“Over the past few years, we have watched Apple climb the music sales chart courtesy of the iTunes. Last month we learned that Apple passed Best Buy to become the number two retailer in the the US. Now, Apple has ascended to the top of the charts, surpassing Wal-Mart for the first time ever, according to the NPD MusicWatch Survey,” Eric Bangeman reports for Ars Technica.
“The news was announced in an e-mail sent this afternoon to some Apple employees, a copy of which was seen by Ars Technica. It includes a screenshot of an Excel file showing the top ten music retailers in the US for January 2008, and Apple is at the top of the list,” Bangeman reports.
“For the music industry, there is a dark side to Apple’s ascension to the top of the charts. Buying patterns for digital downloads are different, as customers are far more likely to cherry pick a favorite track or two from an album than purchase the whole thing. In contrast, brick-and-mortar sales are predominantly high-margin CDs,” Bangeman reports.
More in the full article, including the screenshot of the NPD data, here.
In other words, now you’re no longer forced to buy artificial constructs called “albums” which are nothing more than bundles 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. When the music industry began, they sold single songs. The album is a marketing tool that the music cartels developed later in order to charge more than they could get if they allowed the consumer choice.
Is it “art” that an album is between 30-60 minutes? No, that length is based on nothing more than how much the physical recording mediums could hold at the time the artificial album construct began to be marketed.
While some small percentage of artists throughout the history of the album construct have taken the concept to an art form (from The Beatles to Pink Floyd to Coheed and Cambria), thereby elevating it beyond a mere product bundle, and more than few music customers have bought so fully into the “album” 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 some percentage of the not-so-good stuff (filler).
Nobody’s stopping anyone from buying all the songs in an album. The difference today is: now there’s choice not to buy all the songs in an album. The paradigm has shifted.
If the music business wants to sell more songs, they need to write, perform, and record better songs. It’s that simple. It’s all about choice. The consumer now has the power to choose; we’re no longer stuck having to buy dreck in order to get what we want. You can thank Apple, and Steve Jobs in particular, for that freedom.
Sigh… I can remember when you purchased an album and almost every single song was worth listening to, over and over again – Yellow Brick Road, 4 Way Street, Rumors
I know, I know, I’m dating myself.
Change is moving so fast now we can all see history passing us by.
The Dark Side of the Moon was (and still is) the best bundle money can buy.
if you really feel that way about albums your probably listening to the wrong sort of music (pop?) most good rock bands put together very worthy albums and a lot of them bands put a lot of effort into the flow or construction of that album. I can see individual songs being useful for pop music though as the albums are just filler to make a sale.
Ala cart; the only way to buy!
There must be a mistake. Zune marketplace doesn’t feature.
Are there crap- sorry – rap albums? I can’t imagine the filler on those. .
Hey I-Tunes enjoy your short time at #1 while it lasts. Zune Marketplace is rocketing to the top and we’ll soon see a new leader in digital music retailing. Surely you I-POD lemmings have seen the signs. Zunes are everywhere—on buses, subways, sidewalks and at the gym rocking Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon (love the ballads) and when you’re feeling a little crazy the Scorps.
Consumers are waking up to Apple’s shenanigans with their proprietary formats and lock-in. Microsoft is coming to the rescue with Zune, and we can all agree it’s about time. If only Dell would resurrect the Ditty to give the Zune some competition. The best part is the Zune story is only beginning.
Your potential. Our passion.™
The War of the Worlds – that’s a good album
This again? If a musician can’t make an album where every song is awesome, it’s not because album is not a good art medium, it’s because the artist sucks.
It’s like a director who can only makes a couple scenes worth watching. Or an author who only makes a couple paragraphs worth reading. If everything else they do sucks, you have to assume they just got lucky with their couple successes, but suck overall.
Music singles is huge part of why so many crappy artists can get popular so easily today.
Congratulations Apple!
You are wrong, MDN. Albums are not an artificial construction made by music cartels. Well, of course they are if you are listening to Britney and Paris, but go ask John Frusciante, Omar Rodríguez López, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Chick Corea, Victor Wooten, Maynard James Kennan, Adam Jones, Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor, Thom Yorke, or any other artist that takes months in building that construction of music, of art, if they think it is artificial.
Music is a form of art brought down by music cartels, but there are soldiers in the vanguard fighting for keeping it real.
Stay with your computers and stop making statements about music. Obviously, you don’t know anything else appart from Macs.
I completely agree with Bob.
And, by the way, the 74-minute length of a standard CD was chosen so that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony could fit on it. Hardly an artificial construct for the purpose of ripping off foolish consumers.
@Miguel
“go ask John Frusciante, Omar Rodríguez López, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Chick Corea, Victor Wooten, Maynard James Kennan, Adam Jones, Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor, Thom Yorke”
Ya know, I’m almost 60, been listening to music since my parents big band records, and I’ve only heard of three of the people you mentioned. Are they on iTunes or grossly unrepresented?
Well maybe they’ll start making better music now…
MDN doesn’t ‘arf sound like a broken record sometimes.
Well, all of the time, really.
Oh, and pun unintended.
@Miguel
“Music is a form of art brought down by music cartels, but there are soldiers in the vanguard fighting for keeping it real.
