Every few months or so, you'll see several articles laying out the latest raw data showing that music sales are down again, with digital downloads heading lower and with CD numbers taking the worst hit. The ultimate outcome is uncertain, but the general consensus seems to be that we're heading back toward consumption of music as single tracks, with the album being the latest casualty of 'progress.'
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not lamenting the future of my music consumption, because I'll be purchasing albums for as long as they're made — and I'm actually fairly certain that they won't be vanishing any time soon. No, what makes me a little sad is the idea that we don't need them, that the concept is outdated, and that the return to singles-only is a good thing.
What makes the album a superior delivery package? Mostly, it's the ability to tell a story that's greater than any individual song. Any upper-echelon jazz or classic rock record will provide a good example: "Tomorrow Never Knows"? Great song. Revolver? Stunning album. "All Blues"? Terrific Miles Davis composition. Kind Of Blue? Phenomenal album. Part of this story I refer to is the one created by the listener. This goes beyond mere nostalgia to include individual interpretations. What a single song means to a person can't be discounted, but an entire suite of songs has that much more weight. There have been so many times when I've heard somebody say that this or that album "got them through" a particular period. A song can do that too, it's just not as common.
There are all sorts of other items that I could serve up, but most of them are meaningless to the singles consumer. Things like cover art and lyric sheets. Yeah, nobody cares, I know. I also know that this things can be provided online for easy download. In that case, it's me who doesn't care.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mat Brewster
I wonder if the sales numbers aren't skewed. Album sales are figured from what? Physical album purchases + full album downloads from iTunes? And singles come mostly from iTunes/Amazon single song purchases?
It seems to me that the types of people who purchase online music likely go towards the singles. Whereas people who want an entire album either pick up a physical copy or illegally torrent.
Maybe I'm wrong but when I browse a torrent tracker the majority of the music is in album form not singles and the majority of digital music being purchased is singles not albums. If this is true wouldn't it inheritable skew the data? Maybe the album isn't dead, but the suits just don't know it.
2 - Mary K. Williams
Even though I'm not going to go back to album(vinyl) buying, I don't think "it's just you" (not this time anyway): )~
3 - Lisa McKay
Definitely not just you, Mark. There's a reason why my iPod is almost never on shuffle play. I almost exclusively listen to music an album at a time -- not sure why, it just feels better that way.
4 - Josh Hathaway
Well first, I think we can all agree that an album without liner notes just isn't worth a damn at all. ;-)
I'm with you, Mark, mostly. Once again, what I hate to see is the erosion of choice. I'm not saying someone is oppressively trying to deny us anything, but I see what you do which is a slow evolution to a place where albums are deemed unimportant.
My listening is balanced. I often listen to work in the concept of "album as a whole" and I love that and need that. There are also times when I cherish and obsess over a single moment, something so compelling or perfect that it's completely self-contained. I want there to be a world of choice that allows me to have both. I want broad artistic statements and snapshots. That's part of music's inherent beauty.
5 - Glen Boyd
The other thing not addressed here, but equally valid, is the fact that the sound quality of most downloaded music (at least on the most common MP3 formats) is so much poorer.
Given the fact that this is the way that most music is consumed these days, what gives today's artists the motivation to create work with the sonic layering of something like Born To Run, Abbey Road, or In Rainbows?
Progress? No thanks!
By the way, I also love Night & Day...and you mentioned my three favorite tracks from it. Play us a slow song....
-Glen
6 - Glen Boyd
Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) Destroys an Ipod
7 - Mark Saleski
well yes, i didn't address the sound quality issue because it's not directly related. yeah, downloaded music does sound bad, but sadly, nobody cares about it. and to tell you the truth, i'm not sure any EVER cared about it...not the way we do.
it's an interesting full-circle kind of thing that has happened. think of the people who were first knocked out by stuff like "Good Vibrations" or "Be My Baby"...and they might have heard those songs on a crap-ass little transistor radio down at the beach.
...then we've come all this way, passing through an era of higher quality recordings and components, having then returned to the ipod and the mp3...quality tossed out the window for convenience.
nothing we can do about it.
8 - Glen Boyd
Well, nothing except this, anyway...
9 - Glen Boyd
Be My Baby was made for mono. Good Vibrations on the other hand...well, lets just say that those who've only heard it on portable record players and transistor radios have no idea what they're missing...
-Glen
10 - Mark Saleski
sorry, i think Steve Wilson blowing up an ipod is..well...it's stupid.
11 - Glen Boyd
What you call stupid I like to think of as a political statement. Viva La Revolution baby!
