“Apple Inc. is throwing its weight behind the music industry’s efforts to protect the album format by allowing fans to buy complete digital albums without having to pay again for songs they already own,” Yinka Adegoke reports for Reuters.
Adegoke reports, “The record industry is keen to maintain the profitable album format, which is under threat as users of Web-based music download stores, such as Apple’s iTunes and Napster Inc., prefer to buy individual songs rather than whole albums.”
“Apple said on Thursday iTunes is introducing a ‘Complete My Album’ service that offers customers who want to turn individual tracks into an album a 99-cent credit for every song they have already purchased from the album,” Adegoke reports.
“The new service comes as the music industry is under pressure to find new ways to boost profits, as sales of digital songs have so far failed to come close to replacing the downturn in revenue from CD sales,” Adegoke reports. “According to Nielsen SoundScan, U.S. album sales in both physical and digital formats fell 10 percent in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the same period a year ago.”
Adegoke reports, “At eMusic, the No. 2 digital music store, the company said it has been offering a similar service since launch and that over 60 percent of all its downloads were full-length albums. ‘The premise that the album is dead is only true among the youth segment, which is really the iTunes customer,’ eMusic Chief Executive David Pakman said. eMusic currently does not carry music from the major labels and said it serves a mainly older customer base than iTunes.”
“The major record companies will open separate talks with Apple over the summer and will try to improve the terms of their respective relationships,” Adegoke reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The album is an artificial construct developed by the music cartels to get more of your money for less effort. The album is – plain and simple – a bundling technique. Take some marketable material, add a greater percentage of filler, call it an “album,” pretend it’s “art,” and charge more than you could charge for just the worthwhile bits. While some small percentage of artists throughout the history of the album construct have taken the concept to an art form and more than few music customers have bought so fully into the marketing construct as to defend it passionately today, that does not change the fact that the “album” is a product bundle designed to collect more money for the good stuff by bundling it with a greater percentage of filler.
Cavemen did not sit around the fire singing “albums,” they sang songs. When the music industry began, they sold single songs. The “album” is a marketing tool. Is it “art” that an “album” is between 30-60 minutes? No, that length is based on nothing more than how much the recording mediums could hold at the time the “album” began to be marketed.
It’s nice that Apple is offering to take into account money spent on singles for those that later wish to purchase the “album” in which they were bundled, but the basic fact remains: iTunes Store’s ‘Complete My Album’ “service” is advertising masquerading as a feature designed to placate the music cartel’s abject horror that their “album” construct is disintegrating before their eyes. Disintegrating back to music’s natural form: the song; as it has been for hundreds of thousands of years before the marketeers began pushing the “album” construct. The music cartel’s know that you already bought the songs you liked and now, with Apple’s help, they want you buy the whole “album,” whether you really like or want the other songs or not – as usual. (Oh, how the music cartel misses the efficacy with which $15 CDs containing one or two good songs bought them mansions, cars, and boats while keeping their noses powdered.)
Related articles:
Apple debuts new iTunes Store ‘Complete My Album’ service (advertising masquerading as a feature) – March 29, 2007
Apple plans iTunes credit for purchased singles if customers later buy album – March 26, 2007
WSJ: Music sales take sharp plunge – March 21, 2007
“Cavemen did not sit around the fire singing ‘albums’…”
While the album is not exactly new, it is not historically old, either. Pop music (using a broad definition here to include “pop”, rock, etc. as opposed to classical, jazz, etc) was primarily generated for and distributed as singles up until the 1960s. Even then, the early albums were not necessarily cohesive works of art. That said, there are albums that should and do stand as single works of art. There are even artists that <<SHOCK>> have all good songs!!!!!!! For those reasons, I do not want to album to go away, but I do not have a problem with a return to the singles paradigm, esp for acts such that are only based on hit singles (boy bands, etc).
I also agree with what many have said: this is good for consumers that purchased one or two tracks from an album to check it out and now want to buy the whole thing. While Apple may be pushing this a little too hard, the good outweighs the bad here.
