Comments on: The Thinking Man’s Take On: Singles

By: HoodKicksYo

HoodKicksYo — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:30:42 +0000

I defiantly agree with both Andrew and Chris about the quality and the sales not being related. But I think the “try-before-you-buy” option even takes the whole “acquiring” music process even further than just singles…

I think that having the ability to hear an entire album before you chose to buy it also eliminates a lot of filler on cds. Why pay for the entire cd when there’s only 5 good songs and 6 others that they cooked up to fill the rest of the cd? just as Chris wrote in the post about “Souljaboytellem.com” I’m sure the rest of the album is totally disposable, now I’ve never actually hear the entire album but i have heard other “singles” and was not impressed.

So hopefully somewhere down the line, if musicians actually want to “sell” full albums they’ll have to step it up a little bit and make a cd full of good songs and not just a hit and 20 mins of filler… we can all dream right? haha

By: chris

chris — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:04:20 +0000

@ Andrew – I wholeheartedly agree! In fact, under theory 3, I said almost your exact words: ” I think we can safely say that the quality of music -for better or for worse – is not what is driving the singles market. There’s way too much marketing, buzz-building, and behind the scenes effort going into every song to naively think that talent = sales.” So yeah, I’m definitely with you that quality of music and sales of music are not necessarily related.

And definitely true about the distribution method. One main reason behind the original singles was the low cost for producing 45s in comparison to LP vinyls. That difference went away with CDs, where cost of production for singles and LPs is/was around the same. Digital distribution, where singles essentially offer a “Try-before-you-buy” option, skews the odds back in the favor of hits and singles.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:45:30 +0000

I think you forgot the main reason that there is a correlation between the “current roster” (I like that phrase btw) and the high sales of singles. Singles have been revived sole due to today’s distribution. The problem with singles before the interweb is that there wasn’t enough money to be made in them if they were just being sold in record stores. Think of all the added cost of selling a single such the truck, the packaging, the record store overhead. The digital distribution which is next to nothing avoids all of this. However I disagree with your theory that pop music is “better than ever before” not because I don’t agree with you on the music but because I don’t think this is the factor helping the sales. I would contend Pop is *better marketed* than ever before. The “current roster” is being pushed much harder marketing wise than any other “current roster” that the companies push to drive their core sales. Like I said though this has nothing to do with the “quality” of the music its just the fact of how the business has evolved. This is a important point because marketing effects buying decisions. Although what has happened is these singles have become so well marketed and the distribution is so easy that the album creation has lost importance with many people. It would be interesting to see statistics about how many itunes songs are bought per artist per customer. I would not be at all surprised if the figure was lower than 3. What this means for the future of the CD, I don’t know.

By: Mick

Mick — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:09:37 +0000

Albums aren’t dead, they may be dead to some people though. The people who have the ritual to log into HypeM in the morning, download the top 25, put it on their iPod and never listen to it again unless it’s still in the HypeM top 50 the next day. Okay, I may be overreacting but the ridiculous mash-up that was posted here as well as on another blog that got into the HypeM top 5 totally proves my point.

Thank God, there’s also still enough people who appreciate albums like me because I wouldn’t want to live without them.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:20:03 +0000

lol Zach, I only have White Winter Hymnal haha

By: Zach Hart

Zach Hart — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:12:36 +0000

The album isn’t dead in my opinion…the average listener just doesn’t acknowledge it…it is dead to them…thus the single is alive and well. Grab a casual listener’s iPod and click on a few artists…”oh you like the Fleet Foxes!”…wait they just have “White Winter Hymnal”….great.

Another case for why the single is coming back is that vinyl is making a large come back. The separation that existed back in the day between a 7″ single/EP and the 12″ album is relevant again.

By: David ~!

David ~! — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:55:25 +0000

“be blessed by the RIAA in some strange ritual involving chickens….There are currently 7 people in the world who can legally and officially pronounce a song a ‘Single’.” I knew it!!!