The Death of The Album “The Individual Track Game”
When you look at the music industry today, and you compare it to where it once was, you’re going to find yourself seeing a lot of changes. In fact, the changes have come through the pipeline in such a fashion, that you are not going to be able to get away from seeing a spike downward. In the last ten years, digital file sales have jumped through the roof, and the allotment of full albums sold has all but diminished. It’s so bad that now, the average artist putting out a record doesn’t get a whole album of songs listened to, as people are directly purchasing one track, and that’s it. Artists are seeing revenue slide because the cost of recording 12 or 13 tracks for a record outweighs the revenue that is made from the sale of just one 99 cent track over and over again. Unless an artist sells millions of singles digitally, they don’t recoup the cost of the record, therefore going into the red. This is occurring at incredible numbers, causing artists to be much more cautious in how they release music.
Can The Album Be Saved?
At first glance, you may ask whether or not the album is even worth putting out. Can artists really make moves by putting out full albums? The question is a viable one, but one that is definitely not easy to answer. It’s going to take a great deal of work and passion to get a fan base to purchase records as a whole. The majority of the music listening, and purchasing audience today doesn’t collect compact discs any longer. Even vinyl sales, jumping to resurgence, isn’t saving the record industry. The album may be going the way of the Dodo bird, because if there is no demand, supply is going to become a diminished quadrant.
Should Artists Just Put Out 3 Tracks Max?
Artists that are popular today are likely to scale back production and release EP’s digitally. Consider the top hits from the past few years and you will find that the individual songs have made serious moves forward, opposed to the records that they were on. If you look carefully at the radio format, the music video releases, and all the elements that make up music today, you’ll find that people are gravitating more and more to single tracks, or a cluster of tracks from an album and discarding the rest. If an artist puts out a record with 12 tracks and the fans only really listen to 2 or 3 of them, then the artist is wasting money on production. Instead, they can shave money off the production, compile 3 really good tracks, release them digitally one by one, use social media and make the same kind of profit that would have been made 10 years ago, without the sliding scale of points or other issues tied to the world of record sales. Artists do better putting out limited releases rather than full scale productions.
Singles To Rule Them All
There was a time when people bought singles. That’s happening right now and it’s fascinating to look at. Instead of having to work within the parameters of full album sales, artists are making money through this option digitally. It may have started with the rise of one Soulja Boy, as his digital sales went through the roof, and the royalties were all given to him for production and more. That may seem archaic, but if you look at the numbers, it may have been the dawning of a new era in terms of musical prowess. Singles, digitally, are outselling albums 10 to 1, and in some cases 20 to 1. Amidst those that are buying music, a single costs 99 cents, and a person loves it. Will a person love all 12 tracks on an album? The odds are against it, therefore showing the death of the album.
By Randy Morano
Follow Randy on Twitter @RandyMorano
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