“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.
If Apple were to sell losslessly compressed songs, I’d buy them.
Until then, I’ll buy CDs, DVD-As and such and store them losslessly compressed on my system.
“The Dark Side of the Moon was (and still is) the best bundle money can buy.”
Amen to that!
Take Greatest Hits Collections. The best bang for the buck in Albums. Even one hit wonders have Greatest Hits releases. That one hit plus all the other crap they ever released.
Sure, there are single performers or groups that have produced enough good stuff to fill one to five or six Greatest Hits releases. Even those collections leave out one or two ‘must have’ tunes that can only be purchased on another CD.
The whole legacy music recording business is based on maximizing profit and minimizing payments to the ‘creatives’.
The iTunes Store marks the beginning of the end of the legacy music recording businesses.
@ Al
Albums have that quantity of tracks only for Pop and comercial shit music.
All CD’s allow only 79 minutes of music so they can be played on any standard player. So there is room for a lot of more music, but most people don’t listen to albums that last more than 45 minutes.
That is because people only want music to dance or have it as background at Starbucks.
You need to change your music habits, people. You need to vale music for what it is, not for what it costs.
I like a story about Lateralus, a Tool album. When Tool was recording it, The Label told them that they only had 79 minutes. That they couldn’t exceed to make it a onger Album So they decided to make it 78 minutes and 58 second. In Danny Carey’s words:
“We had more little bits and pieces that we wanted to put in between the songs, but when we went to mastering we had to leave out a lot of those. The manufacturer would only guarantee us up to 79 minutes. So our record is 78 minutes and 58 seconds long. We thought we’d give them 2 seconds of breathing room.”
Listen to music, don’t just hear it.
Some artists (but not many) like the Beatles and Pink Floyd didn’t record crap. I do remember though that Journey’s albums usually had one side of great songs and the flip side sucked. I don’t necessarily blame Journey for that ’cause I’m sure they were pressured to produce a full album within a certain period of time. Being able to choose your music is a much better model. In the case of Pink Floyd who created albums as a whole piece of art, I would choose the album. There aren’t really any artists doing that anymore – at least not that I’m aware of.
I agree totally!!!
I have this wonderful Beethoven ringtone that I like on my mobile and I once went to a symphony concert to hear the original Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67.
The concert started ok: da da da DUM, da da da DUM.
But guess what! After the 10 second piece that I know and like, they continue playing some filler that I never heard before, friggin Allegro and Andante and God knows what. I guess it would have taken tens of minutes but I leave the concert hall in anger and claim my money back. I was like “OMG, is this guy deaf or what? Symphony and structured tonal work my ass! Don’t force-feed me to hear something new, I want to preview a 30 sec soundclip first on iTunes to make my decision if I like it or not.” I got my money back.
I declare any kind of bundling of musical pieces dead. Whether it’s an album, a symphony, an opera or a concert of any genre. With one notable exception: Hit Parades are always welcome.
I’m in the mood for Love, simply because you’re near me…
@ Miguel Angel
Get off your high horse and shuck the attitude. Clearly, you’re one of those off-the-beaten-path types that value only abstruse “artists” — you know, those performers whose tastes must necessarily be acquired, shall we say. We all know legions of people like you who work overtime at rejected ANYTHING “popular,” just so they can strut their superior intellect and powers of discrimination. Be proud of your musical eclecticism, Miguel, but PLEASE keep it to yourself. Our tastes are just as valid as yours, vaunted as they are.
Again @Miguel
“You need to change your music habits, people. You need to vale music for what it is, not for what it costs.”
Sir, none of us “need” to do anything whatsoever conforming to your musical, social, political, or anything else-ical standards. Who the hell made YOU the arbiter of taste in this forum or any other? Your smugness knows no bounds, and I (for one) find your drivel more than a little boring. Good thing YOU’RE not an album. (And look, Miguel, I didn’t use the word “sh*t” even once!)
To continue on Macs King’s commment, “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.”
At the same time 45’s cost close to a buck, albums went on sale for $3-4. Albums were “value” based. You like the song you hear on the radio? Well, instead of buying the single, you can get a dozen more songs by the same artist for just a few bucks extra. Albums were good deals, and we all went into album purchases knowing that there were going to be throw-away songs, but that there might also be some gems that didn’t get radio play time.
Where the record companies took a wrong turn was to simultaneously kill the “single” while doubling and tripling the price of albums on CDs. Regardless of whether one thinks the quality of music by today’s artists is lacking, the crux of the matter is that after the advent of the CD, the record companies took away the consumer’s option of buying just the song’s we wanted, in a singles format. With that, it became a lot harder to forgive the crap songs used to fill out an album.
@NeoVoyager
Keep in mind for for years CDs were only 650 MB or 74 minutes. It was only in the last 6 years, not sure, that 700 MB or 80 minute CDs came about.