I applaud Apple’s move, and I agree in principle with MDN’s take. But, I think MDN’s coming down a little too heavy on the bundling of songs. I like the album/CD format as a way to discover great music I would otherwise have missed. Many of my favorite songs are those that got no airplay and that I discovered only after buying the album/CD for another song I’d already heard and listening to them repeatedly over a period of weeks or months.
The album was created in the days of ’78’s when it actually looked like a photo album. Hence the name.
If you are dealing with music forms other than Pop (or other types of children’s music) you need the album to tell a story. Most musicians of my acquaintance to not pad their efforts with rubbish to fill out a disc.
Harumph!!!
From Majikthize: “Many of my favorite songs are those that got no airplay and that I discovered only after buying the album/CD for another song I’d already heard and listening to them repeatedly over a period of weeks or months.”
Shocking! What a novel way to discover new music. I’ve had the same experience many times over, but the death of long-form would pretty much quell those oppurtunities. Sorry, but 30-second snippets don’t really do it.
From phrob: “I do not have a problem with a return to the singles paradigm, esp for acts such that are only based on hit singles.”
Nor do I – it’s inevitable, I suppose. But MDN seems to equate “choice” with “scam” or something.
MDN’s take is way off. If you think that CDs are one or two good song with a bunch of filler, then you’re just not listening to very capable artists.
I’m sort of surprised with myself that MDN has ticked me off so much by KNOCKING Apple – usually it’s quite the opposite (e.g., blind adoration and idol worship, as opposed to well-reasoned praise or criticism).
> The album is an artificial construct developed by the music cartels to get more for less. The album is – plain and simple – a bundling technique.
MDN is a little too overboard here. Certainly bundling as a method of selling material is *one* misuse of an album (IE: K-Tel records) by record companies, but as an musician I know well that while some songs have immediate appeal, others take time to grow on you. In the end the songs that a bit of time to grow on people are usually the best and longest lasting hits. Can you imagine how Simon and Garfunkel would have done if all you had ever heard was the upbeat “Cecelia”? An album introduces the listener to the overall mood and feel of an artist across a broader spectrum of music and styles.
The album format is much more than a marketing ploy. An album is a poem, a collective statement made by the artist. How can anyone miss that?
Apple is simply allowing you not to have to repurchase the same song twice if you choose to go for the entire discounted bundle.
> The premise that the album is dead is only true among the youth segment, which is really the iTunes customer.
Excuse me… With 90% of the overall market, I’d say EVERY segment “is really the iTunes customer.”
I don’t see the problem here. Apple wins because they will see more revenue to the iTunes Store. iTunes Store customers win, because they don’t have to pay twice for the same song, if they happen to want the whole album later at the bundled rate. And if they don’t want to use this service, nothing changes. Even the music labels win from more sales. No one loses from this service. Apple should have provided this benefit from day one; then it wouldn’t attract silly complaints later on when it was implemented.
[Next, Apple should allow customers to re-download all the songs they previously purchased. You know a lot of customers don’t back up their media files.]
Why would you purchase a 128bit DRM-protected digital version of an album via iTunes if you can purchase the physical DRM-free CD from WalMart, Amazon, or Target? The average price differential between the two formats is nominal compared to the increase in quality and the versatility of usage gained by owning the CD. If I want to own an album, I will purchase the CD and rip it losslessly to my library for conversion to whatever format I wish in the future. Even if I had purchsed a few singles from iTunes, I would sacrifice the few dollars spent on them for this flexibility. Why limit yourself? Is it a matter of immediate gratification?
While it’s true that many, if not most, artists use albums to sell 1 or 2 good songs and 8 or 10 mediocre ones, it’s unfair to generalize and say that albums are only used for that one reason. I see Pink Floyd’s The Wall as a prime example. The songs flow from one to the other and tell a story. Without that format, not many would have purchased each song individually, but as a complete album it is a masterpiece. One might say the same thing about the different movements of a classical masterpiece: Beethoven just put all of them together because a few of the movements were weak and he wanted you to buy them all.
