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Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

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Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

Old 11-15-13, 06:17 PM
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Re: Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

The public can already buy one song at a time.

Also, look at what Motown was doing in the '60s. Scores of brilliant, lasting singles and scores of middling albums. The albums were made just to capitalize on the success of the singles and, as sherm mentioned, to give an artist material to use while on tour. It wasn't until Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder wrestled creative control that any Motown artist had consistently excellent albums that also generated hit singles. I think, with the way MP3s are sold now, you could bring something like that back, but skip the album portion of it (at least to start).
Old 11-15-13, 06:50 PM
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Re: Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

Russ Solomon (founder of Tower Records) said many times that one thing that helped kill music sales was the elimination of singles. In the old days you could buy a 45 for about a dollar, then later came cassette singles and CD singles which sold for about $4. They seem to still put out CD singles in Europe but buying them over here is rather pricey. If you just wanted one song, you could buy the single, and if you just walked into a record store not knowing what you wanted you might walk out with a few singles instead of an album or empty-handed. (The first CD singles were on 3-inch discs, always thought those were cool and a shame they didn't last, though you can now buy blank 3-inch CDs and DVDs. The later CD singles were on 5-inch discs even if they just had enough music on them to fit on a 3-incher.)
Old 11-15-13, 08:31 PM
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Re: Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

I don't know why this writer thinks it's either/or. Singles & albums can co-exist. It's only been fairly recently that the single has gone away. And now come back again. Look at The Beatles, most of their biggest hits were originally singles only (see Past Masters vol I & II) & in between they made some brilliant albums.


Today's marketplace really isn't much different than it was in the 60's & 70's. You had the a.m. radio hits as singles you could buy as 45's and then bands that could fill an entire album of quality material. It was only with the introduction of CD's and the failure of the CD single that you had to buy an entire album for one goddamn song. This is just the market righting itself once again.
Old 11-15-13, 08:36 PM
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Re: Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

Originally Posted by Supermallet
The public can already buy one song at a time.

Also, look at what Motown was doing in the '60s. Scores of brilliant, lasting singles and scores of middling albums. The albums were made just to capitalize on the success of the singles and, as sherm mentioned, to give an artist material to use while on tour. It wasn't until Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder wrestled creative control that any Motown artist had consistently excellent albums that also generated hit singles. I think, with the way MP3s are sold now, you could bring something like that back, but skip the album portion of it (at least to start).
Motown.

In 1989 or 1990, I read an interview with Berry Gordy where he said that he liked the idea of the new CD format. Since it only had one side, he would only have to release one good song per album. He needed to release two good songs at once on vinyl albums, because they needed one good song for the first track of each side.

I was just shaking my head.
Old 11-16-13, 12:20 AM
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Re: Variety offers "a Good Example of How Albums Don’t Work Anymore"

I guess I'm a music dinosaur, I like albums. I like finding a really great song on there that didn't get released as a single.

My most recent example would be Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express". Sure the song of the same name and "Showroom Dummies" got singles, but I absolutely love "Europe Endless". Aside from some odd-ball release in South America (checked Discogs), this never got released as a single. I never would have known had I not listened to the album.

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