The Death Of The Album In The Age Of The MP3

"Overall album sales are 27.62% down week-on-week at 1,446,218 – that is 23.19% below same week 2011 sales of 1,882,878, and lower than in any of the 640 previous weeks that have elapsed in the 21st century."

http://www.musicweek...rycode=1049160

I thought it was gonna be about this - http://www.comatonse.com/releases/soulnessless/#c020 ( Meditation on Wage Labor & the Death of the Album )

It's probably 'cos people have no attention span for albums these days especially when - ooh a squirrel ....

Its probably also recession related, and piracy still.

Good to see vinyl sales are up though!

Curiously, Bandcamp claim that on their site...

  Quote

Albums outsell tracks 5 to 1 (in the rest of the music buying world, tracks outsell albums 16 to 1).

I wouldn't really know these days, as now I only sell my albums there as indivisible units. A while back, when I did let people buy single tracks, I'm pretty sure the album sales were more popular though, hence simplifying my product line.

Reading the article it doesn't really make clear what these figures are based on: are they talking about albums on a physical format, iTunes, total download sites, all purchases both physical and digital, UK sales, global .....

  On 4/16/2012 at 6:20 PM, feltcher said:

Good to see vinyl sales are up though!

Wow, it's a veritable vinyl comeback! Wait, where is it? Not there... No, not there either... Oh, there it is... oh... Oh.

i tend to buy albums even with mp3's its like a complete works for an artists period of time plus call me old fashioned but im a big fan of intended albums with tracks designed to compliment each other also the 'album only' option on emusic also aids to this mentality

im also too lazy to make playlists

  On 4/16/2012 at 6:33 PM, mcbpete said:

Reading the article it doesn't really make clear what these figures are based on: are they talking about albums on a physical format, iTunes, total download sites, all purchases both physical and digital, UK sales, global .....

I believe they're talking about UK-only sales of albums (and elsewhere in the article, singles, although that seems to now include previously album-only tracks), in any format, including downloads. The whole thing's a big mess, though. For instance, if you buy three or four tracks from an album, then a few months later cave in and buy the rest of the album, I have no idea what they count that as. A belated album sale? One single sale per track? All these concepts are outdated, but industries are slow to adapt, which is the whole problem.

Statistics.

70% of the time they're right all of the time.

Booooo.

I've never "bought" a single track unless I was trying to use up an iTunes gift card that I received as a gift (prior to owning an iPhone in which case I now would use the money for apps). I've downloaded individual tracks, sure, but only in the case that I had no interest in the artist's other work. Nostalgic pop tracks from my youth, for instance. And even then I might eventually get the whole album to see what was up.

Albums!

Can't deny that kids these days have shorter and shorter attention spans and are fed pop garbage. It's very possible that pop artists' non-single material is worse than it used to be. Even if on par with the past's pop quality, back then you'd just buy the album because that's what you had access to. You could buy the vinyl/cassette/CD single for less, but you were still spending money and you liked the artist so you bought it. And you didn't have MP3 players and on the fly playlists and all these other things that influence people to have a singles mindset.

So it's by no means a surprise that album sales continue to decline. But that's not going to change the fact that I and many other music fanatics such as myself prefer and will continue to prefer the album format.

An album should very much be a coherent experience and not just a collection of single/single-material like it more or less started out as. But now albums has been reduced to just that same thing again - for the most part. Plenty of artists are still making proper 'albums'. The whole thought of plucking out specific tracks and buying them on iTunes just baffles me more than it should. Most tracks bought like that are to be taken out of context. Just to be plucked out. It doesn't alter the listening experience, since there rarely are any.

I love albums, but it's not like I want to listen to 70-80+ minutes pretentious concept albums, I simply haven't got the attentionspan for that. A vinyl seems to be the most fitting format for an album. 20 minutes on each side, 40 minutes is a pretty damn good length for an album - for the most part. If I know a record is 35 minutes or less I automatically consider it short for some reason.

40-50 minutes is my optimal album length. Anything over 60 is excessive and I start wishing it was split into 2 EPs.

i think tape and vinyl records will always have their place in electronic and popular musics but compact disc could comfortably disappear. it will always be important to have the ability to share artworks with musics

cd's are complete and utter shite and deserve to vanish.

arent vinyl sales up though? thats all i will buy.

Part of the allure of buying albums in the past for me was the mystery. It involved a bit of gambling, like when you used to buy Nintendo games at toys'r'us based on either the box or the Nintendo Power screenshots. Now when you can preview all the songs online it pulls the rug out from under your desire to purchase.