As to why 74 minutes, the Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is the most often quoted reason in every historical article I have read on the CDs creation. Even Snopes has it as a possibility but just can’t prove it.
Miguel,
I know art. Now I know who these folks are. Too bad there names are unknown as they are overshadowed by the bands. You generalize too much, asshole!
The album is simply one way of presenting music that happens to conform to the technological limitations of the time. With LPs, the time limit was around 45 min., with CDs, it’s 79 min.
That doesn’t mean that if you create a 79 min CD that it’s a work of art anymore than if you create a 900 page novel that it is a work of art. The 45 min or 79 time limits are purely the results of technological limitations. Many artists are trying to write the next “War & Peace” when they should really limit themselves to a 20 page short story.
The truly great artists know how to create great art regardless of the limitations. In fact, their genius is more apparent the more they limit themselves.
If you think about it, internet delivery should actually free artist to create almost any length of work he wants—but that still doesn’t mean people will want to buy it!
What Wal-Mart executives were overheard saying, after learning about Apple surpassing them…..
“It stinks when you are #2”
LOL… Amazon was just touting that they were #2… Who were they trying to fool?
wow this is stunning
i dunno if MDN corrected themselves later (i’m hopping in a bit late i guess) but they did make exceptions for pink floyd and the like… so why is everyone still getting all defensive about their favorite artistic bands?
i agree that radiohead/thom yorke and many others listed produce what i would consider “art” but MDN’s comments are directed (if i understand correctly) more at the britney spears/whoever is “popular” these days type people who MAYBE put out one or two good tracks and the rest really IS fluff.
MDN used to not include that exception in their take. i’m glad they are now.
but how about on topic? itunes #1??! amazing! people bitch about ipod sales slowing but none of the “reports” and “analysts” seem to focus on the itunes store’s amazing success..!
mw: congress – if pro is the opposite of … meh, overused phrase
Aaargh. A few of has have said it before and we’re saying it again. You are so unfathomably off base on this one, MDN! Sure, something like a singles collection (and there’s certainly nothing wrong with singles; and I would agree that things like ‘EP I & II’ scams are pure and simple greed) might very well be an ‘artificial construct’, but for most bands, they work their asses off trying to write good songs for an album. You might not find that stuff in the top 40, but that’s nothing new. These ill informed, ass-backwards observations on this issue denigrate the efforts of real artists in my opinion, and every time I read this on the site, which I generally enjoy very much, it makes my blood boil. It is obvious whomever writes these pieces knows NOTHING about music culture or the people who make it a viable concern in the first place, has never been involved with it directly (and if I’m mistaken, please explain your logic). Poor bloke! You don’t know what you’re missing.
Keep buying those one-off Diddy tracks and stay away from this topic, please!
“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.”
Actually, I recall seeing CD singles in music stores, but not for very long. They were apparently not very popular and died out.
@ AAPLGuy: I actually have a few mini-sized CD singles, and even a CD-Video. No, it’s not DVD, its a mini LaserDisc (remember those 12-inch behemoths?) and CD hybrid.
@ Zune Tang: “Zunes are everywhere …on sidewalks…” Yup, you got that right — they’re discarded litter.
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I’d like to personally take some small amount of credit for iTMS being #1 — I’ve spent an arse-load of money there, mostly for single tracks, but also, to MDN’s chagrin, on quite a few complete albums. There are some very worthwhile albums that are complete works, not just collections of crappy singles.
The album began as a way to collect a few hit singles, add a couple more tracks, and make more money.
In the 60’s and 70’s, some bands turned the album into a true artform.
But in the 90’s, it seems the album lost its way. For every album that was a true work of art, there were many others that were one or two good songs with the rest filler. It’s no coincidence that this development paralleled the death of the single. With the consumers having no other option to get the best songs, why put any effort into making better albums?
I think iTunes will eventually spark a rennaissance in quality albums. Those bands that just aren’t creative enough to record 12 good songs can fall back on releasing digital singles. But now albums will actually have to be good to sell.
——RM
@Dirty Pierre le Punk
Are you talking “Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds”? I loved that one, back in the day. Haven’t listened to it in a while, I will have to try and find my copy, anyone know if it is on iTunes?
http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com/
Apple needs to lose the DRM, or Amazon will catch up… subscription would be a nice option.
wow, #1 and it is only April? that is faster than i expected and no doubt, though i have expected it to be this year for some time…..
now the question is, what % of those purchases were by iPhone or touch? is that becoming a significant part of the market or is everyone still buying from iTunes?
if that part of the market can grow, Amazon has less chance than the proverbial snowball.
I appreciate the option of buying songs al a carte, I really do. But I much prefer a strong bundle of songs from worthy bands. To evaluate the depth of a band, or to even get through a workout, I like to string together many songs from the same band.
There really are some good albums out there today, even if you to hunt for them.