to what the audience demands. it's the ones that don't who are suffering. sorry, but i'm not going to shed any tears over the bloated, ethically challenged record industry, or the overpriced retail chain. after all, no one's sitting around mourning for the loss of the local blacksmith and he's been out of business for over a century.

AlexdeParis said:

please, let's be serious. what you say makes no sense. Eliminating the physical single is not the reason why album sales went down.
For decades albums sales have outsold singles for decades...

In fact your point of view is straight pro consumer...

AlexdeParis said:

You know it's funny how SO MANY people love to claim that when they've enjoyed songs, they go out and purchase whole albums by these artists. While all the numbers show that albums are dropping big time. Seems like you are one of the very few people who still buy albums...

AlexdeParis said:

The bottom line is artists who make good don't SELL ANYMORE.

and it's getting worse year after year... People only buy singles because the price is so cheap that artists make no money from it...

That's why they worry, they worry so much that some of them have decide to find new ideas to make money...

krayzie said:

actually, the truth is, an artist generally makes more money in royalties on the use/sale of a single track vs. the money the make on the same track when it's sold on an album, because generally, the royalty rate is reduced in order to keep the cost of the entire album cheaper.

if you look at it like this... you can get a single track on iTunes for $.99. or you can buy a 10 or 12 or 15 track album for $9.99.

if there's 12 tracks on your album, and someone buys one track at $.99, then you're getting the full portion of that $.99 that was allotted for royalties. if they buy all tracks, then that $9.99 is split, and each track is actualy only making $.83.

both the labels and the artists are making more money on the individual track sales than they are on the full album, as long as there are more than 10 tracks on the album.

Jermaine Dupri and Jay Z both are taking this stance as record executives..not as artists. Don't let this mask of, artistic and creative bullshit fool you guys.

Someone pointed that out above and I'd like to remind everyone of that.

iTunes rocks my socks off. Thank you Steve Jobs!

I'm sick and tired of all the people who didn't grow up with iTunes saying shit like, "Well I had to suffer through it..." Well tough crap. Don't blame kids with iPods for the fact that you had to spend more money on sucky music. No one forced you to buy the albums. You could have waited for iTunes.

Music isn't going to go back to the way it was.

"Hi I'm the present and future, have we met?"

Sorry to let everyone down, but Stev Jobs is an idiot and a scum bag, hes as corproate as they come and if you think he does this for you, wow you are smoking. He already has technology to make the iPod obsolete, he wants your money for the next new piece of shit hes got. So lets stop erecting statues to this guy. And by the way hes already in talks with labels to get certain artists and the talks are leading to raising prices, still think he cares about people. I could care less if things crash, the industry is going to go on because it always does, it will just morph into this "fast food" type of music where its cheap and tastes good for the moment and then makes you sick down the line. Also JD and Jay Z are not execs, they may have been fooled into that belief but they are OWNED by a bigger corporation that cuts them a check, so lets let that fantasy that they have ACTUAL power go with the "steve jobs is cool" fantasy.

Also kids may have iPods but the ones that do arent using iTunes, most of them are stealing the music, lets be real. Their saying is why should i pay when i could steal it.
[Edited 11/21/07 13:09pm]

krayzie said:

Ah, but there are plenty of album sales they don't really consider. Most of the music I buy are catalog albums of established artists I discover. If possible, I either buy these on yourmusic.com or used. I rarely buy a new album in the stores unless it's $10 or less, which is usually the first week of release or a sale. Those probably account for 10% of my album purchases (if that).



And most of them aren't played on the radio. Coincidence? And BTW, the iTunes top 100 albums list is usually much more eclectic than the Billboard Top 100 albums.


To borrow a phrase from a "fellow poster," cry me a river. The entertainment business already makes more money than it should thanks to the extension and perversion of copyright law. They've succeeded in creating an artificially perpetual copyright, pillaging and destroying the public domain, and preventing willing buyers from buying singles and b-sides without paying (even more) inflated import prices. I have no sympathy for the suits in charge. Maybe they should kick some of their earnings down to the artists.
[Edited 11/21/07 13:25pm]

lastdecember said:

Jobs may very well be arrogant and he's obviously corporate, but he's certainly not an idiot. It's fine to dislike him, but let's be real. Since returning to Apple, he rescued the company, revolutionized the portal music business, revolutionized and legitimized paid downloading by successfully negotiating with all the major labels, created unprecedented value for Apple shareholders, and helped convince Disney to stop making those awful direct-to-DVD sequels to its movies. That's quite a list of accomplishments. The guy is a visionary and, while he's obvious about making money as much as the next guy, he is a music fan who gets the fans more than others.


There are plenty of people using the iTunes Store (and a significant amount are those who would have otherwise downloaded illegally). There are even more who rip their purchased CDs. The iTunes Store and Steve Jobs have helped the music industry and artists much more than they have hurt them.

AlexdeParis said:

But you do release that the iPod soon will be obsolete, technology with these guys grows so quick that they are already done with it, thats what im saying, sure iPods are great and they let us hold more music, but this guys are already looking to replace it and then have us spend 300-400 dollars on something new that will be obsolete, why do you think he dropped the iPhone price, not because hes a cool dude, because that shit is already obsolete. But what is going to happen is that the artists will start leaving the labels over issues with this, by the way all old contracts with artists pay them NOTHING for digital downloads, so whoever thinks artists are getting paid they arent, labels are and steve jobs are, neither of which does any of the work. So dont be surprised to see a trend of artists leaving labels when their deals are up and or asking for bigger cuts which in the long run will drive those 9.99 prices back up. People forget that without the artists there is nothing, just like the writers are crippling the TV indsutry right now, artists will do the same.

lastdecember said:

Obsolesce doesn't hit quite that quickly. I've had an iPod in one form or another for the past 6 years. I'm a gadget person, so I upgrade more frequently than most people. Still, just because something new is released doesn't mean what you currently have is obsolete. Apple does an excellent job of making you want it, though (and that's their job). My original iPod still worked fine when I sold it after 3+ years.