I still buy cd's. Most are the same price as a mp3 downloads so I may as well get the better quality recording I can, and still have the hard-copy as backup. My cd player is awesome too (just sayin')

Vinyl purchases are reserved for my favorite artists and those pesky vinyl only releases.

Buying singles is fine with me. If I like one song, I buy it; if I like a whole album, I buy it. I will skip songs on albums, listen to one song over and over, rearrange them, etc. Hell, I'll even play my favorite 30 seconds of a single song over and over. And I think the artists I listen to aren't going to stop making full albums, anyway.

Truth be told, EPs are my favorite. Short enough that it's not too hard to go without a single bad track and long enough to satisfy. I wish that there were more of those.

edit:

Also, personally, I wouldn't mind if physical releases didn't even exist. I guess CDs are fun to have, but I don't have a problem with owning just the files.

i own too few cds (money has other priorities unfortunately), and even tho they don't have any commercial value at all, they are very special for me. some have special stories behind them, most associated to certain moments or people, which adds to the emotional value of the music, and i love to listen to them while comtemplating the artwork, feeling the paper, the cardboard, trying to understand the connection between image and sound, letting the colors and textures slowly dilute in the music. in that sense, cds won't ever loose meaning or value for me.

i see the vinyl love and respective cd hate more as a fashion than actually a conviction or a position. vinyl has been a main musical format in the past. it might be a little more exclusive nowadays, but that won't take away the value of cds.

as to digital music, there's a whole other dimension to consider. i just feel like it always lacks something, as i consider music to be enriched by physical images and materials.

i have been tracking some used cds of my favorite artists on used products shops recently. it's not an excuse to not buy original stuff, but besides being cheaper, there is a good feeling about getting used cds for me. i feel like rescuing a work of art from almost certain destruction, and i would love that one day another guy passionate about music would do the same. we don't actually own anything. it's an illusion. being such tiny moments in the cosmos, it's simply foolish to want to own anything.

  On 4/17/2012 at 6:04 PM, ruiagnelo said:

i own too few cds (money has other priorities unfortunately), and even tho they don't have any commercial value at all, they are very special for me. some have special stories behind them, most associated to certain moments or people, which adds to the emotional value of the music, and i love to listen to them while comtemplating the artwork, feeling the paper, the cardboard, trying to understand the connection between image and sound, letting the colors and textures slowly dilute in the music. in that sense, cds won't ever loose meaning or value for me.

 

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as to digital music, there's a whole other dimension to consider. i just feel like it always lacks something, as i consider music to be enriched by physical images and materials.

I agree with you 100%. CDs have memories attached to them, and I enjoy the combination of artwork, textile, and music. Sadly I do download much more than I actually purchase these days. At the same time, many artists aren't putting enough into their packaging to make a physical purchase worth it. When I consider buying a CD and notice the insert is a single folded sheet, I'm disappointed and will reconsider the purchase. I purchase so few CDs these days that I want that something tangible to have some worth. I'm looking at you, Planet Mu (as one example). Also I typically rip the CD to my computer, look at the artwork once or twice before it just goes on the shelf for almost ever.

Anyway, we are now talking about physical versus digital. I see the value of digital much more than I used to, but I still don't agree wit the pricing. You can often get the physical format for equal or less than the digital price. Makes no sense to me.

But no matter the format, I like to listen to an album as a whole work.

  On 4/17/2012 at 4:36 PM, Redruth said:

i think tape and vinyl records will always have their place in electronic and popular musics but compact disc could comfortably disappear. it will always be important to have the ability to share artworks with musics

I don't understand the appeal of tapes, especially over CDs. Tapes sound like crap. Is it because it's easy for electronic artists to record and or share on? I don't think so. I honestly think the revived interest in cassettes is hipster BS, and I don't often use that term because it's overused and abused.

  On 4/17/2012 at 7:37 PM, sidewinder said:

honestly think the revived interest in cassettes is hipster BS, and I don't often use that term because it's overused and abused.

Totally 100% agree with every word. I am sure there are some eccentric watmmers etc who genuinely like the tape for it's quirkiness, and the feeling of owning something probably very rare nowadays. But the gathering (though slight at best) steam behind tapes does reek of Hipster BS. And yes even writing the word hipster gives me the fucking chills. Especially on here.

I like the album, couldn't get myself to buy single releases unless when they come as a one sided vinyl. ;)