Wednesday, March 10, 2004
OK, so admittedly I don't know much about music but there seems something ever so slightly suspicious about NME's sudden desperate championing of Dangermouse's Grey Album, that it's two weeks late is the first clue, that they suddenly decided to swing behind it when they realised it was popular rather than ignoring it totally. But 10 out of 10 for the album? Especially when the review spends more time waffling about surrounding issues and about thirty or forty words about the actual music. Did anyone at NME Towers stop downloading Libertines and Franz Ferdinand slash long enough to download the album and have a listen?
Meanwhile, Time Out have an article in their latest issue about the plummeting interest in singles sales. Which suggests to me that a new model is needed. And here's my idea.
1) Don't waste money on producing actual CD singles any more. The music majors have managed to kill this market off and have done so since that point in the mid-nineties where they had the rules changed so that CD singles couldn't be over 20 minutes or have more than four tracks on them. This was deliberately aimed at lengthening the shelf-life of the teeny-bopper bands by not forcing them to do anything more than the single, an instrumental and a couple of remixes. This meant that most often, there would be no need to buy a CD single because you wouldn't be getting anything that you didn't get on the album.
2) Still make pop videos. With no single sales it doesn't matter that they come out months ahead of the single and make everyone bored about them. They're consciously promoting the album now. IIRC, Coldplay have released a video for a song that wasn't released as a single for both of their albums thus far. Seems to have done them no harm. The cost of making a video will hopefully stop record labels from promoting too many songs off of the one album, another thing that damaged singles credibility was the ridiculous number of singles launched from Michael Jackson's Thriller.
3) Have the single tracks free to download from the band's website. Initially I was going to say 'micropayment' but then it occured to me that all this material is leaking out on to Soulseek et al, may as well go with it. I got into Scissor Sisters through free downloads from Flux et al, and from seeing their videos free on NME's website, so the record company is ?13 richer than it otherwise would have been. Now, multiply that out by the number of clueless people like me in the UK and US... So, have a single, a 'b-side', maybe a few remixes, for people to download for free (or don't, and let the bootleggers rip off the source from somewhere and do their own thing). You maybe need to spend some more on advertising to let people know the product is there (though not much for established bands because they tend to sell to fans who will be hanging on their every website update as it is). Have them available for a limited time only and judge demand by how often your servers crash.
4) Acknowledge my foresight. Singles are no longer the life blood of the music industry. Think The Corrs and Eva Cassidy, both enjoying recent album success from being championed on Radio 2, single success, nill.
Meanwhile, Time Out have an article in their latest issue about the plummeting interest in singles sales. Which suggests to me that a new model is needed. And here's my idea.
1) Don't waste money on producing actual CD singles any more. The music majors have managed to kill this market off and have done so since that point in the mid-nineties where they had the rules changed so that CD singles couldn't be over 20 minutes or have more than four tracks on them. This was deliberately aimed at lengthening the shelf-life of the teeny-bopper bands by not forcing them to do anything more than the single, an instrumental and a couple of remixes. This meant that most often, there would be no need to buy a CD single because you wouldn't be getting anything that you didn't get on the album.
2) Still make pop videos. With no single sales it doesn't matter that they come out months ahead of the single and make everyone bored about them. They're consciously promoting the album now. IIRC, Coldplay have released a video for a song that wasn't released as a single for both of their albums thus far. Seems to have done them no harm. The cost of making a video will hopefully stop record labels from promoting too many songs off of the one album, another thing that damaged singles credibility was the ridiculous number of singles launched from Michael Jackson's Thriller.
3) Have the single tracks free to download from the band's website. Initially I was going to say 'micropayment' but then it occured to me that all this material is leaking out on to Soulseek et al, may as well go with it. I got into Scissor Sisters through free downloads from Flux et al, and from seeing their videos free on NME's website, so the record company is ?13 richer than it otherwise would have been. Now, multiply that out by the number of clueless people like me in the UK and US... So, have a single, a 'b-side', maybe a few remixes, for people to download for free (or don't, and let the bootleggers rip off the source from somewhere and do their own thing). You maybe need to spend some more on advertising to let people know the product is there (though not much for established bands because they tend to sell to fans who will be hanging on their every website update as it is). Have them available for a limited time only and judge demand by how often your servers crash.
4) Acknowledge my foresight. Singles are no longer the life blood of the music industry. Think The Corrs and Eva Cassidy, both enjoying recent album success from being championed on Radio 2, single success, nill.