Apple gets paid for distribution, which they deserve. The labels get the lion's share of the money. They're supposed to distribute that down to the artists. Artists have been signing ridiculous contracts for years and years now. The record industry has been using and abusing them at will. Banding together to use their power to change things would be a smart idea.

lastdecember said:

aren't you the same person who always insists that Soundscan counts the number of albums shipped vs. the number that is sold at the point of purchase for the consumer? you're absolutely wrong about that, so why would we think that you have any idea of what you're talking about now when you throw out supposed "information" like this?

lastdecember said:

One ringtone wonders...I like that.

The more I think about it, you're definately right. I also couldn't get over the way record companies killed the physical single!

I think when you're talking about new albums, they should be sold as solid units (I would argue that people should be allowed to buy older hit songs). What has to happen is this....Artists need to make the deals with Itunes and all these others and NOT RECORD COMPANIES! The greed of these big businesses, ironically, needs to stop in order for people to sell albums.

The book/chapter analogy is only true to a point. There's a ton of artists that I wouldn't fuck with AT ALL if I couldn't grab singles. Some of them are only so interesting & they can't get $10 from me - so do they want a few dollars or would they rather I walk away?

CalhounSq said:

You're supposed to go all out on the album everytime!


















Yeah right. Then find them doing some confusing shit like leaving a hot remix version OFF of the album.

Raze said:

Sorry but soundscan is a purchase of what stores order and then what is shipped and re-ordered it is NOT over the counter sales, its what arrives in the stores and what they key into their computers at their headquarters, trust me i know i did this bullshit for 17 years. True soundscan is more accurate than Riaa certifications but not by a big difference. Why do you think albums fall so damn quick? Because the stores dont reorder what was shipped right away if they need too. Proof of this point, if a store gets 250 copies of Kanye West shipped to their store from their warehouse, and then when it arrives at the stores all 250 get stolen, those are not lost, those may be lost to the stores $$$ but the label still sold 250. If you dont believe me check with Sonya Askew she used to write for Vibe and she was the Urban buyer for Sam Goody, and i worked for her as an assistant and this was always the discussion.

VinnyM27 said:

The thing is any artist that was signed pre-digital gets almost nothing and in some cases they get ZERO of what is sold through iTunes.

lastdecember said:

Nope, you're wrong. What arrives at the stores is the number that is shipped, and that is the number that the RIAA uses in determining gold, platinum, etc. status. Soundscan numbers are reported by scanning the item at checkout. Sorry, but you're just wrong about this.

Vanilli said:

I agree 100%, regardless if it's iTune, Circuit City, Best Buy, Amazon, Virgin Megastore, etc.

lastdecember said:

.....and who's fault was it for wasting all of the money on albums that were only good for 3 songs at best?!?

As for buying albums, it's one thing to go buy an album if you're talking about an artist who creates albums where almost every song could be a potential hit.

But if we're talking about one-hit wonders, rappers, OR female artists with below average vocals being back by overproduced dance beats, forget it! There's no way I would waste $10 to $20 on an album from those kinds of artist that can only give us 3 potential hit singles or least.

Cinnie said:

The very last time Jermaine Dupri produced a whole album worth buying.....right here.

lastdecember said:

Good thing I don't have an iPod. But if I wanted a mp3 player, who said it has to be an iPod? There are other options (like a Creative Zen).

i totally agree with Jermaine here! i like the old school model ...release the 1st single a couple weeks b4 the album comes out...if ya like the single you may think about getting the album...then if the 2nd is hot then you probably will buy the whole album...i hate the way it is now where you pick and chose individual singles ..imagine in the 80's walking in a record store and going "hmm Sign O The Times well let me see....this 30 second sample of U Got The Looks is cool..i'll take it..hmmmm this 30 seconds of Play In The Sunshine is cool i'll take it" people would have never been able to fully appreciate the whole album that way! i hope things change and they go back to the old school way ...

lastdecember said:

i hated it when Billboard started using soundscan..chart's were a real hobby for me....i love all those Billboard books by Joel Whitburn..but after the awitch chart watching became a real bore and i think it had a negative impact on music itself...sure the old way may have not been the most accurate but it worked for what almost 40 years? so why change....we are now in the Billboard steroid years

lastdecember said:

very true...the other night the Jonas Bros were on the AMA'S and these kids were so freakin young and all the girls running to the stage were like about 7 to 10 years old but how many adults are gonna buy a record from them?? not many

then i turned the channel and saw an old Huey Lewis video on vh-1 classic and i was thinking back how a band like Huey Lewis appealed not only to the young people but to my parents as well! 80's artist's appealed to a MUCH wider demograohic than the top 40 stars of today and that's a big reason why albums don't sell nearly as many these days

lastdecember said:

i think that whole business about the "decline" of the single in the mid 90's was all BULLSHIT.. single sales were at all time high and the ONLY reason they declined was when company's stopped releasing them..then they were saying "see?? single sales are way down this year!" yes of course! that's because you guys stopped releasing them!...i think Rock music was hurt most by all this..
because the hip hop artist continued to pump out singles and the rock artists wouldnt release a physical single only a single to radio..so what happens? the billboard chart was filled with Hip Hop and radio saw that and geared their playlist to what was popular in billboard and in my opinion Rock has NEVER recovered from that

VikFoxx said:

Well its like the first line of Rick Springfields newest single says "Rap put the bullet in Rock N Roll's head", the song is called "Who killed Rock N Roll" and i think there are many culprits.