“Cavemen did not sit around the fire singing “albums,” they sang songs.
Ahem, you should take a gander at some of the Finnish Edda’s, or some of the Greek Epics. meant to be sung, they’re thousands of lines long.
” When the music industry began, they sold single songs. “
Exqueeze me? When the car industry began, they sold two cylinder converted horsecarts with tiller steering.
When the ‘music industry began’ that’s all they COULD sell.
“The “album” is a marketing tool. Is it “art” that an “album” is between 30-60 minutes? No, that length is based on nothing more than how much the recording mediums could hold at the time the “album” began to be marketed.”
Sigh. Yes, the album is limited by the length of the single LP record, or two for two disk sets.
There are a LOT of albums that encompass a single artistic arc, and are meant to be listened to as a single composition. ‘Tommy”, “Quadrophenia”, Dark Side of the Moon” somewhat, “The Wall” certainly. (The latter is also a refutation of ‘Albums are only 60-90 minutes in length’ crap.)
Fer crying out loud, “Thick as a Brick” has only got two tracks.
If you don’t think so, perhaps you need to stop listening to the trivial pop shite soiling your iPods…
Your whole hissy fit over this (pretty trivial) is pretty narcissistic (“It doesn’t matter to meeeee, so it must be of NO GOOD WHATSOEVER!!!!”)
One not-so-evil reason for taking them up on the plan is that you can buy that great album which was only available as a partial until now.
I’ve found that to be the case on a couple of albums to which I could only by a few songs originally.
For every album that must be heard in it’s entirety there are tens of thousands that do not have a coherent theme.
For every album that should be sold in one piece there are thousands that never should have seen the light of day.
Given the total number of albums that have been released, the vast majority fall into the category of one to three good singles and a bunch of filler.
MDN is right.
Wow. I guess nearly everything Pink Floyd did was a marketing ploy. And the Who’s Quadrophenia & Tommy. And the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper. And U2’s the Joshua Tree…
Thanks for the enlightenment MDN. What would we do with you? To think; I might have gone the rest of my life trusting in what my ears were hearing. That stuff wasn’t art at all!
Well, all I can say is “Bravo” – you fellas have certainly proven yourselves not to be reflexive Apple-shills this time, that’s for sure.
Bozos.
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The OS is an artificial construct developed by the software cartels to get more for less. The OS is – plain and simple – a bundling technique. Take some marketable material, add a greater percentage of filler, call it an “OS,” pretend it’s “complete,” and charge more than you could charge for just the worthwhile bits. While some small percentage of developers throughout the history of the OS construct have taken the concept to an art form and more than few software customers have bought so fully into the marketing construct as to defend it passionately today, that does not change the fact that the “OS” is a product bundle designed to collect more money for the good stuff by bundling it with a greater percentage of filler.
Scientists did not sit around the lab developing “OS’s,” they wrote programs. When the software industry began, they sold single programs. The “OS” is a marketing tool. Is it “complete” that an “OS” is between 100-200 features? No, that number is based on nothing more than how much the recording mediums could hold at the time the “OS” began to be marketed.
Sorry, but I too have to disagree with MDN as well. This is a nice service that Apple is offering to iTunes customers, and gives them the option to buy additional music for a discount, instead of having to pay for the same song twice. I’m not sure how anything negative could be read into this addition at all.
MDN, in this case, it’s your “take” that’s full of crap, not the album concept. Sarah McLachlan is one of those artists who could sing just about anything and it would be worth buying, IMO. I can’t think of a single one of her albums not worth listening to from beginning to end, first track to last. She’s just one of many talented artists who can do that.
If you had your way, all albums would disappear. What about live concert albums? Sarah McLachlan’s “Mirror Ball” is good all around. And as others have mentioned earlier, what about classical music? Sorry, but I want to download all of Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo.” Especially the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s recording on Telarc that also includes “Appalachian Spring” and “Fanfare for the Common Man.” (I’m providing links as examples of how wrong you are.) And how about Song cycles, which Wikipedia describes as, “a group of songs designed to be performed in sequence as a single entity”? The concept kinda predates record players, but it seems to me to fit the album format splendidly.