12 - Josh Hathaway
Back to the topic that started all of this; "popular" forms of music didn't always have the album as its basis. Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, The Beatles- early jazz, blues, rock, artists recorded and emphasized singles. Albums as artform came later. I love the album but some works were meant to standalone or be experienced on their own terms. It's why I like a "both" approach.
13 - Mat Brewster
In Rainbows isn't that old, Glen. MP3s were in full form by then. Given that most people have always listened to music in crappy forms, what has ever made a musical artist create a full flowing album?
Sure the masses now get their music in bite size form, but haven't they always? Before the MP3 was the cassette single and the little records. Radio stations still play singles off of Dark Side of the Moon and thats an album that demands to be played in full if I ever heard one.
Has anyone of you actually crunched any numbers to see if their are less albums being produced now than ever? I suspect we'll continue to see wonderful albums being made for years to come.
14 - zingzing
in the 150-year history of recorded sound (yeah, 150 years,) there was a grand total of about 35 years where the album format dominated. lament it all you like, but things are just renormalizing. i like the album as well, but if this gets rid of rap skits and little "it works in the context of the album" crap tracks, i won't cry too hard.
as far as sound quality of digital music goes, it's getting better. flac and other lossless formats, even if they are a pain in the ass and still a little too big, rival cd quality. or at least you really can't tell if your using human ears and brains to listen to it.
15 - Mark Saleski
yep, i understand the history.
on the issue of digital music sound quality, i don't think it's getting better for rock music. at all. still waaaaay too much compression.
16 - Josh Hathaway
We have a "no food fights allowed" sign in the music section. Kids who like to throw strained beets need to take their sippy cups back to the politics section where they belong.
17 - zingzing
hrm. well, some of that doesn't have to do with listening on mp3 or cd. it's just the loudness war. i don't know why record companies continue to do it.
18 - zingzing
who's throwing beets? you know, once i ate a shitload of beet salad and thought i had stomach cancer for a day and a half. terrifying.
19 - Cindy
i love beet salad. do you make it with mayo and onion?
20 - zingzing
i didn't make it. a friend did. oh, how she laughed at me. i wish she had put onions in it, because she's allergic to onions. (or is that her bf?) horrible person.
21 - Cindy
lol...
22 - Mark Saleski
i don't know why record companies continue to do it.
because they think it sounds better on low-rent earbuds.
23 - zingzing
but even that's not true... record companies are so dumb.
i recently got this album of miami bass music ("rock this planet" by bass patrol) and i was all like coool! i'm gonna bounce down the street to this one. severe disappointment set in. i dont even know what i was thinking, how i thought that might work. it does shake plaster off my walls when i listen on my speakers, but there's nothing but drums and silly chanting on my ipod.
moral of the story is that, while i love sound and am a production nut, i'm no audiophile. i accept that music isn't going to sound as good on a ipod. it really doesn't bother me except in extreme situations (like that above).
i'm not saying any of this to denigrate your worries over the death of sound, but just stating a fact. maybe it's because of attitudes like mine (convenience trumps sound quality) that this is happening. in fact, i'm sure it is.
but then i take a look at my 40,000 songs (i can't remember how many albums i have... used to be the other way around), all lined up in alphabetical order and searchable and at my fingertips, then i look over at my cds, tapes and records, all out of order and scratched (and beautiful)... there are just some marvelous things about digital music, which are amplified by my laziness.
24 - Glen Boyd
#13 -
In Rainbows is a recent album Mat and I included it on my short list for that very reason -- to demonstrate it as an exception to today's rules.
Most artists record these days with those shitty earbuds in mind, which as why (as Mark said) you have so much compression and the record companies wanting louder sounding records.
-Glen
25 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
I'm definitely a digital music guy myself(FLAC,WMA 9.2) but on my Zune(yup,I got it when they first came out and now the battery sucks but I can't afford a new media player)I listen to albums not singles because I get into a mood for a particular type of sound or a certain band's style. Sometimes, I get rather frustrated when I can't figure out what I'm in the mood to listen to because I hate the "shuffle" mode. I would rather not listen to music at all then to just play it for the sake of background noise. I'm all for cover art & lyric sheets,as well, and I think with some of the newer media players they could actually offer that material with an album release. BUT, unfortunately, most consumers are only interested in music to back-up their cellphone calls or shallow & mindless party music,so yup, Mark is correct in stating that a lot of people don't care.
As for the "Loudness Wars" I think it also has something to do with Radio Airplay. I'm not sure,but, it definitely f*cking sucks! CD has been around for close to 30 years. They should move on to a format that gives them more bandwidth to work with instead of compressing the sh!t out of the music until you can't tell the difference between Mp3 and PCM. AND, they still charge you $12-$15 bucks for that poorly produced garbage.