As I’ve chronicled many times on this blog, the music industry is undergoing significant change. Consumers are buying fewer CD’s and more digital songs, and one of the results of that decision is manifesting itself in the end of the album:
LOS ANGELES, March 25 ? Now that the three young women in Candy Hill, a glossy rap and R&B trio, have signed a record contract, they are hoping for stardom. On the schedule: shooting a music video and visiting radio stations to talk up their music.
But the women do not have a CD to promote. Universal/Republic Records, their label, signed Candy Hill to record two songs, not a complete album.
?If we get two songs out, we get a shot,? said Vatana Shaw, 20, who formed the trio four years ago, ?Only true fans are buying full albums. Most people don?t really do that anymore.?
To the regret of music labels everywhere, she is right: fans are buying fewer and fewer full albums. In the shift from CDs to digital music, buyers can now pick the individual songs they like without having to pay upward of $10 for an album.
Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD?s for the first time. So far this year, sales of digital songs have risen 54 percent, to roughly 189 million units, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. Digital album sales are rising at a slightly faster pace, but buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1.
One of the reasons for that, of course, is that digital technology allows consumers to purchase only the songs they like rather than an entire CD that contains 11 songs they don’t like and probably will never listen to. It also gives them the power, through playlists, to effectively create their own albums. Record company executives and producers will undoubtably try to find a way to stop this, but it’s too late.
The album is dead, long live the playlist.