So why are you, MDN, so adamant about taking away choice? I agree with others who’ve posted here: Music is currently produced in album format, and Apple is giving us the ability to buy the whole album, if we want to, or just pick single songs if we want to, when the record companies let us buy singles on iTunes (I really dislike that dreaded “album only” tag). What’s your beef with that? Sounds to me like your real issue is that you’ve gotten it into your head that “albums are bad, no matter what” and you will bash it irrationally at every chance. Wake up. Our choice is greater now that we don’t have to re-buy songs just to get the savings on the album price. In fact, I think I’ll go get the rest of Liz Wright’s “Dreaming Wide Awake” now that I can get credit for the one song that I bought the other day.
Oh, and by the way, the music industry didn’t start with selling singles. It didn’t start with selling recordings of any kind. Before that, it was selling sheet music.
MW: greater, as in, Our choice is greater now.
> Why would you purchase a 128bit DRM-protected digital version of an album via iTunes if you can purchase the physical DRM-free CD from WalMart, Amazon, or Target?
Because you have to drive to the store, look through the aisle to find the album (and maybe they don’t have it), stand in line to pay for it, drive back home, put the CD into your computer, and rip it.
> Is it a matter of immediate gratification?
Yes. It’s also called convenience. I haven’t purchased a physical CD in years. I have purchased many “albums” on the iTunes Store. As for sound quality, I guess my ears (or my equipment) are not good enough to tell the difference.
…not wanting the song, …not wanting the EP, …..not wanting the album, …not wanting the box set, ….
…what I do want is the RIAAs horn-of-plenty. This is where you pay a flat rate and you get so much shit that
you have to go into retirement to see what you’ve got. This is a burning on-fire musical hell which is where I think you
want to be if you’re really serious about RIAA music sales …not for the neophyte who’s afraid of fire ….but for the scarred
consumer who’s been burned over and over. Oh, yeah, liner notes would be nice.
Talk about twisted logic. Are just being contrary, MDN? Ever hear of a song cycle?
Yup, and global warming’s all a big marketing scam to guilt you into accepting big, liberal government.
I sincerely hope, MDN, or whomever you faceless scribe(s) are, you take our criticism to heart. To resort to cliche: art is objective. And that’s a fact that’s subjective. Thusly, you’re out of line. Please take a long hard look deep within and disassociate all these disparate pieces you’ve strung together into shaping your opinion.
So many above have said it brilliantly. And I’ll second the notion that, in fact, the “music cartel” killed the single, and left you with the album as your only option. This should be your gripe, and that should’ve been your gripe 15 years ago.
But seriously – lay off. You’re clearly no authority on music, or even the business of it.
p.s. I don’t think it’s top 40 MDN’s filling its iPod with. I get the feeling these are disillusioned Metallica fans.
and holy shit
Rich In Irony = brilliant!
> Cavemen did not sit around the fire singing “albums,” they sang songs.
Cavemen also ate raw meat and slept on dirt.
Many artists group songs into “albums” as a form of art. If you want to go back in time, just consider symphonies. They were typically four “movements” (songs) that were “sold” as one package. You could play them separately, but the composer intended them to be played together. Many albums are just sets of songs, that’s true. But there is no reason rally against having albums. If I like most of the songs on the album, I appreciate having the option of buying the set for a discounted price.
Yep… I’m old school, I like albums. That said, I also like buying individual songs, and so now I can get credit for buying a couple of songs when I find that the artist may well be worth listening too. It allows for full exploration and frequently the album discount is quite a few dollars. Also, the album format often reflects a musicians moments in time that an individual song can’t express. That does not eman all albums are worth it, but now I have better choice! Still I would like to see all tracks of an album released, and all tracks of an album released for single song sales. But that, I’m afraid, is the real nasty that record companies are foisting on us and not Apple…