Stay with your computers and stop making statements about music. Obviously, you don’t know anything else appart from Macs.”
I am sure you are right about some albums, Miguel. But that does not mean that all albums are that way. The key is the ability to buy what you want. Singles….. Albums….. whatever.
Just a thought.
en
As the father of a musician, MDN you are totally wrong about the “concept” of an album. SERIOUS musicians create albums of work that have a unified structure. Quit with the fscking gross generalizations.
Back in the days of vinyl, they used to sell singles on small 45 RPM records for 69 to 99 cents each. Many bands made a fortune off the success of a “Forty-five” which turned at a faster speed than the larger full album releases.
The 45 sort of went away during the years of cassette and CD. Perhaps this was the industry trying to ram extra crap down the throat of the consumer.
Albums could offer bonus tracks as an incentive to buy the whole sha-bang but it needs to be compelling for the consumer to pop the extra money.
I never browse for music at Walmart anymore. It is too boring and inconvenient to look thru piles of CD’s.
Why does an Album contain 8 to 12 tunes? Why are there at least a few tunes that are not up to the standards of the good stuff on an Album?
If you can only produce 2 good tunes, release a 2 tune Album. If you have 8 good tunes in you at this point in time and space, release an 8 tune Album.
The fact that virtually every Album is an 8 to 12 tune collection, regardless of the quality of those tunes, makes the Album an artificial construct.
Yeah, I think the idea that ‘music cartels’ are responsible for forcing us to buy albums is a little flawed. As I’ve always understood, back in the day, popular music was all about the singles. Then along came Dylan, the Beatles and the Stones, and the artists started making the push for albums over singles. However, I do think the music labels realized pretty quickly that was a way they could make a lot more money out of songs that weren’t worth listening to. There’s a line from a Neil Young song that says “some people have taken pure bullshit, and turned it into gold”. I think that might hit the mark. Of course, I’ll say that 90% of the time, I pick and choose my songs from iTunes. I love it, it’s the only way to go. Time for the CONSUMER to have some more of the control back.
“Dark Side of the Moon, Yellow Brick Road, Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, JC Superstar, and Bat Out of Hell are ALBUMS, … Not an “Artificial Construct”… That how the artist meant for it to be heard…. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it… “
Agreed but if you still just like one or two tracks off these albums, surely you should have the right to buy just those tracks because, after all, as good as these albums are, you’ll only ever hear radio stations play their most popular tracks and never the whole album.
“And, by the way, the 74-minute length of a standard CD was chosen so that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony could fit on it. Hardly an artificial construct for the purpose of ripping off foolish consumers.”
WHAT? First of all, a CD holds just nearly 80 minutes. But still, I’ve never heard of this before. Did you read this somewhere that you can link to?
iTunes is saving the Music Labels Bacon and they need to support their retailers and not conspire to try driving them out of business. While the Music Industry would love nothing more them to own and control the entire industry from start to finish, earning profits at all points, it’s nothing more then a way to enslave the customers as they have enslaved their contracted artists. That plan will require Apple not being in the top tier of retailers so, far the Music Labels plan to shrink iTunes lead and drive it out of business is not looking too go.
Music Subscriptions Services are the vehicle that the music industry will use to enslave it’s customers and attempt to force out the Indie artists from the market place and even the smaller labels. If Indie Artists and the small labels can’t sell their music on an even footing with the big labels then the big labels will continue to dominate the industry. The Big Music Dinosaur Mafioso need to undergo some very close and deep penetrating probes of their business contracts and practices using a very large cactus. If the congress would force the music industry labels to publicly disclose details of it’s artist contacts and agreements with each other on things like the RIAA, Sound Exchange, The Fox Agency and all of the industries other trade groups and financial holding in recording studios, manufacturing plants and warehousing/Inventory control companies.
Here’s a challenge for an investigative news agency. Follow the money, a CD cost 12.99 to 21.99+ who gets what and what amount of real money does the artist really make. Who gets paid off the top at 100% of selling price and who gets paid at the 80% or less of the selling price.
Never mind. It looks like that is still undetermined… http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.asp
@ Silverhawk
John Frusciante: Guitarrist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Mars Volta, among others.
Omar Rodríguez López: Main artist and gitarrist for The Mars Volta, At The Drive In and De Facto, among others.
Steve Vai: Guitarrist for Frank Zappa and Ozzy, among others, but mainly known for his solo carreer.
Joe Satriani: One of the guitarrists for G3, but mainly known for his solo career.
Chick Corea: One of the greates pianist in Jazz.
Victor Wooten: Perhaps the best bass player alive. He plays Jazz.
Maynard James Keenan: Vocalist for Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, among others.
Adam Jones: Guitarrist for Tool. Named 75th best guitarrist of all times by Rolling Stone and placed 9th in Guitar World’s Top 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists. He was the artist who made the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park.
Eddie Vedder: Main artist and vocalist for Pearl Jam.
Trent Reznor: Nine Inch Nails
Thom Yorke: Radiohead’s vocalist.
Obviously you have either heard or watched at some moment of your life part of the work of this great artists. You don’t know shit about music or any other form of art, even most of them are from the States. Stop blogging about your ignorance on art on a computers forum.