June 19, 2003
Filesharing and innovation
Sahar Akhtar has an article over at Salon about how Apple's new iTunes Music Store is going to kill innovation in music by "unbundling" songs from albums.
The argument goes that singles do so well because they are formulaic, establish a mood immediately, and never deviate from that mood. Think radio bubblegum pop. This stuff is immediately accessible, not risky at all, and pushed by corporate types for that very reason. Akhtar (who is a Ph.D. candidate at Duke) argues that if tracks are separated then people will only but the single-type things they've already heard on the radio.
Now there might be something to this: the taste of the American public cannot be underestimated. And the vast majority of people who download music do so in single tracks (which really annoys archivists like myself - get the whole album people!). But I think that Akhtar's argument falls apart because he has overestimated the American music-consumer. He says that he himself is glad for albums over singles because some of the best songs are elsewhere on the album and never make it to the radio. But honestly folks, how many people do you think actually listen to anything other than the hit single? Akhtar assumes that people do, and given his own status he's a Ph.D. candidate at Duke) one may reasonably assume that he has decent taste and thus listens to whole albums.
I'd wager a lot on the fact that most people don't. So the only people who are going to enjoy the album are self consciously setting out to do so, not stumbling upon a good track because they couldn't get around it. The people who are looking for good music will continue to buy albums, but the people who are looking for a hit single will download only the tracks they want. Why make Philistines pay for music they aren't going to listen to anyway?
Dapper-Dawg,
I feelya man I feelya. From a market standpoint it doesn't make sense to charge folks for music they aren't gonna listen to, but heck, that's what these folks are doin' all the time when they buy CD's etc.
The fact is, is that these people don't care that they're purchasing music they aren't gonna listen to when they buy a CD for the one hit single. And that fact allows record companies to charge as much as they do, and it makes them wig out when folks can just download that one pop single.
But here's where I'm going with this. Who the heck cares if record companies can't charge as much 'cause folks only want one or two songs? Heck, those bands often times really, really suck. And most of the time, they're just looking ot make one or two "hits" and just fill the rest of the album with bland crap (which you and I would consider the "hit" songs to be also).
Basically, I'm saying I don't think this is a threat to any of the quality bands out there that are interested in producing albums. Heck, there's always a song or three on an album I like more than any other, heck, that's a necessary fact on albums like Kid A and Amnesiac. But it doesnt mean that I'm not going to purchase the entire album by a quality band.
But since were on this, I found an article over at Pitchfork Media (no link, sorry) on how Radiohead is claiming that they're done with making albums, and are only interested in making EP's from this point forward. Thom Yorke's argument was that the "form" of creating a coherent 80 minute album was keeping the band back from pursuing some creative avenues that would have made for a shoddy album, but a creat musical experience otherwise. It was interesting, and mildly related to this discussion I guess.
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 19, 2003 12:05 PM